TheDream.US is the nation’s largest college and career success program for undocumented immigrant youth. This episode of Policy Outsider features an interview with TheDream.US Co-Founder Don Graham, President and CEO Gaby Pacheco, and Chief Operating Officer Hyein Lee. In the recorded conversation, the TheDream.US team is interviewed by the Institute on Immigrant Integration Research and Policy’s Executive Director Dina Refki and Immigrant Integration Fellow Adriana Mintarsih.
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Joel Tirado 00:00
Welcome to Policy Outsider presented by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. I’m Joel Tirado. The dream.us is the nation’s largest college and career success program for undocumented immigrant youth. This episode of policy outsider will feature an interview with the dream.us co founder Don Graham, President and CEO, Gaby Pacheco and Chief Operating Officer, Hyein Lee. In the recorded conversation, the dream.us team is interviewed by the Institute on immigrant integration research and policy’s Executive Director Dina Refki and immigrant integration fellow, Adriana Mintarsih. That conversation is up next.
Adriana Mintarsih 01:04
Hello. I’m Adriana mintarsih, and today we’re honored to host a very special conversation that reflects a decade of impact, resilience and hope. Our episode today features the team behind the dream us the nation’s largest College Access and Success program for undocumented immigrant youth, also known as dreamers, to walk us through this powerful story. I’m joined by three incredible guests, Donald Graham, Gaby Pacheco and Hyein Lee. Let’s begin by hearing for Don from Don Graham about the founding journey of the dream us.
Don Graham 01:40
Adriana, thank you. I’m here with my dear friends, Gaby Pacheco, who’s literally the first person hired by the dream.us, and Hyein Lee, who joined us after representing what our largest partner, CUNY. She was working for CUNY dealing with the dream.us and we were lucky enough to hire her away. So I’m I’m a retired businessman from Washington, DC. I spent much of my career working in scholarship programs for Washington DC public and charter school students, and as I did that, I learned that there was one group of students we didn’t seem to be able to help. And I didn’t understand why these were the children of undocumented immigrants, the Dreamers. And starting about 2001 when the DREAM Act was introduced in the US Congress still not passed, the subject began to get more and more attention. Finally, I met some dreamers, and then I understood all you have to do is talk to one or some of these students who are so eloquent in describing their situation. They, first of all, our average student came to the United States at the age of four. So they not only went to high school in the United States, the average student went to first grade in the United States, and when they get to their senior year of high school, the college counselor comes and tells all the other students that they’ll get a Pell Grant because it’s all income school. They’ll get a they’ll get all the loans they want from the US government. Likely, they will get a state grant to go to college, and they may be eligible for other scholarships. The dreamer, the undocumented student, is not eligible for any of that, not $1 they cannot borrow $1 from the US government, and there’s nobody else lending to college students. Gab yourself was in this situation as a student, but we started the dream.us in 2013 with the and Gaby and I talked, and we believed at the time that we would be in business a very short time, because Congress had just passed a comprehensive immigration bill that would have relieved many of the problems of these students. The Senate had passed such a bill, the house never did. President Obama had created a wonderful program called DACA, which did not give these students any help, didn’t give them any money, but made their situation somewhat easier. So we started. It’s 11 years later, we’ve sent 11,000 students to college after a lifetime of working with low income students. These are the most motivated students I have ever met, they have so far a 76% graduation rate from four year colleges, which is much higher than the average student in the United States, including all the rich kids, and they do better academically than the average Student. Their retention rates, and we send them to 80 different colleges, and their retention rates in every college are higher than that of the college as a whole, but they are bitterly discriminated against all across the United States. I mentioned their ineligibility for grants in many states, they’re not. Eligible for driver’s licenses. There’s still more than a dozen states where they’re not eligible for in state tuition, which is just shocking. In fact, the state of Florida without a hearing, without hearing any public sentiment, and I’m pretty sure the public would have opposed this bill has taken away in state tuition from undocumented students Florida had given it to them into 2013 under the sponsorship of Republicans, of Governor Rick Scott and of the woman who’s now the lieutenant governor, it took it away, took away in state tuition, forced them to pay out of state tuition, including students who’d already been enrolled in college for two or three years. I mean, they had three quarters of the way to a college degree, and now they’re forced to pay out of state tuition. In Florida, out of state tuition is four times in state tuition. Every one of their high school classmates is paying in state tuition and getting aid to do it, and they’re being forced to pay much more. The situation of these students is quite, quite unfair, and that’s only the beginning, but that’s why we started the dream.us and that’s why we’re very proud to have helped the student we
Adriana Mintarsih 06:10
have. So how did your personal values and background help shape the mission of dream.us and where do you still see your influence in today’s work? Well,
Don Graham 06:18
I’ve all my life, I’ve cared about the education of low income students, and I found that helping students get to college and get a degree in college is one of the best things anybody who cares about their community can do. But that’s me. Gaby’s Gaby’s connection to the subject was very different, and we one thing about our work, Adriana, among those who work at the dream.us which is only 1213, people, and among those who support us, there is such a unity of values. We all care about helping all the students we can. We want to, you know, we want to get them to college, and we want to get them through college, I should say they want that desperately. They write us and say thank you for the scholarship, and when they graduate, they express their gratitude in a very moving way. We are thrilled to help them.
