Stanford Students Bring Border Issues to Campus

"Bringing Home the Border" flyer

The national attention on immigration issues brought on by Arizona's SB 1070 has sparked dialogue and debate in policy circles, workplaces, and especially college campuses. Here in the Bay Area, students from Stanford University have created created culturally diverse programs to bring students out of their classrooms to promote immigration reform.

Paige Kumm, a Master's in Sociology student from Stanford University, is actively organizing social awareness events at her university. One example is the "Bringing Home the Border" project held at one of the main squares on campus. For this event, Kumm brought together some classmates and community members as an act of gathering those with Hispanic roots to discuss approaches to stop the abuse and discrimination that many immigrants experience when crossing the border. It was a unique intersection of Latino students at Stanford and Latino workers who maintain the campus.

"I went to Arizona, straight to the border, and talked to undocumented students. I experienced and felt the agony that the population in that state is going through at this moment. Without a doubt, students have a great deal of strength and leadership, and is precisely at each one of these schools and universities where we need to start to raise awareness among the population so that these types of issues such as SB 1070 stop spreading," said Kumm.

It is important to emphasize that these events are fundamental and key to raising awareness among non-Hispanic people, Kumm says. The sociology student says it is important for students to understand why immigration exists and how different ethnicities experience it.

At another event, Kumm was able to present at a student level the "Different Faces of our America" by displaying cardboard tombs spread throughout the square and exact statistics of the people who have died in different decades when trying to cross the border. These numbers show that 827 died in 2007, 725 in 2008, and 500 in 2009.

Erika Fernández, native of Michoacan, Mexico, and a Spanish and Urban Studies Major at Stanford, was a participant at the events on immigration. She says, "My parents were farmworkers, and I came to this country when I was a nine-year old, and I have made an effort to study. I applied for scholarships, and the Bill Gates Foundation paid for my education. We must accept other people for their desires and efforts to move forward, and borders that stop families from pursuing education should not exist."

Doroteo Garcia, a native Oaxacan and cleaning worker subcontracted by Stanford, is fighting for immigration reform through his poetry. He joins the thousands of immigrants that feel the nostalgia for having left their families when they came to the U.S. Garcia delivered his poems at the Stanford campus at the series of events on immigration reform, evoking emotion and applause from the students.

Kumm, as a student leader and activist at Stanford, plans to organize more social awareness events, and she hopes the process can lead to policy changes on federal immigration. She says she wants "to expose the migratory problem, to educate and inform students and the community, and to implement a social action program."

For more information regarding Kumm's next events at Stanford, you may contact her at paigeamandak@gmail.com.