Building More Than a Dream | Karen Vallejos Corrales | TEDxFoggyBottom
Transcriber: Ngan Taehyung Reviewer: Dana Sarhan Good afternoon everyone. im here to tell you my story and a story of the foundation of the Dream Project. It was December 2010, and I was making my way to the US Capitol building, along with my mother and three other high school students. I was a 16-year-old undocumented high school student, and I was determined to be present at the vote for the Dream act, otherwise known as the development, education, and Relief for Alien Minors Act. As the December wind chilled our bodies, I looked at the Capitol building. It had once filled my heart with patriotic love. It now seemed cold and grey. I thought to myself, is this not Washington, D.C. , my childhood home? I had arrived to Arlington, Virginia, when I was five years old, when my family emigrated from Bolivia. When we first arrived, my parents were most impressed with the amount of knowledge in the area that was so easily accessible and public. To them? It made their sacrifice worth it, and they encouraged me to take full advantage of what the region had to offer. And so I spent most of my weekends going to different monuments the Smithsonian museums, the zoo, and once I even had the pleasure of going to the White House as a young Girl Scout. To me, this was my city, my hometown, and my country. But in less than an hour, the leadership of the nation would vote on whether I could officially call this place home. As we enter the Senate building, we made our way to the Senate gallery. We took our seats and began to witness the speeches and the votes. Dreamers had come from all across the nation. And as we waited, I would hear different people counting the votes, saying, that's 20 votes, that's 30 votes. At one point I heard someone say, just seven more votes. And we held our breath and we waited and there was another eye, and we started to calculate how many more we needed. And then there was one more eye, but it didn't matter. We realized the bill would not pass that day. That was the closest the Dream act ever came to passing the Senate by just five votes short. As I looked around the room, I saw Dreamers that had come from all across the country. Many were college students or recent college graduates, but some had been working on the passage of this bill for over a decade. Many had organized buses from their cities and states, coming from as far as California, North Dakota, Texas. Also, they could witness this vote. As I looked around, almost everyone was in tears except the three students I had come with and myself. Perhaps because we were younger than most of them, perhaps we were just in shock. Whatever the reason, as I looked at their faces, all I saw was urgency. The three of them were high school seniors. College applications were due in less than two months and their graduation was less than six months away. I was a high school junior. I had one more year, but the vote made it clear to me that legislative action would not be the solution to our problems. For over a year, the students there with me and I had advocated we had gone down to Richmond and D.C. and talked to elected officials. We had talked to our teachers, our superintendent. We had set up summits at our high schools. We had spoken to anyone we could think of to help pass the Dream act, with the hope that by publicly sharing our story, we could affect change. Our greatest desire was the passage of the Dream act that would, among other rights, help us go to school in our home state of Virginia. This was a time before Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, popularly known as DACA, existed. This was a time where in Virginia, the legislature was passing anti-immigrant and very constricting state laws. We did not qualify for in-state tuition. Many universities refuse to even entertain the idea of accepting us. Many scholarship programs meant to help Latino or first gen students still required US citizenship, or a Social Security number to apply. We had hoped that by sharing our story, we could ease these burdens, but nothing had come out of it. So where could we go now? What could we do? What agency could a group of high school students, our parents and some community leaders have to make a change. Yet it was in this despair and disappointment that we found strength. For me, that strength came from my mother. Growing up, she had always found a way to involve herself in my community and in my school, with my teachers. Even though she had limited English skills, she had found that through collaboration and through volunteering, she could make a change in the school district. She and other moms who had been active in their own circles started to talk and decided they would do something. They would support us. So even if our state didn't support us, even if the colleges and the scholarship programs refused to accept our applications, and if even if it seemed like the whole country was against us, it didn't matter. Our parents were there to support us. And so they started planning. Their idea was food, hosting fundraisers, selling food, maybe making dinners, and hosting and catering events while we shared our story. Long before the infamous vote, there was a school board member named Doctor Emma Violand Sanchez, who had opened up her home to us and introduced us to local elected officials, county board members. It was at her home that these first fundraisers took place. Our parents would cater the events and we began to share our stories once again. The goal was to raise money for scholarships at every event. More than expected individuals would come showing their support for us. And as we talked about our stories and discussed the barriers, the idea became of creating something greater, not just raising scholarships for us, but perhaps creating something. A project that would help immigrant students across Virginia long after our own graduations. And so the Dream Project was born, an organization that was not yet officially incorporated. In fact, even our strongest supporters thought it might not be possible to incorporate as a nonprofit. And then Virginia, the idea at the time seemed revolutionary. While we grappled with the logistics of forming such an organization, those of us in high school still desperately needed guidance on how to apply for colleges and research. What colleges would even accept us. Thankfully, our Georgetown student volunteer had decided to set up a very informal mentoring program. We would meet in the living room of her small student apartment in Georgetown, and she would help us through the admissions process and prepare us for college applications. At one point, her roommate even began to give us SAT prep classes. There was no curriculum or set schedule. It was ordinary college students taking the time and trying to support us in the ways they could. Interest in this mentoring program grew, and as more students joined, we knew we needed space and material. So we started to explore partnerships with both Georgetown and neighboring school districts. But in the meantime, we would meet discreetly in open classrooms on the Georgetown campus. Even in its infancy, the Dream project supported me and provided me a sense of community as I navigated the difficult process to college the first year gave out scholarships. In 2011, it awarded four scholarships of $2,000 to four students. The following year, in 2012, during my own high school graduation, it awarded 12 scholarships. It was through this support and sense of community that I was able to go to college, and not only did I graduate from Southwestern Adventist University, but I later went on to get my Juris Doctorate degree from Washington and Lee School of Law. Since then, as I navigated my own professional journey, the Dream project grew and matured as well. Now I've come back as its executive director and have seen the impact it has on a community. This year, we plan to give out 100 scholarships at $3,750 each, the largest amount we have ever given. These scholarships are renewable for up to five years. Additionally, we now have a very formal mentoring program that continues to support high school seniors all across Virginia. And we have increased holistic support services to help our students who enter college make sure they graduate on time. This year, we have also introduced a pilot CTE program supporting students who are interested in career and technical education. As Executive Director, I continue to see the courage and tenacity of the students we worked with. Much progress has happened in Virginia since my own graduation. The state now offers in-state tuition at all public universities, and recently students became eligible for state aid. However, there are still many challenges ahead. Though DACA provided relief to many students, in my generation, current college students and high school students are no longer eligible for the program. Just a few years ago, 95% of the students the Dream project worked with had DACA. Now it's done down to 5% , which means that students once again are facing many of the same barriers I did as a high school student. At the federal level, there is little to no movement to pass immigration reform or the Dream act. Nonetheless, I continue to see in the students we work with the same courage and tenacity and pioneering spirit I had as a student. Though they have no work authorization and continue to experience barriers, they push forward. We have alumni now getting their graduate degrees, their PhDs. We have students in medical school and in law school. And I know as I see them navigate their journeys that they have the power and the strength to take whatever project they have and turn it into something wonderful. The Dream Project and I are determined to continue to support these populations. These students are crafting their own stories and building their own journeys the way many of us did over 15 years ago. That is my story and the story of the Dream Project, a group of students, parents, college students and volunteers and community leaders who came together and made the first fold in what would become an organization that supports hundreds of students across Virginia every year. Thank you.