There is a great article on Wired magazine published on the April 2005 issue. The article is entitled La Vida Robot and it is about four high school students from the wrong side of the west side of Phoenix, AZ. The four students are Mexican, undocumented, immigrants, and extremely smart. The four students and two faculty members from Carl Hayden Community High School formed an engineering team and entered into the third annual Marine Advanced Technology Remotely Operated Vehicle Competition sponsored by NASA and the U.S. Navy. The students, Lorenzo, Cristian, Oscar, and Luis, designed and developed a robot that was to go through a specially designed underwater obstacle course. These four students with their faculty advisors decided to enter the college level Explorer class instead of the beginner Ranger class not because they expected to win but because they expected to lose. They figured that it was better to lose at the advance level than to lose at the beginner level.
What is amazing about this story are the obstacles that the team overcame prior to the actual competition. The team's school didn't even have a swimming pool for them to test the underwater robot. The team's budget was under one thousand dollars. And don't forget that these Mexican kids from the desert entered in the advance level of the competition. The most notable competition was MIT, with a team of twelve students that included software engineers and oceanographers and had a budget over ten thousand dollars. Incredible as it sounds, the high school team from Phoenix, AZ went on to sweep the competition and beat out the MIT team.
But if this sounds like a movie ending, you may be thinking of Stan By Me, well all I can say is that West Phoenix is a long way from Hollywood. Since all the students are immigrants, and like Pilgrims standing on Plymouth Rock without proper documentation, they will most likely not be able to attend college. As immigrants their tuition would be that of out of state students, which is up to tree times as high as in state tuition. As undocumented they are not be able to receive any type of government funding. Even though these students don't have a piece of paper stating the residency, they are common law residence having lived in the United States for an average of over 11 years. They graduated from middle school here in the United States, and will have an American high school diploma. These students are more American than Mexican, having lived in the United States for over half of their lives.
The robotic team from Carl Hayden Community High School proved themselves by wining the competition, but may not have the opportunity to prove themselves in college. Here is an example of the American Dream denied. These students are not usurpers of the American Dream, they just want to share it along with all of us. By helping students like Lorenzo, Cristian, Oscar, and Luis get into college we not only help them but ultimately the economic well being of the United States. Knowledge has no border, and education is a better investment than any stock or bond.
If Phoenix, AZ were located in California or in Texas, there would have been more opportunities for the engineering team from Carl Hayden Community High School. In California, thanks to the Assembly Bill (AB) 540, immigrant students that have had attend at least 3 years of in a California high school, that are enrolled in a California Community College, California State University, or a University of California, and that singed a pledge with the university to apply for legal residency as soon as the student becomes eligible will can pay at in state tuition prices. In Texas, thanks to the Texas House Bill 1403, immigrant students can pay in state tuition once they have meet the same condition required by AB 540 in California. But unfortunately, Arizona has no such bill as in California or Texas.
At the national level, a bill has been introduced to congress entitled the DREAM Act that is intended to alleviate the tuition costs of immigrant students by allowing them to pay in state tuition after meeting certain requirements. Please contact your representative and express your support to the DREAM Act.