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Protests of immigrants and activists have erupted throughout the country. There have been umpteen acts of civil disobedience, traffic blockages and even a hunger strike in New York City. From June 1st until today, June 10th, a group of ten high-school and college students from Columbia, New York University and the City University of New York had been camping on the busy pavement outside the office of Charles Schumer, New York’s senior Democratic senator, in midtown Manhattan (near The Economist's New York bureau). Schumer, the chairman of a Senate subcommittee on immigration, supports “a tough but fair path to legalisation for those already here” and is pushing for comprehensive immigration reform. He supports the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented students living in America. But the bill has stalled, leaving many undocumented students to forfeit their studies because they can't apply for financial aid or scholarships—a sad necessity for getting a college education in America.

 

Seated on yoga mats, these mostly illegal protesters spoke fluent English (with an American accent), wore T-shirts that said “I starve 4 our dream” and regularly checked their blackberries while handing out fliers. Jose Luis Zacatelco, one of the founders of the group, the New York State Youth Leadership Council (NYSYLC), met with More Intelligent Life on the seventh day of his hunger strike.

 

 

Jose Luis Zacatelco: We are here demanding the immediate passage of the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act is a law that would benefit about 1.5m undocumented students who were brought to the United States before the age of 16. Some of us were brought here when we were only a few months old. And we all consider this country our own. Among the requirements is that once you graduate from high school, you must either go to college or go into the military for two years [in order to obtain a six-year conditional residency]. Really, all of what we are doing here is trying to get an opportunity to continue our education and therefore contribute back to our society. People have already contributed to our education from “K to 12” [primary and secondary education in America], and it doesn’t make sense that senator Schumer doesn’t give us the opportunity to graduate from college and become more valuable taxpayers, ensuring the education of future generations.

 

 

JLZ: In high school, when I went to see my counsellor to know about the opportunities I had for college, she said that I shouldn’t be thinking about college because I was undocumented. Since then my life has gone by and here I am, stuck, unable to do much for myself, unable to realise my dream and become a counsellor in high school like I always wanted. I am 30 now and even though I started my bachelor degree when I was 22, I still haven’t graduated. I have another semester to go and I can’t afford to finish it for the moment. I am tired to live like this and I don’t want younger generations to go through the same thing. Young people should be given the opportunity to graduate on time and not have to wait like myself until the age of 30 or 35 to start their careers.

 

 

JLZ: Seven days, 170 hours… We are only drinking some water and some water with mineral salts. Yesterday, I was fine, but just today I started to feel more dehydration, my lips are getting drier and drier. It is getting tougher. But I am mostly worried about some other fellows in the group, especially the youngest, whose vital signs are getting very weak. We received a visit from the doctor and he said that our lives could be in danger, maybe not from dehydration—because the human being can last up to 40 days by drinking and not eating food—but just by walking around, because there is a good chance that we might fall down, get hit in the head. That’s when things would get very bad.

 

 

JLZ: I don’t get hungry anymore. One person stopped by before and he was actually eating a meat stick, like a shish kebab, right in front of me. But I said ‘Don’t worry about it, I am not hungry anymore’. The first two days were the toughest days, you would still feel hungry, you would smell food, you would want it; but at this point, that sentiment went away. We are just drinking and that’s what our bodies are taking.

 

 

JLZ: I would say just seeing people who are against what we are doing but not willing to be in a conversation with us. For example, there was this person who went by, carrying bags of food, and we were giving out flyers asking people if they were interested in hearing about our hunger strike. But that man said ‘I have food here. I don’t care’. Those kinds of things bring the morale and the spirit down a little bit but we’re determined to continue anyway.

 

 

JLZ: Yes. Earlier this week, I was reading "Motorcycle Diaries" from Che. I also brought some books about Aztec traditions, their beliefs. One of the things I got from this is an Aztec saying that if you live in fear, fear will consume your soul. And right now, we’re here, exposing ourselves to dangerous things that could happen to us, like deportation. Having this in mind helps me going because I see myself as a warrior who has to step up and get rid of the fear to let the world know that we can’t continue to be living the way we do in the United States.

 

 

JLZ: Yesterday the group reconvened, taking into account that we were getting weaker and weaker. And we decided that, for the morale of the group, we would end the hunger strike on Thursday, even if Senator Schumer continues to ignore our calls. If so, we will organise a last action, end the hunger strike, and continue the fight by other means. We are talking of escalating actions, like acts of civil disobedience. Some people are willing to get arrested, or block the traffic, to get his attention.

 

 MIL: What would you do first if your strike succeeded and the Dream Act were to be pushed forward into law?

 

JLZ: I would quit my job in the air conditioning; I would finish my [academic] career and start working with young people as a counsellor in high school or junior high school. That’s my goal. Even if I am 35, even if I am 38, I would still want to do that because that’s my dream. But before, one of the first things I would do if I were documented in the United States, is to visit my grandparents in Mexico. I still remember when I left, my grandfather told me that he would probably be dead by the time I would come back. But he is still alive, he is 100 years old and in a way I believe he is waiting for me.

 

 

JLZ: My American dream is to live in dignity, have access to a job, have access to a standard living, I guess, a home, a good job, maybe open my own company or something like that. That would be my American dream, just to live free, to be able to travel, to be able to hang with friends. That would be my American dream.

 

~ PRUNE PERROMAT

 

Picture credit: cessemi (via Flickr)