Immokalee High School students who are participating in Michigan State University’s College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) stand for a portrait at Immokalee High School on Friday. which was initiated in 2000 and is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The program is one of 45 in the nation and accepts 50 students to the program each year. The mission of the CAMP program is to assist migrant and seasonal farmworker students in their transition to university life. PHOTO BY SCOTT MCINTYRE Scott McIntyre/Staff

For four years, Ernscie Augustin missed holidays with her family. She missed 80-degree winter days in Southwest Florida. And she missed her hometown of Immokalee.

But Augustin said what she couldn’t afford to miss was her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Every year, Immokalee High School students leave their homes and venture north to attend Michigan State University to take part in the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP), which accepts 70 students annually and grants migrant students in-state status for their entire enrollment.

Augustin, a first-generation American whose family emigrated from Haiti, took the odyssey from Immokalee to East Lansing in 2008. On Friday, she became the first person in her family to graduate from college.

“As a Haitian in Immokalee you don’t really think about college,” Augustin said. “You think about taking care of your family, and the most efficient way to do that is working in the fields. That’s what my parents did. My family worked so hard every day, and that’s what motivated me to make a better life.”

Augustin is the 13th student from Immokalee to graduate from the program at MSU. Rudy Ramos, the associate director of CAMP, said the program has enrolled more than 600 students since its inception in 2000 and boasts a 72 percent graduation rate.

“Tuition for out-of-state students is double what it is for in-state students on a yearly basis,” Ramos said.

“The trustees of MSU realized the impact that the migrant population was having here in Michigan and made it possible for those students to come here. They made the admission criteria more flexible and opened opportunities for underrepresented students.”

Ramos said the mission of CAMP, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, is to assist migrant and seasonal farmworker students in their transition to university life. Students who are accepted into the program receive financial support in various ways throughout their enrollment.

“Our students receive job offers from all over the country and from right here in Michigan,” Ramos said. “They may or may not return to Florida, but by the time they complete their education they are highly qualified professionals and they are bilingual. That makes them attractive to many businesses.”

Along with Augustin, Greta Dominguez and eight other Immokalee students joined CAMP in 2008.

“They helped me out with everything: books, tutoring, counselors, and room and board,” Dominguez said. “I couldn’t have come here without their help.”

Michigan State representatives travel to Immokalee each fall to talk to migrant students about the program. Rishay Ackley is the migrant counselor at Immokalee High School, and said another 11 students have expressed interest and are eligible to join the program this year.

“I feel like the interest is growing,” Ackley said. “It’s so important because most of our students are first-generation college students and they often don’t have anyone to guide them. It’s an opportunity that they wouldn’t have otherwise had.”

To apply for the program, students have to fill out an application and write an essay to CAMP. Ramos said the only other requirement is that the students provided verification that their parents have been migrant workers.

“An admission specialist from MSU actually comes down and does on-site admissions,” Ackley said. “Now, that is an unique situation. Without it, students have to wait two, three or four months. It’s great to see the smiles on their faces when they are told they’ve been accepted that day.”

According to Ramos, CAMP was created in part because 40,000 migrants come to Michigan each year for seasonal work on farms and cultivate grapes, apples and other fruit.

“Our two main receiving states are Texas and Florida. Families have been coming here for generations,” Ramos said. “Being that Michigan State is a land-grant university, it opens opportunities for our students.”

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act into law in 1862, which allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in every state “to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.” Michigan State, founded in 1855, provided a model for the Morrill Act and is considered the pioneer land-grant institution.

Many of the students pursue farming-related careers after graduation, but some change paths. Dominguez is now attending Lansing Community College and has switched her major. She plans to start her own day-care business in Florida after graduation.

“I used to go with my father out into the fields, and I knew that wasn’t something I wanted to go through,” Dominguez said. “But doors opened for me when I came here. They really helped me. I changed my major, but I plan on getting my degree at MSU.”

Augustin said her education through CAMP has led to internships with the mayor’s office in Lansing and the Women’s Center of Greater Lansing. She is currently working for the university and plans on pursuing a career in immigration or family law.

