This is my 2nd draft of my AP project. Although I made process compared to my first rough draft, I wasn't anywhere near to finishing my project. You can see my improvement as I now have more information on each section. I put terms that I wanted to use in my writing and this helped me out by focusing on what I needed to research and elaborate in each section. I was still trying to make my writing flow and you can see that some sentences aren't finished, have "???", and how I still needed to connect more information into my work.

Brenda Ramos

Writing 39 C

2/27/17

Christopher Varela

AP Rough Draft

Research has shown that a majority of people who have a college education tend to earn more than those who only have a high school diploma, and those who hold a high school diploma earn more than high school dropouts. There are multiple reasons why students dropout of college, but Latinos are titled with the highest dropout rate. Excelling in education is different for all students, but those who come from low socioeconomic status, have no documentation, and who do not receive the same support compared to their peers tend to do worse compared to those who have the resources and the support to go to college. For undocumented students, the pathway of going to college wasn’t easy and perhaps not a plausible action, until the Obama Administration implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. With this program, undocumented students could hold more benefits such as obtaining a worker’s permit, a social security number, and are under temporary protection from deportation as they live in the United States. The United States is progressing into an educational system where an emphasis on a college education is essential, yet the 2016 presidential election has shown that fear has overwhelmed undocumented students from pursuing a college degree as they await their fate over their legal status. A need of action to protect DACA students is essential in order to provide undocumented students who want an education to pursue college and to fight those who want to take their opportunity away from them. This can be achieved by providing DACA students with a safe space, fighting back the Trump administration, and changing the stigma within ourselves and our society.

The Barriers We Put Up

At schools we tell children the golden rule is to “treat others as you would want to be treated,” yet as we grow older, we see that the golden rule doesn’t shine as bright and we end up tossing it away. Our schools proclaim that this golden rule is the route to go but when it is no longer practice, it is those who do not have a voice who suffer. Schools tend to prefer those who do have a voice, and having a voice is usually correlated with having a high socioeconomic status, race privileges, and doing well in school. Schools tend to see the students who are opposite of that structure as more of a problem, and instead of seeing the children as in need, they see them as deficient. Because we don’t see the students succeeding and doing as well as their others peers, we’ll tend to categorize all of one’s race and label them as lazy or unintelligent or inattentive. When children don’t follow the social contract, we tend to give up on them and pay attention to the few who make the effort without realizing that the ones who don’t put in the effort are the ones that need the most help. The idea of colorblindness is viewing the White race as the background race, and viewing them as the model for the rest of the race. These views on the students is destroying their fate in succeeding because when we view these students this certain way, we see that they will perform the self-fulfillment prophecy and become the students that no one believes in, that no one takes the extra time to have them succeed, and unfortunately, we see that the Latino race is the one that is struck by this the most. Our first step is to figure out what the problems are that are affecting undocumented students before we can break them.

(Talk about how we view undocumented students. Why we view them this way. The unfair social injustice we do.  Cultural deficiency. How schools reflect our society

Culture as a disability

Deficit Thinking

Social Contract

Sorting

Cultural Suicide

School Determinist

Societal Determinist

Colorblindness

The Barriers We Must Break Down

This framework of undocumented students that schools have shifted into the past years have not been successful in helping those who are in need. As schools reflect our society, it is on us to break down the negative stereotypes that have evolved in society. Our first step is to figure out what are the problems that lead our society into oppressing our DACA students, into not providing those who are citizens into a life where they are not allowed to progress. The educational barrier that undocumented students face is not being able to graduate high school due to all the negative stigma that they hold. We see in our current time that two valedictorians have beaten this challenge as they have graduated high school with not only a GPA surpassing a 4.0 but by being the class valedictorians. They showed that through all the struggles that were the along the brightest students that will be going to college to earn a degree and do well in school. With this, we hope to change how schools and society view undocumented students. We must change the way society is viewing undocumented immigrants because this reflects what we see in our schools. When Donald Trump was running for president, his campaign on immigration was to get rid of all the rapists and criminals. With this, we saw that schools would begin to bully those who had brown skin. Undocumented students didn’t feel safe. And White Superiority skyrocketed as peers and teachers began to promote White students and neglect Latino students. The school to deportation pipeline was at a greater risk for those undocumented and it showed us that our schools began to divide.