Dina Refki 07:15
Don if you can elaborate on how does dream us help students in? What ways do they help them deconstruct and dismantle those barriers that you talk about that would be very helpful.
Don Graham 07:27
Thank you, Dina, that is very helpful, and I’m silly not to have done that. So from the beginning, our program could not have been simpler with all the obstacles these students face, there are many, much more elaborate programs trying to help college students. What we do is give them scholarships equal to a maximum of $8,250 a year for up to four years, and then they get a stipend, not an adequate amount, but $1,500 to help them with the cost of books, transportation, and all the other things the college student needs. We expect the dreamer to live at home and eat at home. There’s a small additional program where we send a few students to live at a university, but that’s another story. So what what the dreamers have always made clear to us is they’d love to have counselors. They’d love to have supports of different kinds, but what they really need is money to pay for tuition, and they will do the rest. And I must say, the partner colleges do a magnificent job of helping them. So that’s what we that’s what we try to do. I should add one thing that I absolutely speak for all three of us. I am a very old fashioned American and very proud of this country. I love this country. I served in the US armed forces, although, as I always say, it wasn’t my idea. I was drafted, and I was a soldier for two years. I was sent to Vietnam for a year, where I performed with a complete lack of distinction, but, but I also spent a year and a half as a DC police officer. So I am a law enforcement person. I believe our laws should be enforced, but I think our laws should not but this is not a cruel country. I grew up at a time when our country, often by law, treated black people in parts of the country, sometimes in all of the country, very, very cruelly. We became aware that, gradually, people became aware that this was the case, and they didn’t make everything better, but they improved it, they changed it, they helped it. I think if people understood the situation of the dreamers, they would want to help, and the polls reflect that. But I think this country, in the long run, will want to help these students, and I think these students will be an enormous help to the
Dina Refki 09:40
country. And Don we can’t agree more, really, these values of compassion, empathy and and fairness that you refer to are really authentic American values that will eventually conquer and and really overcome any dark shadows of of the past or the present. Thank you.
Adriana Mintarsih 10:00
Them? Yeah, I’m really impressed by what you have done so far with the dream.us. I’m curious, what were some of the early hurdles in getting the program off the ground? Were there specific milestones that felt like breakthrough moments?
Don Graham 10:14
Well, we started. We didn’t have any money, so that was a hurdle. But we we knew. Thank goodness. The first person I hired was Gaby. And Gaby had graduated through extraordinary effort from Miami Dade College in Florida. She told me all about Miami Dade and its extraordinary president. She told me how hard it had been for her to get in there because, again, they had no in state tuition at the time. And she told me what the tuition was, and I couldn’t believe it. It’s still $3,000 a year for and this is not a two year college in the normal sense. It started as a community college, but it now awards 44 year degrees. So you could get a bachelor’s degree at several universities in Florida for $3,000 a year. I said, Where Are there any more like that? Well, there weren’t any, but we went looking for relatively low cost, relatively good quality colleges. Our students were very clear what they wanted. They wanted a degree for a purpose. What was the purpose? They wanted to go to work, they wanted to help their family, they wanted to help their community, they wanted to help the country. And so we found CUNY, where the tuition is $7,250 a year. Praise CUNY. We love the City University of New York. Adriana, you told me you’re studying for you’re studying at the State University of New York at Albany. That is also one of our partners, as are two other SUNY campuses. We have partners in Texas, in Tennessee. Interestingly, in in 20 different states, we send kids to colleges of this type, and we pay, we negotiate agreement with the University that they’ll accept 8002 50 a year, and that’ll satisfy tuition and fees. Gaby, am I leaving anything out there? Oh, that’s right on,
Adriana Mintarsih 12:03
yep. So as a leader, what key lessons have you learned through this journey that you think are relevant to others building mission driven organizations like the.us
Don Graham 12:14
Adriana, the simplest way I can answer that question is to ask Gaby Pacheco to tell you her story as she told it to me in september 2013 when she and I partnered on starting the dream.us. Gaby, go back to your senior year in high school and explain your own personal story.