“Because of this (CAMP), I have already had more opportunities than my parents and my grandparents,” Augustin said. “There were many times I didn’t think I would get to graduation, but I grew up a whole lot. I feel like now I can go anywhere in the country and make it.”

Source: NaplesNews.com, “Migrant program helps Immokalee students attend Michigan State University” by Jake Nordbye, 6 May 2012.

LAS CRUCES, NM — Omar Hernandez and Bernice Juaregui are like most other college seniors looking forward to graduation next May with one exception. They grew up working in the fields as farm laborers beside their parents. They never imagined going to college until a program at New Mexico State University changed their minds and their lives.

NMSU’s College Assistance Migrant Program will celebrate its 10th anniversary Wednesday with a full day of activities and workshops sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences Stan Fulton Endowed Chair.

“We’re academic facilitators, we’re cultural brokers,” said principal administrator Cynthia Bejarano. “We’re able to serve as that bridge that is necessary for these students to make the transition to the university culture.”

NMSU’s CAMP was recognized this summer as one of the top 10 performing programs nationally in the past year, but Bejarano, an NMSU associate professor of criminal justice, is focused on CAMP’s future.

“We’re beginning our 10th year of CAMP, but are in the final year of our current grant,” said Bejarano. “We are in the process of writing our application for another five-year grant. We know at the federal level that things will be highly competitive and it is always a concern for us, but we can only hope for the best.”

NMSU’s CAMP has succeeded in getting two five-year federal grants. Since 2002 the program, which provides dormitory, meal plan and student scholarships and book stipends, as well as mentoring and advise, has helped 263 students from across New Mexico and west Texas.

“This may not seem like a lot of students, but when you consider these are all first-generation migrant and seasonal farm worker students who would not have come to NMSU, or even the community college, this is highly successful,” Bejarano said.

Hernandez, who is getting a degree in education, grew up with three sisters in Hatch. Farm labor was the family business. His words tumble out quickly as he remembers his childhood.

“I grew up with a single mother,” Hernandez said. “She used to work in the fields work in the onion sheds, the chile sheds. I’ve worked in the fields. That was our main income, our only income, actually.

“A lot of my family would not even graduate, just drop out. Most of my older cousins dropped out in 10th grade or freshman year in high school and just started working, making money.”

Petite and soft-spoken, Jauregui, who is majoring in sociology, grew up in Clovis, working in the fields side-by-side with her parents.

“I don’t think I would have gone to college without the CAMP. I was always a very shy person, very insecure,” Juaregui said. “I don’t think I could have come far from my parents and stayed here and gone through all this without the CAMP program.”

Bejarano says CAMP creates a safe space on campus where students can relax and remain focused on school within familiar surroundings. If students feel uneasy because they’re first-generation college students and bilingual, they know that at CAMP they can be surrounded by others like them, who have shared experiences and who can switch back and forth between English and Spanish.

“We try to create a home away from home for our students. We greet the students with a hug, with a smile and a ‘how are you.’ We really try to personalize our relationships with the students,” Bejarano said.

A recent survey of students in the program indicates 72 percent would not have come to college without the assistance of CAMP. The work experience they have had is different from most other 18- and 19-year-old students. NMSU CAMP students have started doing fieldwork as young as age 5 to help support their families. Some of these families have a joint income as low as $7,000 a year. The average family income for students in NMSU’s CAMP program is $16,500 annually.

“Working in the fields is not easy,” Bejarano said. “Waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning to go out and pick chiles or pick onions or work in an onion shed is very arduous work. We’re able to do what other programs and financial mechanisms are not able to do, and this is to understand the story and the lived experience of our students and help them apply those tools they have learned working in the fields to the academic setting.”

Hernandez says there have been times he was close to giving up on college and going back to the fields and the life he understood.

“The whole college experience, we can’t really find people we can relate with, so CAMP is the family you depend on the most in those first two years,” Hernandez said. “CAMP teaches you the things you need to know in order to be successful in college.”

Bejarano points to CAMP’s success rate. Of the 228 students who have been in school for more than a year, 51 have completed a bachelor’s degree, another two are expected to graduate in December and 15 are expected to graduate in May of 2012. Five students have attained master’s degrees and one student is in the third year of a Ph.D. program. Eleven CAMP students have earned associate’s degrees.

