By Kristofer Ríos
As Christhian Diaz celebrated his graduation from Cooper Union last May, his mother insisted that he take pictures with everyone: friends, classmates, even seniors he didn’t know well. She had a lot to be proud of. Diaz, who is a 24-year-old illegal immigrant, had overcome many obstacles to get his diploma. He interrupted his studies twice to work and save money for school, where tuition is free but student fees and insurance cost about $3,000 a year. Even during those difficult times, though, Diaz never doubted he would finish. His education was a privilege that few illegal immigrants have and he valued the opportunity.
Professors who were close to Diaz and knew about his immigration status were proud, too. Some of those teachers had supported him through the hard times by finding him freelance jobs. For Diaz, such support and kindness was overwhelming. “To know that there are people who care about what I do with my life now,” Diaz said, “it made me really emotional.”
Yet for Diaz the celebration was muted. While many of his classmates were moving forward to fellowships, teaching positions, or residencies at distinguished art institutions, his future was uncertain. Though Diaz is talented and attended a prestigious college, the opportunities that are normally afforded to most graduates don’t apply to him. While New York State has laws providing some rights to illegal immigrants when they are students, now that he has his diploma, Diaz’s immigration status prevents him from working legally in the United States. He faces a choice few college graduates have to make: stay in the U.S. and work at a menial job in the shadows, far below his education and training, or leave America and work in a “home country,” Colombia, that he has never known.
“It’s like coming to an intersection in the woods, but there isn’t actually any road to take,” Diaz explained. “I find my self stuck. It’s like the roads are not there yet.”
Diaz is hardly alone in his dilemma. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there are 11.1 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. According to an analysis of the same data by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based migration think tank, 114,000 illegal immigrants have received a post-secondary degree while living in the U.S. Like Diaz, these products of college and graduate school have few options to advance their careers because they cannot work legally. Many choose unauthorized work, beneath their training and abilities, to support themselves.
In late September 2010, Congress considered a bill that could open a possible path to citizenship for the thousands of illegal immigrants such as Diaz. If passed, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act – better-known by its acronym as the DREAM Act―will open a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before the age of 16 and have completed at least two years of college or military service. The bill is currently stalled and is expected to be reconsidered at the end 2010.
Margie McHugh, co-director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute, explained that the DREAM Act would allow young illegal immigrants who are college educated and skilled to integrate into U.S. workforce. “Given that the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform are so grim,” McHugh said, “the DREAM Act may be the only path to legalization for anyone who was born in another country, but was raised in the U.S.”
For Diaz, life has always been defined by his immigration status. He is still unclear why his mother made the decision to leave their home in Bogota, Colombia. His mother doesn’t talk much about her life in Colombia, but he knows that she tried to start several businesses, including a restaurant that failed due to repeated robberies. Diaz thinks maybe she was frustrated with failure and she wanted to live somewhere with more opportunity.
Diaz remembers their immigration process as abrupt, but he realizes now, in retrospect, that it took his mother six years to adjust the documents for the two of them to qualify for a visitor’s visa to the U.S. When they were finally approved for their visas in 1999, Diaz was told his mother told him to pack a small suitcase for their trip to Florida. “I knew where we were going,” said Diaz. “The thing that I didn’t know when we moved here was that I wasn’t going back to Colombia.” After six months both he and his mother had overstayed their visas and were living in the U.S. illegally.
At 12 years old, Diaz could see that West Palm Beach was a town of contradictions. He and his mother lived in a trailer park among many poor Hispanic immigrants, while nearby gates and fences enclosed whole communities of Florida’s wealthiest citizens. Behind the fences, Diaz’s mother would earn a living cleaning homes. He would go with her to work on the weekends, to help her clean houses faster so they could do more work in one day. When he was old enough to work on his own, his uncles bought him a lawn mower so he could make extra money.
“There was always a feeling of great need and survival,” Diaz said. “It was about putting bread on the table and trying to move further up the ladder.”
Things started to change for Diaz when he was accepted to art school. He admits that he had no interest in art before he applied to Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Art, a magnet school in West Palm Beach considered to be one of the country’s top public art high schools. Diaz applied to Dreyfoos because he overheard his teacher encouraging a classmate to look into the high school. When it came time to choose his options for high school placement, Diaz remembered the name and selected the school as one of his choices.
As Diaz approached high school graduation 2005, his immigration status appeared as an obstacle to his future hopes. “My status was real clear to me when it came to applying to college,” said Diaz. “I realized it was like applying to a job in that I needed a Social Security number for financial aid and I didn’t have one.”
When teachers at the school became aware of his immigration status, they called in immigration lawyers for him and two other students to advise them on the law. After learning about his options, Diaz realized that he could go to college if he applied to schools like Cooper Union and School of Visual Arts, both in New York City, that offered generous or full scholarships. With free tuition, Diaz would not be required to apply for financial aid, and therefore also not required to produce documentation papers for a Social Security number. In February of 2005, he received a letter that he was accepted to Cooper Union.
Diaz knows that he is lucky for the opportunities he’s had and is grateful for the education he received. “Right now, I feel a great burden having received this education,” Diaz said. “I feel like I have to give back and help share the knowledge passed to me.”
He wants to work with young people like himself and hopes to work as a public school teacher, but without legal status that’s not possible. For the last three months, Diaz has paid the rent on his small Sunset Park room by working odd jobs and freelance gigs, but he’s knows the work is not permanent and he’s unsure of his next step.
There are few options left for Diaz. His immigration status prevents him from working in this country legally and he feels like he’s come to an impasse. He knows that to be a teacher he’ll need a master’s degree and he will most likely apply to graduate school, but without a full scholarship it is unlikely he will be able to afford more schooling. He’s thought about asking one of his uncles to sponsor him for citizenship, but the chances he’ll qualify are slim and he fears that if he enters the system he might be detained.
“Because of my nationality, because of the way I came in to the U.S., it leaves me at odds with immigration,” Diaz explained. “There are not very many options.”
Diaz is aware of the DREAM Act, but is skeptical that it provides any real option for him. “Your citizenship is not guaranteed,” Diaz said. “I can imagine people applying for residency and a business owner will have a greater chance of citizenship than an artist. They’re not going to grant citizenship to everyone, they have to keep tabs on who they let in.”
The one option that seems most realistic to is a return back to Colombia, but that has its own challenges. The years away from Colombia have alienated Diaz from the family he left. Diaz admits that he doesn’t feel culturally connected to his birthplace. “It’s hard for me to identify with any kind of cultural customs,” Diaz said. “Because I have not been there, I don’t really know them.”
Leaving the country would also jeopardize Diaz’s chances for citizenship if he wanted to return. Under current immigration law, Diaz would be barred from applying for a return visa to the U.S. for 10 years and disqualified for citizenship through the DREAM Act.
Diaz tries to remain optimistic about his situation. He admits to being scared about the idea returning to Colombia because he would have to start his life over again, but he also thinks it offers new opportunities. “Here I’ve always felt placeless,” Diaz said of his life in the U.S. “There may be more culturally for me in Colombia. I don’t know.”
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