By snoadmin
The scenario: sometime in June during the 21st century when you’re sitting there in your cap and gown waiting to be called to receive that cherished diploma you’ve worked so hard for the past four years to attain.
Anticipation is extreme at this dreamy high school graduation and nearly everybody in the seats surrounding you is excited about which colleges or universities they will attend next fall. Your friends and family are in the audience celebrating your many academic accomplishments.
Maybe you made honor roll or were even the class valedictorian. The principal and your teachers are extolling the crowd with their pride over your immense growth, motivation and potential.
Perhaps the theme for this graduation follows a cliché like, “The world is your oyster,” or “Dare to Dream.” But you have a secret. You know in your heart that your oyster has probably been slammed shut, possibly forever. You know in your spirit that dreams aren’t meant for you.
This dark secret is one that’s been kept from you for as long as you can remember. You probably learned about it when you told your parents you wanted to apply for financial aid to attend the university of your choice, knowing that you met the qualifications for acceptance.
Your parents told you that you cannot apply for financial aid because you are an “illegal alien.” They had to keep the secret either because they didn’t want you stigmatized by your peers, or they didn’t want immigration authorities hunting you down for deportation.
‘Criminal’ label is unjust
None of the above mentioned scenario is rhetoric or hyperbole based on wild liberal fantasy. It’s all too real for many college hopefuls facing a period of national anti-immigration hysteria. Read the headlines in just about any newspaper. Listen to the sound bites and watch the short immigrant-bashing video clips on the evening news.
It’s a reality endured by the majority of an estimated 25,000 California high school graduates each year. It’s a seemingly never-ending nightmare shared by approximately 65,000 undocumented high school grads throughout the U.S. every spring.
But hardly any of these youth broke laws to get here. They are the collateral damage of their parents’ decisions, for whatever reason or purpose, to be here without proper governmental permission. Does that mean the children should be labeled “illegal,” deemed criminals and prohibited from chasing the dream of a quality education, a good job and a decent, productive future?
The quick answer is, “Hell no!”
Opportunity to DREAM
There are passages in most holy books that assume similar concepts of not punishing children for the actions of their parents. The admonitions deal not with how to punish entire families, but how to develop equitable societies where everybody who works hard has a chance.
The Daily Forty-Niner has written extensively in the past supporting the California Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. We continue to support Sen. Gilbert Cedillo’s SB 1301, the California DREAM Act, because most of us know and love one or more undocumented Cal State Long Beach students.
But our editorials aren’t focused solely on our empathy for one or two students we sit next to in a few classes. We care about the opportunities that should be made available to all of the more than 250 CSULB AB 540 students — so named for a temporary law that allows undocumented youth to pay resident tuition — because the DREAM Act is a humanitarian effort.
We back this bill because we also dream.
The recurring nightmare
The DREAM Act is not a charity cause. It takes no monies from federal or state financial aid pools, but instead makes it possible for undocumented students to apply for aid distributed by individual campuses.
To qualify, students must meet certain state-mandated criteria. They must have attended a California high school for at least three years and earned either a diploma or its equivalency. They also must sign an affidavit promising that they will apply for permanent residence when they are eligible.
The DREAM Act, however, is not in extreme danger of being rejected by the California State Assembly or Senate. Those bodies have already passed SB 1301. Instead, as has happened several times prior, SB 1301 is in jeopardy of gubernatorial veto.
The bill will be on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk this Thursday and he has until Sept 30 to either sign or veto it. If he does neither, it will become law by default.
According to one legislative consultant, the DREAM Act’s fate can turn in a few different directions, primarily at Schwarzenegger’s whim.
One possibility when SB 1301 hits the governor’s desk is that some huge national story will break and Schwarzenegger will veto it, secure that his inaction will go unnoticed.
If he vetoes it, the bill is returned to the original house, where a vote can be taken to override the veto. A veto override would require a two-thirds majority vote in each house, which would be highly unlikely.
Another possibility is that he will sign the bill amid the grandeur and spectacle reserved for a Hollywood action hero.
That’s the marquee signature of human concern we hope to see. That’s the type of leadership that will show how dreams really can come true in California — no matter where a child was born.
