Quote of the day

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”

Federick Douglass

Undocumented Asians face unique challenges in the U.S.

Undocumented Asians face unique challenges in the U.S.

Most people think about Latinos when the conversation turns to illegal immigration, however there are more than 1 million undocumented Asians living in the U.S.

Young Sun Song’s older sister is one of them. She became undocumented in 2000, but didn’t realize it until four years later.

Song’s sister and her husband immigrated to the U.S. from Korea on the husband’s student visa in 1997. He attended seminary in Iowa and Song’s sister lived as his dependent until she decided to go to school as well. She had to get her own student visa to take classes, but after spending only one semester in school, she quit.

“That’s when she lost her status,” Song said.

March 4th Action.

On March 4th, the day of action to fight against the budget cut!

“No Cuts, No fees, Education must be Free!”

Pictures

Simon Cho’s Olympic speedskating opportunity rewards his family’s investment

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/12/AR2010011201648.html

By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Born in Seoul, Simon Cho sneaked into the United States illegally with his mother and sister 14 years ago, slipping through a border crossing near Vancouver, B.C. His search for the American dream began with the sort of furtive move that he now relies on in the mayhem-filled sport of short-track speedskating, which he mastered during years of training at the Arlington-based Potomac Speedskating Club.

Cho, 18, now a U.S. citizen, will make a triumphant return to Vancouver in February as a member of the U.S. Olympic team that will compete in the Winter Games. But his journey has been anything but smooth.

Until recently considered an up-and-comer on the cusp of moving into the country’s super elite, Cho has struggled to qualify for coveted Olympic grants that would help offset annual speedskating costs of nearly $40,000. To meet his sport’s heavy training demands, Cho dropped out of high school after his sophomore year.

Last year, his parents sold their small, take-out restaurant, Kasey’s Seafood in Upper Marlboro, merely to pay the bills.

“It doesn’t matter for the rich people, but I am not rich,” said Cho’s father, Jay, who moved his wife and daughter into a rental apartment with their son in Salt Lake City, where Jay Cho took a part-time job. “If you don’t have money, it’s very tough to have the American dream.”

Simon Cho, meantime, said public schools in Maryland and Utah — private school was out of the question — would not accommodate his full-time commitment to the sport.

Despite the myriad sacrifices, Cho did not expect to qualify for the five-person U.S. men’s short-track Olympic team during the September trials in Marquette, Mich.

till 17, Cho was considerably younger than most of the top athletes in the sport, a wild discipline requiring supreme quickness, speed, strategy — and experience. Five-time Olympic medal winner Apolo Ohno, considered one of the best in the world, is 27.

“When I say nobody thought I would make the team, literally nobody thought I would make it,” Cho said during a phone interview from Salt Lake City. “Not even me.”

‘He was super good’

After arriving in the United States to work in 1993, Jay Cho did not intend to bring his family from South Korea without the proper paperwork, but the wait for green cards was seven years, and he missed his family. In 1996, he met his wife, daughter Anna, then 2, and Simon, then 4, in Vancouver. They stayed for a week in a motel, then made their way without incident across the border.

Helped by more relaxed immigration regulations at that time, the family obtained green cards by 2001, and all became U.S. citizens by 2004. After several years in Chicago and Harrisburg, Pa., where Cho worked as a software programmer, the family moved to Laurel, seeking better training for Simon. Since taking up the sport at age 3 in his home country, he had shown promise.

“He didn’t know whether he liked it or not, but in every competition, he got first place,” his father said.

DREAM Act Legislation Hits Home

Students gathered in Healy Hall’s Philodemic Room Wednesday for a student-led discussion of the DREAM Act, immigration-related legislation that, if passed into law, will have a significant impact on the lives of undocumented students in the United States, including members of the Georgetown community.

In an event sponsored by the Georgetown University College Democrats, Rev. Charles Currie, S.J., the president of the Jesuit Association of Colleges and Universities, addressed the audience and was joined by Juan Gomez (MSB ’11), an undocumented student whose parents are from Colombia, and Matias Ramos, an immigrant from Argentina and board member of the United We Dream network.

