I hate when people tell me, "I look up to you. You do so much." It's not a choice.
Completing a STEM degree as an undocumented student means constantly exhausting yourself.
This week we offer the second part of a conversation between two undocumented sisters currently in college. Focusing on Alicia’s journey as a transfer student and a STEM major, this conversation emphasizes the ways higher education remains inaccessible for undocumented students that are not eligible for DACA. You can check out the first part of this conversation here:
In this installment, Alicia1 discusses the barriers she has encountered while pursuing a a career in STEM, donating free labor in exchange for work experience, and the frustrations of being bound by uncertainty.
Lucia: Alicia, you have said it is hard to come across job options due to your legal status. I think it is important to note the added layer of being a STEM major because developing your career often depends on internships. A lot of internships are unpaid, which makes them completely unfair to somebody that's already low income, let alone to someone who does not have a source of income to begin with. And the few paid internships out there are unavailable for undocumented students because they require a workers permit.
Alicia: Yeah, it's a big struggle. A way that I found around it was that if I could not get experience through an internship, I could try to find ways to gain experience in school. I was very involved in school. I was a part of competitive teams, I strove for leadership roles, got more involved in STEM clubs. I started doing a lot of side projects on my own just to get the experience.
Lucia: Do you feel like being undocumented pushed you to get involved in things you wouldn't have gotten involved in otherwise?
Alicia: Yes, it did. It did a lot.
Lucia: If you weren't undocumented, how do you think things would've been different?
Alicia: I would’ve just focused on my classes, been in one club, it would have been way easier. But because I am undocumented, I needed to prove to everybody that it is worth it to take a chance on me. I have done all of this without any help. I needed to stand out from everybody else. And it's tiring. Very tiring.
Because I am undocumented, I needed to prove to everybody that it is worth it to take a chance on me. I have done all of this without any help. I needed to stand out from everybody else. And it's tiring. Very tiring.
Lucia: It must be very frustrating to be extremely qualified and, despite your skills and all the hard work that you have done, be denied the opportunity to develop your career. There is nothing we can do.
Alicia: I used to hate when people told me, "I look up to you. You do so much." Especially people that know my background. It's not a choice. I have no choice but to push myself. If I had a choice, I wouldn't do it at all.
Lucia: You went to a community college for 3 years, what was your experience transferring like?
Alicia: I started at a community college trying to get most of my general education done, trying to save money because since I'm undocumented, I cannot work. When I was transferring, I decided to go somewhere close because I knew it would be less burdening. The transition was very different … I knew my previous school had an undocumented program, but I hadn’t heard of one for my new school.
Even then, I didn't want to be disappointed if my new school only supported people with DACA. I was dealing with being undocumented, being a transfer student, trying to find an internship, being a woman of color, and pursuing STEM. It was just struggle after struggle. I was very tired.
At this time, one of my advisors was a project manager for a city and he was looking for people to volunteer. He was asking people back and forth like crazy, trying to get people to go and work for the city.
Lucia: But nobody wanted to take it because there was no pay?
Alicia: Yeah. Many think, "my time is money," and it is. For me though, I was tired of not being taken seriously in the industry. I was already not taken seriously because I didn’t have papers and I was a transfer student. How am I supposed to get experience out there? So I decided to go for it. And when I did, one of our aunts was very scared of me doing it.
I was dealing with being undocumented, being a transfer student, trying to find an internship, being a woman of color, and pursuing STEM. It was just struggle after struggle. I was very tired.
Lucia: Really?
Alicia: Yeah. Since I was going to work with the city I needed to take fingerprints, and do a background check. One of our aunts was freaking out, and she reached out to our mom. After, my mom got freaked out about it, too. She was like, "Don't go. Don't go for it."
I had doubts, but I'm tired of not going for opportunities because I'm scared. I have that big fear of being “discovered.” Everybody around me has the same fear. I thought to myself: when am I going to start doing something different? I was tired of trying to find new projects, trying to outshine myself, when this opportunity was right there.
I told them screw it, I need to take a chance. If I don't take the chance, I'm going to be stuck where I’ve always been. So I took it, I learned a lot from that internship. I spent three years volunteering with the city.
Lucia: And you did this unpaid for three years?
Alicia: Unpaid. And we were under-staffed too.
Lucia: You were doing a lot of work. I remember you worked full days all the time.
Alicia: I was technically doing the work of an assistant engineer, as a volunteer intern. They were very grateful for having me. Very grateful. They used to buy my lunches because they felt so bad that they couldn't pay me. But some form of compensation would have been nicer.
They used to buy my lunches because they felt so bad that they couldn't pay me. But some form of compensation would have been nicer.
I remember my boss used to always ask me, "So when can we pay you?" He wanted to be informed about DACA the whole time. He would ask me, "When can you apply, so we can pay you, so we can hire you?" We used to have conversations about it. And one of the conversations that we had was over the possibility to get paid under the table. We were trying to find a way, but sadly, because it was for a city, money gets checked. We were getting notarized every two months.
It felt good to have someone try to compensate my work. But it also made it harder on me because the hope that they could’ve found a way to pay me led to nothing.
Lucia: This goes back to the core problem: our labor not being valued in the system because of our legal status. They were willing to try to figure out how to pay you even if it was under the table. They wanted you that badly and it's just so frustrating that it's out of their control.
We’ve been here for 15 years and there's been very, very little change. Even in the time since DACA was instituted, not much has changed.
Alicia: I think it is worse for those that have DACA. You and me, we've been stuck in the same space. People with DACA right now have more fear and anxiety if the program gets taken away, there could be a possibility of them getting deported.
Lucia: Things are so uncertain for all of us. It is hard to even imagine or plan for a future.
Alicia: I don't even know where I'm going to be in the next few months, especially now that I'm graduating. The fear I’ve fought so much is coming back. Where am I going to be? What am I going to do with my degree? It feels like I’ve been wasting my time. I’ve been studying for a degree for almost seven year and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to use it.
Propina
This week’s propina is a pair of questions:
How comfortable are you in your ability to plan for the future?
What feelings of fear and uncertainty accompany your planning process?
We invite you to describe your responses to these questions and your own college experiences in the comments below.
We’ll see you next week!
A reminder that all names in this series are pseudonyms.