“Our students ultimately are proving how successful we are by landing jobs in their fields of expertise,” Bejarano said. “We have accountants, CPAs, engineers and teachers who are working in New Mexico and elsewhere New York, California, Ohio so they’re really becoming the ambassadors of the NMSU CAMP program and talking about our good work.”

Those graduates are already giving back to the program by serving as role models and mentors for current CAMP students. Bejarano hopes the network of NMSU CAMP alumni will grow and continue to give back to the program and the university in the future.

Hernandez and Jauregui are already giving back what they have learned through CAMP by helping fellow students. Both are peer mentors for the program.

“I basically do everything from helping them with homework to tutoring to guiding them and helping them with the basics that they need,” said Jauregui.

Hernandez has strong feelings about serving as a peer mentor.

“I want to be an example to all these other young kids that are here and I want to help them,” Hernandez said. “I feel this passion to help. By being here doing whatever I can do, I’m trying to pay back for what CAMP has done for me.

“A lot of times I sit down with kids and I tell them, ‘I know you think it’s hard. I know it’s difficult. I’ve been right where you’re at. Trust me, you can get through it. If I did it, anyone can do it.’ For the kids in CAMP, it’s about having that support.”

Federal grants provide funding for initial scholarships and program staff, but the program relies heavily on state funding for follow-up services like book stipends and other assistance for students in subsequent years. Recently, those funds have been reduced. After that first year, Bejarano says the third and fourth years are the most critical for CAMP students.

“We’ve relied on state funding for follow-up services for students after the first year for retention,” Bejarano said. “Now it’s been difficult to keep afloat and to continue to provide the same level of services I feel we’ve been able to provide for our students without that financial assistance.”

As the staff and students of CAMP look back on 10 years of success, Bejarano is hopeful the program’s proven track record will enable the NMSU program to qualify for its next five-year grant.

“In a perfect world we will be able to sustain our federal funding and our state funding and we will become a legacy here at NMSU for the next 50 years,” Bejarano said.

Minerva Baumann is NMSU’s director of Media Relations and can be reached at (575) 646-7566.

College Assistance Migrant Program CAMP Day

Wednesday, Oct. 26

• 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. CAMP Office, Milton Hall, Room 16 – Research Expo
• 2:45 to 3:15 p.m. Corbett Center Auditorium – Speaker Francisco Garcia, director, Interstate Migrant Education Council and former director, Office of Migrant Education, U.S. Department of Education
• 3:15 to 4:30 p.m. Corbett Center Auditorium – CAMP Alumni Panel
• 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Corbett Center Auditorium -Speaker Jose Uranga, author and NMSU alumnus
• For more about NMSU’s CAMP program call (575) 646-5081or check online at http://web.nmsu.edu/~camp/

Source and video report: LCSun-News.com, Las Cruces Sun News, “NMSU’s migrant assistance program celebrates 10th anniversary” by Minerva Baumann, mbauma46@nmsu.edu, 22 Oct 2011.

FWCC Scholarship

Alejandra Tirado, Maria Olea-Badillo and Rodolfo Vasquez have one thing in common: their parents taught them that having an education will make a difference in their lives.

All three students come from humble, but hard working families who have for years worked in the field as farm workers. Each one has seen their parents working long hours picking vegetables and fruits while earning very little money.

Alejandra graduated from John I. Leonard High School in 2011 and she will begin taking classes at Palm Beach State College this fall where she plans to pursue a career in Criminal Justice.

Maria attended Forest Hill High School and began earning college credits prior to graduating in 2011 where she was the Salutatorian and graduated with a 3.87 GPA. Maria has been accepted to Florida State University in Tallahassee where she plans to obtain a double major. She’ll begin classes also in the fall of this year.

Rodolfo is enrolled in his second year at Palm Beach State College. He graduated from Santaluces High School in 2010 with a 3.5 GPA and currently has a 3.3 GPA on his college courses. He plans to study Mechanical Engineering.

Last week, in recognition of their academic achievements thus far the Farmworker Coordinating Council contributed to the future of these promising students with scholarships that will enable them to buy books, and cover part of their tuition.