The three speakers advocated for the safe passage of the DREAM Act. The bill would grant undocumented students that arrived in the United States at or before the age of 15 the opportunity to gain conditional residence to attend college or serve in the military for two years, and then gain permanent residence.

“The idea of immigration reform is being discussed in campuses throughout the United States, and appears to be the defining question of this generation,” Ramos said.

Currie spoke of the symbolism behind the name of the legislation.

“As the name recognizes, higher education is essential for achieving the American Dream that immigrants to this nation have sought since the foundation of this nation,” Currie said.

Gomez spoke of the embarrassment he felt as all of his friends applied and were accepted to elite colleges in the United States.

“I realized that the situation had caught up to me,” Gomez said. “I didn’t even have a [driver’s] license, and felt like I had to lie to my friends, so they wouldn’t know I was undocumented.”

Currie provided the perspective of a documented citizen.

“You can read all about detention centers, what happens, but it passes over your conscience,” Currie said. “When you meet people, it becomes so much more real.”

The speakers then acknowledged the difficulty of passing the bill in Congress. Due to the fact that the DREAM Act is most likely to be packaged with comprehensive immigration reform, the legislation is likely to fail due to the current political atmosphere in Washington, they said.

Both Gomez and Ramos informed the audience that they had been given orders of deportation from the government.

“They haven’t carried them out yet, and luckily, our friends in the Senate have passed six-month reprieves, but should anything happen to that, I would have to leave, which is a scary thought,” Gomez said.

Ramos plans to lobby Congress to pass the DREAM Act with the United We Dream network. The United We Dream network sponsored the DREAM Action Week from Feb. 22 to Feb. 27 to raise awareness among Americans.

“This is stage one. There are marches going on in Los Angeles, Chicago and Wisconsin,” Ramos said. “The second stage is a march in D.C., starting on March 10.”

Ramos also spoke of a plan to declare March 10 “Coming Out of the Shadows Day.”

“[People can] show who they really are, to encourage people to reveal their status to the people they know,” Ramos said.

Currie concluded the discussion by warning against a quick fix for the problem.

“Be in this for the long haul. These issues are complex — you have to be willing to stay at it,” Currie said.

GUCD organized the forum as part of its Immigration Week.

8th Street

On a chilly Monday morning, I walk down to Eight Street. As the traffic light turns red, I stop on the edge of the sidewalk. The sudden cold breeze alerts my consciousness of my surroundings. A few steps away from mine, I spot an elderly Asian woman, who bends down her body, searching for something inside of a trash bin. I stand next to her motionlessly, on a corner of Eight Street.

She looks fairly old, has a wrinkled face, stooped shoulders, and skinny body, which makes her look fragile and weak. She reaches her tiny hand inside of the trash bin, searching, looking, and hoping to find something – something that is inside of the trash bin. As she continues to dig inside of the trash, I smell the unpleasant aroma coming from her surroundings. The smell of coffee, Teriyaki Sauce, Coke, mashed potatoes, and even smell of fresh peppers, anything that you can think of, I smell from her surroundings.

She finally picks something: the empty bottles and cans. She picks them up as if it’s precious jewels, and she dumps them into her trash bags. She continues to dig inside to find the empty bottles and cans until her trash bag gets full. The time has passed by, but her trash bag is still empty. The elderly Asian woman is desperately looks for more, searching, looking and hoping to find empty bottles and cans. With a sense of desperation, she dives into trash bin, swimming and searching for bottles and cans. She stops as she realizes that she can’t find it anymore. She then migrates to other trash bin, right across from Eight Street.

The traffic light turns green, but I don’t move. I mean I can’t move. I watch her migrate as I stand still alone, on a corner of the Eight Street.

To everyone else, she is invisible.

In my head

In my head – Jason Derulo

DREAM Act

http://www.iexaminer.org/news/features/student-deportations/

On March 15, 2009, Alonso Chehade, an undocumented immigrant from Peru, was arrested at the US/Canada border for unlawful presence in the United States. After remaining in the detention center for two weeks, Chehade was later released with the assistance of his family, who posted a $7,500 bond to free him from prison.

For undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., Chehade’s story is not uncommon. In 2007, three hundred thousand people were detained for illegally residing in the U.S. For the years between 2003 – 2008, deportation increased by 60 percent in the U.S. From these statistics, we can see that the number of deported immigrants is on the rise, which impacts the communities they live and work in.

