Correction: The original version of this article contained an error. David worked 80 hours a week last summer. He is currently working part time, and planning to enroll in community college this summer.
Approximately 80 students gathered in the Schoenberg Quad on Thursday as part of a rally to support the DREAM Act, which would improve the rights of undocumented students.
Spearheaded by Improving Dreams, Equality, Access and Success and the Alliance of Dreams at UCLA, the rally featured undocumented student speakers who spoke on their struggle to pay for college without government aid.
In the wake of the 32 percent student fee increase passed during fall quarter, many students have had to drop out of UCLA to attend community college in hopes of earning enough money to return to UCLA, said David, a second-year student who was forced to drop out and who asked that his last name not be published for privacy reasons. David worked 80 hours a week last summer and is currently working part time. He is planning to attend community college this summer.
Currently, undocumented students can’t apply for student loans and need to find a way to pay for student fees that, in some cases, have nearly doubled. First-year graduate student Carlos Amador was already struggling to pay for school when the fee increases upped his student fees from $10,000 to $19,000.
The dropouts have affected the student group internally as well, as around 20 of the 70 students in Improving Dreams, Equality, Access and Success have also been forced to take leave, David said.
The rally was the fourth day of a solidarity week, a week of action in support of bettering the rights of undocumented students. The week-long event was aimed at directing the focus of the federal government to the passage of the act, which would provide access to financial aid and make other improvements in undocumented students’ rights.
“The target is our representatives in (Washington) D.C. and (to) have a national lobby conference,” said Emilio Lacques, a fourth-year sociology and education studies student.
She added that UCLA also plans to send a delegation of students to the nation’s Capitol to lobby for the passage of the act.
“We’re not so different from the last generation that fought for civil rights,” Amador said, pointing out that the segregation he feels as an undocumented student does not differ much from the segregation felt by black people in the 1950s. Amador helped rally students in the quad as members of the Alliance of Dreams and collected signatures for a petition in support of the act.
“We have to show the people who are not here some support. … Don’t let them fall through the cracks,” David said.