The agency made a commitment to help these students with the scholarship for one year provided that they maintain their full time student status and a 2.5 GPA. We wish them success in their personal and academic endeavors.

Source: FarmworkerCouncil.com, “FWCC Helps 3 Farm Worker Students Pursue Their Dream” Farmworker Coordinating Council of Palm Beach, Sept 2011.

110 students accepted “Promise” scholarships Thursday. (Melissa Bailey)

As an immigrant farm worker’s son launches his college dream, the city will be tracking whether he makes it to graduation.

Ivan Gusman (pictured) is one of 110 New Haven students who will receive the first round of scholarships from New Haven Promise, a new program designed to motivate kids to go to college and help pay their way.

Ivan, who just graduated from James Hillhouse High School, re-donned his cap and gown Thursday morning for a formal acceptance ceremony with fellow Promise recipients. Dozens of recent high school graduates and their families gathered in the heavily air-conditioned Sprague Hall at Yale University.

Officials on the stage told the students this is just the beginning: Over the next five years, Promise will track whether they stay in college and go on to get jobs.

Mayor John DeStefano said the aim is to boost the New Haven Public Schools’ record on producing kids who go on to get college degrees. As of the latest count, only 17 percent of NHPS grads who enrolled in college finished within four years, he said.

Ivan is starting with high hopes. He aims to take classes at Gateway Community College in the fall, then transfer to Quinnipiac University after two years. His end goal is to become a physical therapist.

That’s a level of education his parents never reached.

“I never had the opportunity” to go to college, said his mom, Maria Concepción Ortega (pictured). “I was always working, working.” As an immigrant from Mexico, she spent years doing hard labor in California farms, picking cotton, almonds and strawberries.

Beaming with pride on Thursday, she said she’ll do all she can to help Ivan, the youngest of her five kids, make it through college.

“I want all the best for him,” she said.

New Haven Promise, funded by Yale University and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, pays up to 100 percent of tuition at in-state colleges and universities for every New Haven resident in the city public school system who maintains good grades, attendance and behavior.

To qualify, students have to keep up a 3.0 GPA and 90 percent attendance, perform 10 hours of community service, and maintain a good discipline record.

Ivan said he wasn’t sure he would make the cut: “I didn’t think I would get the grades.” He struggled in intermediate algebra, but pulled through with a C, which kept his GPA on target for the scholarship. And he logged a few hours of service at the Atwater Senior Center, the American Red Cross and LEAP.

“It feels good,” he said, standing among fellow Promise recipients in an array of caps and gowns Thursday.

In this pilot year, Promise will pay up to 25 percent of students’ tuition at in-state public universities, and up to $625 per year at private, non-profit colleges or universities in the state. As the program is scaled up, participating students will get up to a full ride at public universities, and up to $2,500 at private ones.

Students Thursday received a T-shirt of the college they plan to attend—a mix of two- and four-year institutions.

In its inaugural year, 372 New Haven public school seniors applied for the scholarship, 151 qualified, and 110 chose to accept, according to Promise spokeswoman Betsy Yagla. She said the students who chose not to accept it are heading out of state for college, or joined the military. Those who failed to qualify did so for poor grades, for skipping too many days of school, or for failing to do their community service hours.

Those who did qualify got words of advice from the adults on stage not to give up.

“This is not a high-five for what you have already done,” said William Ginsberg, CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. “This is about your future.”

Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, echoed that sentiment in a statement delivered by video: “Please know your goal is not to go to college; your goal is to graduate from college.”

To keep the scholarship, students have to keep up a 2.5 grade point average while in school. Promise will be tracking kids’ grades, whether they make it through to graduation, and eventually, whether they land jobs afterward, according to Yagla.

Mayor DeStefano, who launched Promise as part of a larger effort to improve city schools, said post-secondary tracking will prove to be a critical measure of success.

“A key measure of high school performance ought to be persistence and graduation rates in college,” DeStefano said.

In the past, the only information New Haven Public Schools gathered about its graduates was how many matriculated in college, DeStefano said. As part of the school change effort, the district started getting more data on how far those graduates make it in college.