Gaby Pacheco 12:35
Sure. So really quickly, I came to the US as a child. I was eight years old, and I didn’t quite understand that I had moved from one country to another. I thought Ecuador was the whole entire world. And my two older sisters, when it was time for them to go to college, they were told that, because they didn’t have the right kind of papers, they couldn’t be admitted to this the community college. And so I was really, really afraid of what would happen to me, but I worked really hard. I was in every club and organization. I was taking all AP courses. Was a really good student, part of the JROTC program, and was waiting for my name to be called down by the college counselor to go talk to her about this, and when I shared my situation, she told me, Look, you cannot go to college. Do not apply anywhere. You’re going to put yourself and your family in a bad, you know, predicament. And hearing that was just so awful. But at the same time, I’m a bit stubborn, and I said to myself, I’m going to prove her wrong, and I’m going to find a way to go to college. And so I knocked on so many doors, and did not give up every single time somebody said No, I said, Thank you, and moved on. I said, this is not the right person. This is not the right door, until I finally was admitted to the same institution that had denied entrance and to the college to my sister. So really, that was my opening into the realization that there’s a lot, there was a lot of misinformation, that my college counselor, with good intentions, wanted to protect me, my family, but was giving me wrong information, and that there was a way to go to college, but just people did not quite know that way. And 20 some years later, you know, I get the great privilege to see 1000s of students be able to go to college and get an education.
Adriana Mintarsih 14:27
I see what a powerful story
Don Graham 14:29
go on and then say what you did when you graduated from college, which is also a rather extraordinary story.
Gaby Pacheco 14:36
Well, during that time, when I graduated, I was getting offered jobs to work. I went to school to be a special education teacher, something that we know teachers are in high demand, but particularly people who I was very talented. I worked with with children with with autism, Down Syndrome and different abilities, and I. Even the superintendents of school told me, I want to hire you. I had principals who were wanting to figure out how to get me in there, but because of my status, I couldn’t be hired. But I didn’t let that deter me, and I felt that it was really important for the country and people and others to hear about our stories. And so in 2009 myself and and three other friends started talking about doing a walk from Miami to Washington, DC, and on January one of 2010 we set off on foot to to for four months to bring attention to this issue, to talk to President Obama, to ask President Obama and our Congress to pass legislation and to give Deferred Action, which eventually, two years later, it’s what we know as stock. And it really started with college students on campus saying, you know, we are Americans. We love this country. We just want an opportunity and a chance to be able to contribute and be part of the communities and belong the way we know we belong.
Don Graham 15:59
And you got Adriana, you see why I suggested Gaby tell this story. I’m not going to say that Gaby is a typical dreamer, but I did say earlier that I thought the dreamers, all of them, were the most motivated group that I had ever seen in a lifetime. I know wonderfully motivated students from DC, but as a group, the whole bunch of them, the dreamers, are so motivated you get them in college, it takes dynamite to get them out. And they are, and Gaby is a good representative of that. Yeah,
Adriana Mintarsih 16:33
definitely. And do you have anything, any other recent success stories that dream, the dream.us, that have been most meaningful to you and how they reflect the organization’s mission and values?
Don Graham 16:46
Well, the most important thing I can tell you about success stories is that in the first six years of this program, immigration law is complicated, and none of the three of us is a lawyer, so I’m an I consider Gaby an immigration expert. I’m not, but in the first six years of this program, all our students had DACA, and that one of the things DACA didn’t bring you any money, but it did give you the chance. It did give you a government work permit. So you could work for the Rockefeller Institute, you could work for Google, you could work for Starbucks, you could work for any company or organization in the United States. And when so haine, among other things, has been in charge of data. And after when those students, those first six years of students, that graduated. We surveyed them, more than half of them responded to our survey, and 94% of them had full time jobs, were in graduate school within six months of graduation. That’s, that’s, those are success stories.
