“We basically had a piece of legislation that gave us a purpose — gave us energy,” said Dean Santos, who works at Immigrants Rising, a San Francisco nonprofit that helps undocumented young people achieve their career and educational goals. DACA “helped define us and started getting some of us involved in fighting for our rights. But honestly, there’s still not enough involvement.”

"Now that Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 1645 into law, California Community Colleges are required to expand resources for undocumented immigrant students. However, there is one major problem with this law: the lack of funding to implement...Earlier this year California Community Colleges reported that only 35 of the system’s 115 community colleges have Dream Resource Centers. The existing centers are supported by a combination of the colleges’ own funding as well as external dollars."

Immigrants Rising is leading the research agenda on immigrants and entrepreneurship in America, along with its UndocuHustle program, which supports immigrants on their path to small business ownership with pitch competitions and mentoring.

Currently, 35 of the system’s 115 community colleges have Dream Resource Centers, according to a report on undocumented students published earlier this year by the California Community Colleges. The existing centers are supported by a combination of the colleges’ own funding as well as external dollars. For example, the California Campus Catalyst Fund, an initiative that supports undocumented students, helps fund centers at colleges including Chabot College in Alameda County, Oxnard College in Ventura County and San Diego Mesa College.

Iliana Perez, a DACA recipient and director of research and entrepreneurship at the San Francisco-based organization Immigrants Rising, wrote a comprehensive guide on life after college for undocumented students. Perez said the biggest challenge she sees with being an undocumented independent contractor is developing an entrepreneurial mindset for creating income-generation opportunities.

At each of his concerts, Alejandro Sanz has met with a group of DACA recipients, undocumented immigrants, and their parents. Not only has he held private meet-and-greets, he is also raising funds through the sale of a “DREAMER” t-shirt for three organizations that benefit DREAMers: Dream Big Nevada’s DACA renewal fund, Immigrants Rising’s entrepreneurship program, and a college scholarship program, The Ascend Educational Fund.

“We are very lucky to be the recipient of the Catalyst fund grant,” said Dolores Ortiz, a sociology professor at Oxnard College. “It is a three-year grant that we will have over $300,000 and we have a lot of great programming. What we are aiming to do is create sustainable resources so that even when the grant money runs out we continue to offer resources to students and in the Ventura County area.”

Published August 20, 2019.

Oxnard College celebrates the grand opening and ribbon cutting of its Dream Resource Center on Wednesday, August 14. The Center will provide comprehensive services to undocumented students, their families and campus allies.

Read the full story: Dream Resource Center Grand Opening (The VCCCD Connection)…