So far, the district only has data for the students who graduated high school in 2004. Of those who enrolled in college, only 17 percent graduated high school in four years, according to DeStefano.

As much as student test scores, DeStefano said, “that’s the number we want to drive up.”

DeStefano said that in the long term, New Haven needs to find a way to find better supports for students in college.

Ivan said he hasn’t found out yet how much his Promise grant will be, but he knows he will have to work part-time to pay for classes.

He lives on Dickerman Street with his mom and another brother. He said his end goal is to get a good-paying job and and give back to those who helped get him to college.

“I want to support my family,” he said.

Source and additional photos: NewHavenIndependent.org, “Ivan Gets A Promise” by Melissa Bailey, 21 Jul 2011.

[Fort Scott, KS] — The Fort Scott Community College Board of Trustees heard news of a new grant the college has received this year that will help students of migrant families attend college.

FSCC Associate Dean of Grants and Institutional Advancement Cindy Bartelsmeyer told the board about the new Five-year College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) grant the college has been awarded that will begin July 1. The federally funded program recruits students from Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas and provides financial assistance and other individualized services to qualified students.

The goal is to help students succeed in completing their first year of college and the grant is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Migrant Education, Bartelsmeyer said.

“We’re really excited about this,” Bartelsmeyer said. “I’ve applied for this grant four or five times in the past, so this shows me that persistence does pay off.”

Bartelsmeyer said FSCC will receive a $448,308 allocation during the first year of the grant. Staff has a goal of helping at least 85 percent of students in the program enter into their second year of college.

Support services provided through the funding include help with application processing for admissions, financial aid, housing and other services, personalized tutoring, academic advising and career counseling, a mentoring program and student advocacy, health services, cultural activities and campus visits, transportation, child care and stipends, and transitional services for continuing CAMP students.

To be eligible for CAMP, students must meet one of the following criteria:

* Either the student or parent/guardian has engaged in migrant or seasonal farm work for at least 75 days within the last two years.

* Has been eligible for the Title IC Migrant Education Program; or,

* Has qualified for the National Farmworker Jobs Program.

Applicants must also have a high school diploma or GED, and must be either a U.S. citizen or a qualified resident alien eligible for federal public benefits.

Tri-State CAMP has four satellite college sites including FSCC. Other sites are Seward County Community College in Liberal, Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell, Okla., and University of Arkansas Community College in Morrilton, Ark.

The grant program is similar to the Tri-State High School Equivalency Project (HEP) that has been in place at FSCC the last 10 years. Bartelsmeyer also announced Monday that grant will be funded for an additional five years beginning July 1. HEP helps migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their immediate family members obtain GEDs, find employment, enter a postsecondary institution or the military.

Bartelsmeyer said HEP must serve a minimum of 90 students each year. Last year, there were 113 students in the FSCC program and 84 of those students received GEDs. This year, there are already 61 students prepared to earn GEDs and about 20 more expected before the grant concludes at the end of September. The program serves students in Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

About 90 percent of students served speak Spanish, Bartelsmeyer said.

Source: FSTribune.com, “FSCC awarded grant” by Jason E. Silvers, 28 Jun 2011.

Joe Malacara (Photo: Marsha Mille)

About 7,500 students will graduate from The University of Texas at Austin at the128th spring commencement this Saturday, May 21. Each graduate has a unique story. To celebrate the Class of 2011, we’re highlighting 10 stories, profiling students who have overcome obstacles, discovered new dimensions and doggedly pursued their academic goals.

Growing up a migrant farm worker — bending over onions, sweet beets, potatoes and alfalfa and moving from state to state — is not all that conducive for finding a mentor. But Joe Malacara was lucky. He found Mr. Smith.

For several months out of the year, Malacara and his family worked side-by-side having driven the 2,000 miles from Mission, Texas to Payette, Idaho. Before he was 12 years old, he was considered too young to work in the fields, so he carried water jugs out to his parents, older brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and other thirsty workers.

The family lived in a migrant camp 12×12-foot cabin for which they paid $35 a week rent. The camp had 25 cabins, and everyone shared public restrooms and showers. They would work 40 to 80 hours a week, depending on the harvest.

