The Undocumented Student Program provided $500 in financial aid for each of 19 undocumented students using crowdfunded money collected last quarter.

USP is using funds from the #UndocuBruins campaign to provide financial support for undocumented students, helping them renew their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, said Paolo Velasco, director of the Bruin Resource Center. The #UndocuBruins campaign, which was created by the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s General Representative 1 office and USP, raised approximately $16,000 last quarter to provide scholarships for undocumented students…
Link to article

As a first generation student from Laredo, Texas, Ilse Colchado felt out of place when she began her college journey. She felt underrepresented and lost — until she found her home at the Center for Mexican-American Studies.
The Hispanic population makes up 20 percent of UT’s student body, according to UT’s 2017–2018 Statistical Handbook. Colchado, Mexican-American studies and anthropology junior, said her transition was difficult because she came from an environment with a majority Hispanic population to an environment where she was in the minority.
“I didn’t feel represented as a brown student, and so I added Mexican-American studies after my first year,” Colchado said. “That was where I felt like I belonged on campus, especially with having professors of color who integrated their own stories of survival.”…
Link to article

Before there were Dreamers, thousands of young Latinos marched out of their East Los Angeles classrooms half a century ago for their right to be educated.
“I was never told I was college material or capable of aspiring for something better,” said Bobby Verdugo, one of the leaders of the 1968 Chicano student movement known as “Walkouts or Blowouts.”
“Dreamers are being marginalized today. They are being treated like they don’t belong here, like they are not wanted. That’s how we felt 50 years ago,” Verdugo said.
March 1 marks the 50th anniversary of what has been called the nation’s first major mass protest against racism by Mexican-Americans. More than 15,000 students from Roosevelt, Wilson, Garfield, Lincoln, and Belmont high schools walked out of their classrooms to challenge the inequalities in Los Angeles public schools. Fifty years later, their bold action has reaped educational gains for Latinos, but they haven’t come fast enough, advocates say…
Link to article