Local Dream centers help close the gaps as immigration policy flounders

Gilberto Ramirez’s goal has always been to help his parents.

Born in Indaparateo, in the Mexican state of Michoacan, Ramirez arrived in the U.S. with his family when he was about 3 years old.

“That was my dream, being able to retire them and pay off the house so that way they don't have to stress about it,” he said.

But helping his family and realizing his own goals were intertwined.

Raised in Napa, Ramirez graduated from UC Berkeley in December 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Chicanx Latinx studies.

He naturalized to the U.S. a few years ago; before that, he was a permanent resident.

He remembers that navigating school without citizenship wasn’t always easy.

When he got to Napa Valley College, he helped reignite a group created to support people without U.S. citizenship who arrived to this country when they were children.

The group, The Napa Valley Dream Team, would help him achieve his college goals and provide support at a time when anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric was rampant during the Trump administration.

Ramirez, now 27, would later return home to lead a new iteration of the group, the Napa Valley College Dream Center.

Dream Centers are now being created in schools across California — thanks to Assembly Bill 278 that was passed in October. It helps establish resource centers in high schools to help undocumented students navigate school systems and achieve their education goals.

The centers are already common in four- and two-year colleges, such as Napa Valley College, where Ramirez now works.

They were created to, among other things, help students without citizenship apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Now they focus on more wraparound services for students and their family members without legal authorization to live or work in the U.S.

Dream Centers provide resources for the “undocu-DACA” student community. Students can find information about scholarships, internships, financial aid, legal services or mental health services.

But they’re also a place where students can store their lunch in a refrigerator, have free access to a printer, get help with homework and resumes or hang out in a non-judgmental safe space and meet other students.

“A lot of our students tend to go home afterwards, after their classes” so the Dream center promotes a space to organize and meet different students or peers, Ramirez said.

The center partners with other efforts, like the Umoja Program, because “undocumented students aren't just Latinx,” he added.

The resource centers have become more important now that the Southern District federal court in Texas issued a decision regarding DACA. The program can’t accept new applicants but people who received their DACA status prior to July 16, 2021, can continue to apply to renew their status.

Centering dreams

Mariana Martinez is the director of the College Assistance Migrant Program and formerly the undocumented liaison for the Mendocino College Dream Center.

She said DACA qualifications were hard to meet. Only a small percentage of the national immigrant population ― about 580,000 people ― qualifies and receives benefits such as a work permit in the nation, according to KFF, an independent policy think tank.

There are about 45 million immigrants in the U.S., according to the Congressional Budget Office. About 11,250,000 people, or one-quarter, lack proper documentation or legal authorization to live and work in the country. Of those, only 580,000 are DACA recipients, and 28% live in California.

The Mendocino Dream Center helps students reapply for their DACA renewal, but it also provides legal help for undocumented students and their families. Centers often partner with CHIRLA to provide legal help with individual cases.

Martinez said she serves about 50 to 60 students each semester. She helped twice as many students before the pandemic.

Dream centers are often tied to state funding, she said, and their existence is justified through enrollment numbers. If the centers were to lose funding, students and families are at risk of losing a lifeline during a time when the hope for a stable future in the U.S. is fading.

Now that fewer students are DACA recipients and state budget concerns loom, she’s gearing up to help centers serve students just like they did in pre-DACA times.

“It's wild because I really do not know how many institutions are preparing. And I know that for us, it's going to take a minute to re-shift back because it's taken us a minute to shift into understanding life with DACA-Undocu, but not like, post-DACA,” she said.

But with time, Martinez and other centers are buttressed with post-DACA wins, like AB 540 ― which allows undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition ― state financial aid and expanded health care for all California residents.

Work to be done

Napa Valley College’s Dream Center isn’t permanent. And sometimes it’s hard to know if it will stick around or not. The key to helping “undocu-DACA” students navigate schools is continuity, trust and investment.

The Napa Valley Dream Center does “a little bit of everything,” said Ramirez, but he added, “I wish we could do so much more if we had like, a little bit more support with our administrators.”

Ramirez’s position is a yearly contract, part-time and temporary. He’ll be looking for a second job to supplement his own income next year.

A lot of the students Ramirez helps at the center also work multiple jobs. Every year fewer students possess DACA-provided work permits. So their options are limited.