When workers had health issues they went to a nearby clinic where only one health care worker — Mr. Smith, the pharmacist — spoke both Spanish and English.

Malacara decided he wanted to be exactly like Mr. Smith — “someone who helped explain health problems and treatments to patients and someone who didn’t work out in the fields like the rest of us.”

Malacara will graduate from the College of Pharmacy in May — the first in his family to get a college degree. He is graduating with honors and has accepted a job at an HEB pharmacy in the Rio Grande Valley.

Everyone in his family is coming to Austin for graduation.

“During the many hours we were working in the fields, my father would always tell me that he didn’t want me to have this kind of life,” said Malacara. “He didn’t have a chance to go to school, but insisted that I go to college and make a better life for myself.”

The migrant workers had illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, colds and flu. Many times, Malacara helped translate at the clinic.

“The valley is an underserved area of Texas with many people living in poverty,” said Malacara. “There is a problem — just as there was in the migrant farm camps — of health literacy. Many patients do not understand their diseases or the treatments.”

This spring Malacara worked in a clinic on an ambulatory care rotation to experience working closely with patients. He saw many patients who came to the pharmacy without knowing what they were prescribed or what it was for because they didn’t understand what their health care provider had told them.

“Having someone trust you to explain what a medication is for and feel comfortable enough to come back and ask you for advice is essentially what I thought pharmacy was when I was a kid and primarily what I believe it is now,” he said.

Malacara is graduating from the University of Texas-Pan American/University of Texas at Austin Cooperative Pharmacy Program, developed to encourage high school students to consider pharmacy as a career. It offers students the opportunity to complete four years of the six-year program in their home region. The college also offers a cooperative program at the University of Texas at El Paso, another area of Texas experiencing pharmacist shortages.

Source: UTexas.edu, University of Texas, “Class of 2011: Heritage of hard work” by Nancy Neff, College of Pharmacy, 18 May 2011.

Nearly 170 students, all of them children of California strawberry farmworkers, have been named college scholarship winners by the Watsonville-based California Strawberry Commission.

The 168 students will receive a total of $177,935 for the 2011-12 academic year, according to a news release.

In the 17 years since the California Strawberry Scholarship program was launched, the commission has awarded nearly $1.5 million to more than 1,100 students.

“Although the program has existed for a long time, we never get tired of helping young people reach their dreams through college education,” Lorena Chavez, chairwoman of the scholarship committee, said in the release. “It’s a pleasure to give back to the farmworkers who are vital to the strawberry industry.”

The scholarship winners, who must attend an accredited vocational trade school, junior college or four-year university, are determined by individual merit.

The funds are forwarded to the schools to help cover the cost of tuition, fees and books, according to the release. To qualify, an applicant must have at least one parent who has been employed as a strawberry farmworker for the past two seasons.

Formal scholarship award ceremonies are scheduled for the week of May 23 in each of California’s three major strawberry growing regions: Oxnard, Santa Maria and Watsonville.

Source: ThePacker.com, “Strawberry Commission awards thousands in scholarships” by Don Schrack, 18 May 2011.

Teresa Almanza of Fennville is latest recipient

Teresa Almanza of Fennville, Michigan is in her last semester at MSU. With a major in Interdisciplinary Studies and Community Relations, she plans to pursue a job with the federal government focusing on migrant worker issues.

“The Imagine Fund scholarship helped me tremendously,” Almanza said.  ”Without the scholarship, I wouldn’t be able to graduate from MSU. The money was truly a lifesaver.”

Noted Eric Foster, director of the Imagine Fund:

“Teresa is a wonderful example of the type of student that The Imagine Fund was created to help:  Students of color who are our future leaders that often find their success and promise in danger of being a dream deferred because of financial difficulties.”

Almanza’s parents were both migrant workers in Mexico before moving to Michigan. They constantly encouraged her to attend college.  Almanza applied those lessons of obtaining an education and leadership very early in high school and throughout her time at Michigan State University.  In Fennville, which is in Allegan County, she served as an ESL volunteer in the local high school.  As the first in her family to attend college, she wants to use her degree to assist other migrant families, specifically young people, to attend college and become a member of the “creative class.”

