The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Lakeland plans DACA discussion
The Hispanic Program at Lakeland Community College plans to present a panel discussion at noon, Oct. 30, on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
“There are currently 23 students at Lakeland Community College who identify themselves as DACA students,” an online posting for the event reads. “This discussion will focus on the impact the proposed legislative action will have on them, the history of DACA and a few of the students’ stories.”
Lakeland Hispanic Program Coordinator Lissette Piepenburg in an Oct. 26 email exchange explained the program seeks to explain what DACA is, the requirements for applying and will
include a presentation by three Lakeland DACA students, Dworken & Bernstein attorney Kim Alabasi and a question-andanswer session with the presenters.
“We will show a video from the Immigration office,” Piepenburg writes. “Students will give their stories about when they arrived in the US and when they found out that they were not legal residents in the US even though they live and study here and feel American.”
The three students involved in the presentation include Patricia Mendez Escamilla, a criminal justice major, accounting student Juan Guitierrez Perez and Alicia Monsalvo, who studies respiratory therapy at Lakeland, the event flier reads.
Piepenburg said the reasons behind the event are many.
“As a Hispanic Program coordinator I have students who are DACA eligible, they are concerned about their situation being in limbo and at the mercy of the policy makers,” she writes. “There are a lot of myths about DACA students and also there is lack of knowledge in the general public about DACA. Professors at Lakeland also have students who are DACA students and want to support them. There is opportunity for the business of education which is ultimately our business at Lakeland. Also, we want to bring non-partisan information to the staff, faculty study body and the community.”
She added that she hopes those in attendance take an “understanding of the situation that DACA students are in (and) clarification about the myths that exist” away from the program Oct. 30.
Piepenburg also said many of the DACA-affected students at Lakeland have been raised in the U.S. and, therefore, know very little about Latin America.
“Students do not know Mexico. All they know is the life in the U.S.,” she writes. “Some of them speak little Spanish. They know the American culture more than the culture of their parents.”
For further information, contact Denise Timms at Lakeland Community College at 440-525-7323 or dtimms@lakelandcc.edu.