The state created a system to help undocumented students pay in-state tuition, with AB 540, a form that verifies a student attended a California high school for at least three years. For students with undocumented status, it means saving thousands of dollars each semester.

California also created a way for undocumented students to access state financial aid. But, like many students, people have to get creative to pay for their tuition in one of the most expensive states in the country.

Xochitl Gallardo just finished her first semester at Sonoma State University. She’s from the San Fernando Valley and spoke with The Press Democrat shortly after taking a 16-hour bus ride from Rohnert Park to Reseda in Los Angeles.

Gallardo, 18, wanted to attend school in Northern California and got into the four schools she applied to. She chose Sonoma because it was close to a metropolitan area and fit within her budget.

Finding ways to afford things is hard when students don’t have work permits. Gallardo, who is undocumented and from a mixed status family, says finding enough money to afford basic necessities is a struggle.

Despite working an internship, she said, “it is not enough help as an undocumented student who can't work outside of campus or inside of campus because I don't have papers.”

At Sonoma State University’s Dream Center, one of the things Alma Sanchez-Carreno does is help students find ways to supplement their income. That’s where Gallardo is an intern.

“We have many students who don't have a work permit, so they have a bigger challenge in finding those paid opportunities,” said Sanchez-Carreno, who has been the Dream Center coordinator at the university since 2021.

Before coming to Sonoma State, Gallardo participated in Summer Bridge and she’s currently an Educational Opportunity Program and TRIO student. She’s got a lot of support, but Gallardo still hustles to close the gaps.

Thankfully, she said, she has friends who have helped her with a little bottle of shampoo, conditioner, body wash and sometimes pads and tampons.

In the North Bay, the cost of living outpaces even the recent Sonoma County minimum wage increase to $18.10 per hour. According to The Insight Center’s 2021 report, the Cost of Being Californian, a single adult in Sonoma County needs to make an annual salary of $38,184 in order to survive. A person working 40 hours a week and earning $18.10 falls short — earning $37,648 per year.

In Napa County, a person needs to earn more to survive, $38,905, according to the Insight Center.

Sanchez-Carreno helps students sort through fellowships, stipends and grants — but also business creation.

“Entrepreneurship has been kind of a big thing in the Docu community. Because here in California, undocumented people can start their own business,” she said.

Sonoma State’s Dream Center recently invited Denae Joseph, an undocu-advocate, to teach a workshop on how to start a business.

Sanchez-Carreno said after the program one student told her, “I really liked the workshop. And now I want to start a business with crochet.”

Entrepreneurship is a strong tradition in Latino communities. According to the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, nationally, Latinos start businesses at twice the rate of their white counterparts. And Latinas are starting businesses at higher rates than men.

Gallardo is planning to major in business but she doesn’t like to make plans too far into the future. “As a first-generation, it’s hard because I don’t know what to expect,” she said.

One thing she said she’d like to do is help immigrant families and students.

Dream centers are trying to help shore up the gap between people’s potential and the barriers that keep them from achieving it.

In February 2024, Sonoma State's Dream Center and the Santa Rosa Junior College Undocu-Immigrant-Dream Center will co-host the Reach Your Dreams Conference.

The second annual conference will take place Feb. 23 on the Sonoma State campus in Rohnert Park and help high school and community college students.

There, they’ll learn about “financial aid, learn about admissions, requirements, scholarships, and they're also going to get to hear current students and alumni (tell) their stories of how they were able to go to college and what they're doing now, once they've graduated,” Sanchez-Carreno said.

School counselors will also receive training on how to be “undocu-advocates,” something Ramirez, Martinez and Sanchez-Carreno all said are important.

By being able to provide information that is relevant to documented and undocumented students in their college journey, students can get the information they need without having to self-disclose their immigration status, Sanchez-Carreno said.

“There's a lot of undocumented students in high school, but those that make it to college, it's just an even smaller number. And then an even smaller number of those who are in college and are receiving financial aid,” she said. “So there's still a lot of work that needs to be done.”

Gallardo recognizes the hardship her parents endured to bring her to the U.S. so she could get a college degree. And like countless first-generation kids, she hopes to give back to her family and community as she succeeds.

But right now, she’s happy to be home for the holidays — spending time with family and enjoying her mom’s pozole and verdes y raja tamales.

Kathryn Styer Martínez is a reporting intern for the Press Democrat. She can be reached at kathryn.styermartinez@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5337.