At MSU, Almanza helped organize the university’s first Cesar Chavez conference.  She also interned at the Library of Congress and the White House. Last month she was awarded the first Cesar Chavez Community Leadership Award from MSU’s Cesar Chavez Planning Committee.

The Imagine Fund is a Michigan nonprofit which provides scholarship awards primarily to students who are black and Latino, first generation in college and historically underserved in higher education.

For more information, contact The Imagine Fund at 517-316-1430 or go to www.theimaginefund.com.

Source: PRNewswire.com, “Imagine Fund Scholarship Allows Student to Finish MSU” 5 May 2011.

A misguided law championed by conservatives makes it harder to hire workers.

Just as supporters of Arizona’s anti-immigration law (SB 1070) were set to celebrate its first anniversary on April 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the enforcement of many of parts of the law. The court struck down the provisions requiring law enforcement officers to make a reasonable effort to verify the immigration status of individuals they arrest, requiring immigrants to carry documentation, and preventing undocumented workers from soliciting work.

Georgians, who just passed a similar law, and Floridians should take notice of the harm caused in Arizona. Many of the sections of the law still stand, including some draconian ones that promise to hinder police work and punish business owners.

Employers should worry about Sections 7 and 8, which strengthen the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, mandating that all businesses in the state use the faulty E-Verify system to ascertain workers’ legal status. According to a 2010 audit, E-Verify fails to identify undocumented workers 54% of the time, and has misidentified legal workers as illegal. SB 1070 also increases penalties under LAWA. Under a two-strike policy, second-time business offenders lose their business licenses. Ironically, a law championed by conservatives makes it harder for businesses to hire employees.

Arizona’s new enforcement measures won’t solve the problems of unauthorized immigration, and will likely increase the black market in labor. Indeed LAWA pushed more undocumented workers deeper into the black market. A 2011 report by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that while LAWA decreased the undocumented population of Arizona between 2008 and 2009, it also forced tens of thousands “into informal or underground employment.”

Law enforcement officers should worry about Section 2, which grants all legal residents the power to sue any state agency or official that they believe is failing to enforce immigration laws. This provision will funnel millions of dollars to trial lawyers and put Arizona police officers in a no-win situation. As 19-year Phoenix Police Department veteran David Salgado notes, enforcing SB 1070 could get him sued by the federal government for violating civil rights protections, while failing to enforce it zealously could get him sued by anti-immigration activists. (Salgado and seven other officers sued to block SB 1070, but the judge dismissed their case last September.)

Deputizing Arizona’s police officers as federal immigration agents will make their jobs even more difficult, because unauthorized immigrants will be more reluctant to report crimes or work with police as witnesses. As Tucson police chief Roberto Villasenor said, SB 1070 “damages our capability to obtain information to solve the crimes.”

And for what? In the year since its passage, SB 1070 has provided no benefit to Arizona. It has done nothing to help the economy. Arizona’s unemployment rate, at 9.6%, remains higher than the national rate of 8.9%. Kicking out undocumented immigrants who are consumers, workers, and business owners is hurting Arizona’s recovery.

The crime situation is not likely to look much better. Arizona crime statistics since the passage of SB 1070 are not out yet, but there is a precedent to compare them to: When Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio decided to enforce immigration laws locally, the violent crime rate in Maricopa surged by 58% between 2004 and 2009. Arpaio’s immigration obsession shifted resources from solving and responding to violent crimes to immigration enforcement, according to the Goldwater Institute. Meanwhile, the rest of Arizona, including border areas, saw dramatic declines in violent crime rates during the same period. SB 1070 takes some of Sheriff Arpaio’s methods and applies them statewide.

Real solutions to the problems associated with illegal immigration will come only from expanding legal immigration–by removing barriers to the movement of people across borders. Then law enforcement will be able to focus on real border threats–keeping out criminals and potential terrorists. Without expanded legal immigration, laws like Arizona’s will continue to harm police officers, businesses and other residents.

Alex Nowrasteh is a policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Source: Forbes.com, “The Unhappy Anniversary Of Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Law” by Alex Nowrasteh, 27 Apr 2011.

