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Haas fund gives $1 million in scholarships for undocumented UCB students

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Excerpted from article by José Rodríguez, University Relations UC Berkeley newssite

…the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund has awarded $1 million to UC Berkeley for scholarships for undocumented students — a life changer for students like Rivera. This is the single-largest gift for scholarships of this type at a U.S. university.

The gift will assist the nearly 200 undocumented students at UC Berkeley from 20 different countries who currently qualify, and will help more in the future. These students are not eligible for federal Pell grants, federally backed loans or work-study positions. Their average family income is $24,000….

As public support for comprehensive immigration reform grows — and with it, an acknowledgement of the plight of students who came to the United States as children and are hampered by their immigration status as they pursue higher education and careers — UC Berkeley is leading the nation in assisting its students who are undocumented. Most of these students were brought to this country by their parents, were educated in California’s public schools and achieved academic success, despite barriers resulting from their legal status.

As a diligent high school student in Los Angeles, Rivera thrived in the classroom and juggled numerous family responsibilities, volunteered, worked in a convenience store owned by his family and did homework from 10 p.m. until midnight every night. At UC Berkeley, he embraced campus life, becoming active in student government, but was forced to drop out more than a year ago when he couldn’t keep up with the cost of tuition. Next semester, with money he earned working at the store and new state financial aid made possible by the passage of the California Dream Act, he’ll return to finish his studies. In the fall, funding from the new Haas, Jr. Fund scholarships will provide additional and much-needed resources for Rivera and others who don’t qualify for federal student aid.

“I’m so grateful for this opportunity,” said Rivera. Of UC Berkeley’s new services and scholarships designed for students like him, he added, “You’re not just paying for a student to go to college, you are helping a whole community.”

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For the Women of Ciudad Juarez

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MALCS Member Rosa-Linda Fregoso read the December 3, 2012 Mujeres Talk essay on Human Trafficking legislation and wanted to share her own essay “For the Women of Ciudad Juárez” from FeministWire on memorials to the murdered and disappeared women of Juárez: 

By Rosalinda Fregoso
Crossposted from The Feminist Wire, 12/3/12

In late September of 2012, we gathered at the site where the remains of eight murdered women and girls were found in an open field known as el Campo Algodonero (The Cottonwood Field), located across from the maquiladora industry’s headquarters in Ciudad Juárez. Since the discovery of their bodies eleven years ago this November, Campo Algodonero has been an “unofficial memorial,” a gathering site for public art installations, performances, and protests denouncing the ongoing terror of feminicide in the border region. This year, the site became an “official memorial” funded by the government after an international court found Mexico guilty of negligence in the Ciudad Juárez feminicides.

Claudia Yvette González, Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, María de los Angeles Acosta Ramírez, Mayra Juliana Reyes Solís, Verónica Martínez Hernández, Merlín Elizabeth Rodríguez Sáenz, María Rocina Galicia

The last time I stood here, Campo Algodonero was a barren field, the only objects on its grounds were eight crosses painted in the iconic pink, each bearing a slain woman or girl’s name. The crosses are still standing although now encircled by the walls of the newly configured memorial site, a small urban park bordered to one side by a heavily-trafficked boulevard, to the other by two newly-built apartment complexes which overlook the park’s interior space. Our tour guide to the Campo Algodonero memorial site is Dr. Julia Monárrez, lead expert on feminicide and researcher at the COLEF (Colegio de la Frontera-Norte), where a two-day international seminar on “Bodies and Borders” had just taken place. When the eight of us arrived in the late afternoon the memorial site was empty, despite the bustling sounds of street traffic, police sirens, dogs barking, children playing.

The Campo Algodonero memorial is clean and unassuming, three undulating walls mark its perimeters, separating the park from the exterior urban scape, its sandstone colored walls, paths, blue-mosaic waterways and curving walkway leading to polished marble-top stone benches appear to be designed as spaces for public and private reflection. The park’s architecture draws visitors to four major focal points.

To the right of the entrance, a plaque dedicates the memorial “To the memory of the women and girl victims of gender violence in Ciudad Juárez.” At our next stop, the names of the women found at Campo Algodonero (Claudia Yvette González, Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, María de los Angeles Acosta Ramírez, Mayra Juliana Reyes Solís, Verónica Martínez Hernández, Merlín Elizabeth Rodríguez Sáenz, María Rocina Galicia) are engraved on a wall, in a marble-encased panel. The adjacent memory wall is partially filled with names of additional women who were murdered in the city. Next we faced the shrine bearing a large cross, painted in the iconic pink, a tribute to and recognition of the mothers’ cross campaign for justice. Finally, at the far side of the memorial site, we reached the large bronze scupture, “Flor de Arena,” designed by Chilean artist Veronica Leiton.

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