Chehade’s experience as an undocumented immigrant is different from the first generation’s. The decision to live undocumented in the US was his parent’s decision, not Chehade’s. Therefore Chehade became an undocumented resident through no action of his own.

Enter the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors), a proposed bill that would give undocumented minors a chance to enlist in the military or go to school in the U.S., thus preparing a way for them to become citizens. Introduced by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois and Rep. Howard Berman of California, the bill has not yet officially passed Congress. Yet with the help of certain individuals, this bill could pass soon, allowing people like Chehade to become citizens of the U.S. Without citizenship, undocumented immigrants cannot apply for government IDs, such as driver’s licenses and strips them of many opportunities that citizens take for granted.

“My hardships began when I went to UW,” said Chehade. “There were some things I wanted to do that I couldn’t do, like study abroad. I didn’t have enough money for going out of the state and I couldn‘t do internships. You need social security to do internships.”

Many other immigrants, like Ju Hong, an acquaintance of Chehade, have to work menial jobs that will hire undocumented workers.

“You can’t get a decent job because the only jobs are construction work or restaurant work,” said Hong. “You get low wages and are treated really badly.”

In addition to the numerous legal barriers students face, the social stigma attached to being an undocumented immigrant can make some feel they don’t belong to American society. One may be tempted to ask: “Why should we care for a resident who is living here illegally? Why can’t they go through normal channels to gain citizenship?” It is important in this circumstance to realize that people like Chehade and Hong had little control over their lives when they came to the U.S; their fates were decided by their parents. The DREAM Act allows qualifying individuals a chance to gain citizenship in the U.S. and pursue their dreams.

Chehade and Hong are working tirelessly to raise awareness regarding the DREAM Act. As the founder of DREAMERS for Positive Change, Chehade gets to connect with other individuals that have similar experiences to Chehade’s. Chehade’s case has also received the attention of numerous prominent politicians, such as Senator Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. While Hong participates in two organizations aiming to raise awareness about the DREAM act – the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco and Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles.

Hong emphasizes: “I want to make it clear that the DREAM Act is not just for Latinos. There are 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., of which 2 million are Asians. In the Asian American community it is embarrassing to talk about these kinds of issues. But we have to step up and support the issue.”

So, if passed, what would the DREAM Act mean to the community at large? First, it would allow undocumented minors the opportunity to live legally in the U.S. as citizens. Since the bill is aimed at those minority residents aspiring to go to college, the bill would also help create educated and productive members of the community. Finally, the bill would reinforce the principles of the American Dream, which are founded on equal opportunity, equality, and diversity.

There are numerous ways to get involved in the passing of the DREAM Act. Calling your senator will inform him/her that immigration reform is a significant issue that needs to be addressed. Telling friends, family, and others about the DREAM Act would also raise awareness of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

The following link provides information on how to participate: www.dreamactivist.org

I am

I am the Mc Donald double Cheese Burger
I am the Starbucks white chocolate Mocha
I am the Strawberry tootsie roll pop

I am the Los Angeles Lakers
I am the New Orleans Saints
I am the New York Yankees

I am the Walmart when I save money
I am the Disney Land when I have fun
I am the Public University when I attain a higher education

I am a dreamer through love and hope
I am a public servant through loyalty and respect
I am a believer through faith and patience

I am the Eagle
I am the Democracy
And I am the resource

I am the land of opportunity
I am the water of freedom
I am the soil of knowledge

You see, I am who I am
I am an American

They said

They said I’m too short to see the rising stars over the mountain,
But I said I can see the rising stars over the mountain,
through the faith in the Kingdom of God.

They said I’m too weak to overcome my fear and struggle,
but I said I can overcome my fear and struggle,
through the strength in the Kingdom of God.

They said I’m too naive to accomplish my goals and dreams,
But I said I can accomplish my goals and dreams,
through the hope in the Kingdom of God.

They said I can’t do this or I can’t do that,
but I said I can do anything in the name of Yahweh, and in the name of Yahshua.

It don’t matter what they say,
it only matters what you believe in.

Have a faith, strength, and hope in the Kingdom of God.

Amen.