Alma Sandoval fills out a class evaluation on the final day of the first term of Portland Community College's migrant High School Equivalency Program. Credit: Doug Beghtel

ROCK CREEK [OR] — Mercedes Tapia wants to help her children with homework, but sometimes the grade-school material is too difficult.

The 29-year-old mother of four can’t read or write in English, and her Spanish language education ended in the sixth grade in Michoacan, Mexico.

“I didn’t have anyone to support me with my studies, and I started working right away,” she said through a translator.

Thanks to a Portland Community College program that began this year, Tapia should soon command knowledge far beyond the grasp of her 8-year-old son.

She’ll also have a diploma to open doors to higher learning paths that seemed impossible three months ago.

Tapia is one of 53 inaugural members of PCC Rock Creek’s High School Equivalency Program for migrant workers.

Funded by a five-year, $2.24 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Migrant Education, the program gives migrant and seasonal farm workers and their families access to a high school diploma.

Program directors hope the GED certificate will lead to better jobs. Tapia wants to be a doctor’s assistant. Other students talk of high-tech manufacturing, nursing or just a higher-paying position in the agricultural sector.

Before the PCC program began in January,  the nearest similar program was in Salem, at Chemeketa Community College. Washington County’s high concentration of migrant workers made Rock Creek a natural fit, said Beto Espindola, the program’s director.

“Often, that migrant population doesn’t get the assistance they need,” Espindola said.

In addition to the free classes, students get meal and transportation stipends, and free childcare while they’re attending class.

Once participants pass the GED, they’re eligible for 12 free credits at PCC, to be used within a year.

“We’re trying to, as much as we can, remove the obstacles for people to come and learn,” said Scott Lowrey, who teaches the class.

In return, the students dedicate three hours on four nights each week to lessons on everything from fractions and decimals to protons and electrons. Many travel from as far away as Cornelius and Forest Grove, or from outside Washington County.

“We’ve had a better level of attendance in this class than I’ve had in literally any class I’ve taught at PCC,” Lowrey said. “They’re a real joy.”

Program recruiters expected to attract young adults who recently had dropped out of high school. Instead, they were overwhelmed with interest from migrant workers well into adulthood. The program was so popular it generated a 20-person waiting list.

To qualify, applicants must have worked at least 75 days in the past two years as a migrant or seasonal farmworker. They must also interview with program organizers and test at a seventh grade or higher level in writing and math. PCC does not check applicants’ citizenship status or legal residency.

Many class members share a similar story. They grew up in Latin America and quit school to help support their family. When they moved to the United States, agriculture was the logical employment track.

In 48-year-old Alfredo Guzman’s case, it’s seasonal work at a Hillsboro nursery.

While he awaits the growing season, Guzman takes the PCC classes, as well as the Oregon Human Development Corporation courses on computers and English. After Guzman gets his GED, he wants to perfect his English skills and become a nurse.

“I don’t want to go back to the fields,” he said. “I want to move onto something different.”

Lowrey said his students are among the most dedicated bunch he’s seen. None of the truancy, side conversations and droopy eyelids that sometimes characterize college classes. Students arrive early, neatly arrange pencils, worksheets and folders on the desks, and listen intently to directions.

But with only two classes, it can be difficult to cater to a varied group in which skill levels begin at the seventh grade.

After the first 11-week program, none of the students had taken the GED. The small staff of teachers and tutors is still working out kinks in the fledgling program. But with a few tweaks to the class format, organizers expect to surpass their goal of serving 100 students this year.

Not all will get diplomas. Espindola said he expects 80 percent of students to graduate.

Tapia isn’t ready yet, but she aims to be one of the success stories. She still dreams of coaching her son through his math work. But for now, she sits alongside him, laboring on her own problem sets.

“In the beginning, they were a little surprised when I was doing my homework,” she said. “Now they ask, “Mama, don’t you have homework?’”

–Kelly House Twitter: @ForestGReporter

Read more at: OregonLive.com, “PCC Rock Creek High-School Equivalency Program points migrant workers on the path toward career success” by Kelly House, The Oregonian, 23 Mar 2011.