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Documented, undocumented and DACA students – oral histories of college students

Wed, Apr 20, 9:00 to 10:00am, Virtual Vegas, Channel A

Abstract

This research will continue to interview students at a large Midwestern university and other post-secondary institutions who are undocumented or are U.S. citizens who deal with the undocumented status of their family members. The interviews will be posted on a website for archival and educational uses. This ongoing project also consists of a documentary film called “Brenda’s Story” that will broadcast in May 2021 on WKAR-TV, MSU’s PBS station.

Brenda is just one of about 427,000 postsecondary students or 2% of the college population who are undocumented in the U.S. This research and multimedia project explores the marginalization of a population often reluctant to share their stories, and it is a complicated story to tell.

Less than half of this population has Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals or DACA, a U.S. immigration policy approved in 2012 during the Obama administration that temporarily protects eligible individuals from deportation who migrated as a child. DACA recipients are also called DREAMERS for the Dream Act, proposed legislation that would have paved a pathway to citizenship.

This research will capture the dizzying status of DACA. In 2017, the Trump administration stopped the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from approving new DACA applications. In Dec. 2020, a federal judge ordered the restoration of DACA only to be legally stop gapped again in July 2021.

Using acculturative stress and historical trauma theories, the researchers will analyze the interviews to demonstrate psychological, oftentimes anxious experiences lived by those navigating the differing generational expectations, cultures, and languages of multiple countries.

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