Stories
Med School Student Fears DACA Uncertainty Will Hurt Her Residency Chances
Pakistani immigrant Aaima Sayed has always been fascinated by mental health. It is a passion that drove her to succeed in college and medical school even though her undocumented status disqualified her for state and federal financial aid, forcing her to take out private loans and depend on the sacrifices… Read More
Med School Promotes DACA to Help Cure Nation’s Doctor Shortage
A single email in 2011 set Mark Kuczewski, chair of medical education at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, on a journey to help undocumented immigrants become doctors. A colleague had written saying he had received an application from one of the most talented candidates he had ever… Read More
Chicago Alderman Works to Remove False Notions About Immigrants and Crime
Raymond Lopez had an unconventional path to becoming a politician. Although he had done get-out-the-vote work as a teenager, Lopez was more inspired by his long-time job working as a skycap for Southwest Airlines at Midway Airport. “I thought people deserved customer service in public service,” says Lopez, whose great-grandfather… Read More
Korean Immigrant Joins City Council to Fight for North-Atlanta Businesses
When John Park, a resident of Brookhaven, Georgia, saw that his neighbors’ interests were being overlooked by local officials, he decided to take action. “The city government was skewed too much toward business interests and not the people who live here,” says Park, who works full time as a disease surveillance specialist… Read More
DACA Allows Chicago Sociologist to Build a Stable Life and Career
When Erendira Rendon started college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004, she was hesitant to tell her classmates that she was undocumented. She was among the first young people to take advantage of an Illinois law that allowed undocumented immigrants to pay in-state… Read More
DACA Uncertainty Could Crush Med Student’s Dream To Treat Underserved
As a child in southern Florida, Zarna Patel never got to see a doctor. Her parents, undocumented immigrants from India, had college degrees from their homeland, but in the United States had to work low-wage jobs without health insurance. Besides, doctor’s offices didn’t seem safe. “I was always scared that… Read More
With DACA, Wisconsin Students Have Access to Language Academic
Carlos Jara, a third-year doctoral candidate in Spanish and Portuguese studies and a university instructor in Wisconsin, wakes up every morning at dawn and doesn’t return home until around 7:00 p.m. In addition to his academic work, Jara co-chairs conferences for his department and works as an accounting manager at… Read More
Once Undocumented, Mexican Salon Owner Wants to Prove Immigrants Make a Difference
Mexican immigrant Estela Nava has owned a hair salon on the South Side of Chicago for 30 years. Every day she tends to her clients’ needs for haircuts, color treatments, and perms. For Nava, who came to Chicago as an undocumented immigrant at age 17, owning her own business means… Read More
Thanks to DACA, a Young Mother’s Future Opens
When Brenda Acosta Oseguera graduated from her Baltimore high school in 2011, she was trying to choose between two undesirable options. As an undocumented immigrant, she could not receive government financial aid for college. And at the time, undocumented immigrants were also ineligible for in-state tuition at Maryland’s public institutions. Read More
Without DACA, University Graduate Could Wait Decades to Legally Work in U.S.
Marisol Estrada, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, has lived in the United States since she was 5 years old. With a dream to enter the legal profession, she studied hard, choosing at her Savannah, Georgia, high school to take the International Baccalaureate, a two-year, rigorous college preparatory program recognized by… Read More
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