(Changing how we view undocumented students. Give examples of those who broke the stigma like the two valedictorians who are undocumented and going to universities.)

How To Build Bridges

The two valedictorians showed us that although they came from a status that wasn’t so kind in helping their situation, they still strived and are pursuing higher education. An applause is well needed for these two and it would be remarkable if we could continue with our education system resulting in more students who would tend to do bad actually do well. We can do this by making their school a safe place where they can be themselves and acquire the help that they need. We must now take our deficient framework and apply the Critical Race Theory. This theory “challenges the dominant discourse on race and racism as it relates to education by examining how educational theory and practice are used to subordinate certain racial and ethnic groups (Solorzano and Yosso).” What this means is that we need to see that race plays a certain factor that disengages our minority students and promotes the majority. By this theory, we should be able to see that race is a problem that dictates how a student progresses, the classes they take, how they are treated, and try to get rid of that structure and apply a fair ground for all races where they are given the same equal opportunity without neglecting those who needs help. Although I say that we need to provide a fair ground, this means that if students need help in order to succeed, the help should be accounted for as all students should be given the chance to succeed. The Critical Race Theory also inspire us to use this theory as a social justice approach where we need to challenge dominant ideology, strive toward a commitment to social justice, recognize the centrality of experiential knowledge, such as recognizing that the opinions and ideas from all races and gender is appropriate and to understand where they come from, and lastly to practice an interdisciplinary perspective where we recognized where race has come from by looking back at history so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes.

As educators, we should be multicultural educators where we don’t practice the colorblindness but rather teach to all students coming from every race. By doing this, our goal is to become institutional agents. An institutional agent can be a guidance counselor, a teacher, a person who works in the schools, and even those who don’t. The duty of an institutional agent is to care for the young individual and to help them acquire social capital. Social capital consists of the opportunities that students wouldn’t had received if it weren’t for their social ties. By proving a social capital for all students, we see that lower SES students are now leveling the playing field as they are exposed to more information and resources as their higher SES peers. An insitutional agents build a student-teacher relationship and shows that individual that they are cared for and they they matter. When undocumented students are shown the same type of attention as their peers, they stray to dismiss their oppositional culture and strive to break through the negative stereotypes and excel. Having strong teacher students relationships help undocumented students feel same. They have someone they can go to if they need advice and that can help them out on another level instead of just focusing on classroom work. Having these relationships have pushed students to really surpass their potential and reach new heights as undocumented students realize that there is more to them than some dead beat job. Promote a college-going culture instead of a dead beat job.

Community Based Organization (CBO’s) are helpful in providing students a safe community. As teachers help DACA students in giving them an opportunity to get further their understanding of college…??? With CBO’s, undocumented students have a space where they can be themselves by sharing their own fears, making friends in the meantime, and help each other out. A community based organization can be as small or as big as it deems fits. At the University of California, Irvine, there are many clubs where undocumented students can get together and have a safe space. This is located at the Cross Cultural Center and there are specific days. The club members range from UCI Dreamers and those who are allies of Dreamers. UCI also shows that they have a mission statement and that they support undocumented students.

In our current time, many undocumented students are worried about deportation. Although DACA is still up in the air, we need to remind students that they are still eligible to apply for financial aid. We’re beginning to see that undocumented students are starting to go to college, but during this time, students are worried about applying because of their status being known. We shouldn’t discourage students from applying.

Lastly, our city should become a sanctuary cities. California already holds ultiple cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco. These sancturary cities are those that will not cooperate with ICE and keep their mouths closed when it comes to immigrants. Although they do this, we have to make sure that we don’t abuse this power. There is a possibility that criminals do come to these cities to avoid ICE because they are undocumented. It is their safe zone. Because of those people, they put undocumented students in danger.

As we see students going enrolling in school,

(Making undocumented students feel safe when they feel scared. A need or support, emotional and organizational such as schools. Creating a club, a place where they can meet others who are allies.

Practice the Critical Race Theory

Community Based Organizations (Cross Cultural Center at UCI)

Institutional Agents

A need for student teacher relationships. A mentorship program. Knowing that there is someone out there rooting for you. Motivation to go to college. Reminding them that their financial aid forms are confidential.