Adriana Mintarsih 17:56
Definitely, since you have already invited Hyein to the discussion, I would like to ask Hyein this question, how do you personally evaluate the success of the dream? Dot the US initiatives and what metrics or stories resonate most with you when you reflect on the impact for students?
Hyein Lee 18:12
Thank you. Adriana, well, we proudly say that we collect any and all data from our scholars from the moment they accept our scholarship award and the story and the journey doesn’t end after they graduate. As Don mentioned, we’re very, very meticulous and intentional about creating a safe space for dreamers and a really strong community that our scholars feel a part of. And it’s because of that trust that we’ve built over the years that they remain connected to us even after they graduate. So our survey has been really, really pivotal and critical to understanding long term outcomes of our graduates. And really the narrative is rooted in two things. One is we have a really profound, strong narrative of social mobility, which really tells the story of what a college degree, and especially work authorization for those with DACA, with temporary protected status that have an employment based social security number, what these types of privileges can provide for dreamers. And so we have incredible numbers that show Don spoke about the high employment rates upon graduation, but we can also tell where they’re working and what they’re doing and what their long term employment outcomes are. And so we know that our top industries of employment, for example, are business, health care and education, and we have an incredibly diverse and powerful workforce that are filling jobs that are in high need in this country. So we always share how our number one major that’s been pursued by our scholars is nursing. We have many nurses in our systems. We have a lot of K through 12 public educators that are so motivated to give back to their communities and teach the next generation of students and to Gaby’s story let other students know who are once in their position, that they too can continue with their college dreams and their college education. But ultimately, it’s not just about the individual student. What we’re really finding is that there are so many ripple effects to our students getting their college education and then finding gainful employment. In it’s really uplifting their families, right? We’re seeing that two out of three of our alumni are out earning their parents combined within that same six to nine month period. Outside of graduation, we’re seeing that one in 10 are able to buy their own homes. They’re becoming homeowners, right? And then, if we look a couple years out, you know, many of them are becoming parents. They’re having children of their own, their primary providers for their families, and they’re so proud to always tell us, you know, my child will no longer be a first generation college student. My child will be now a second generation college student. And they say it with so much pride. And so we have these incredible narratives that we’re telling of the successes of not just students performing, outperforming their peers in college when it comes to academic performance, but it’s really about those long term impacts, about the improvement of the quality of life, but also their contributions to their communities, to their families and our country.
Don Graham 20:50
Adriana, I’d like to raise one subject, if it’s okay with you. The Rockefeller Institute, I believe, is in New York State, and Payne mentioned that nursing is very much on the minds of our students. It’s our largest major, and 1000s of our graduates are registered nurses, and others work elsewhere, elsewhere in the healthcare profession. New York State is considering legislation, and I pray that it will pass. This gets a little complicated. I mentioned that for our first six years, our students had this wonderful status created by President Obama, called DACA. A federal judge in Texas outlawed applications for DACA some years ago, with the result that across New York State, no high school students have DACA today. That means that no matter if they no matter when they came here, if they were four years old, like our average scholar, or one year old, they cannot get a work permit to work for a hospital, say, or an employer as an employee, they are fully undocumented, as we describe them. Does that mean they can earn no money? No they can start their own business in New York State and in every other state, they can work as a consultant or a contractor for a company. But under current New York state law, unless the New York State legislature passes a law to overcome this, they can’t take the nursing they can’t pass the Nursing exam. They cannot take the state Nursing exam, or the State Teachers exam, or other state licensure exams. The legislature must pass a law permitting that, as 10 or 11 other states have California’s passed such a law, even New Jersey has passed such a law. So we think that New York can pass one too. It’s in front of the legislature. Has the support of almost everybody, every leader in the legislature, and we really hope the New York State Legislature joins other states in passing the empire state licensure bill.
Dina Refki 22:41
Thank you so much. Yes, this is on our radar, and we really hope the legislature will take that on. It’s a huge issue here in New York. I wanted to follow up with Hyein on a question on recruitment of the students to your scholarships. Do they have to apply to your to that scholarship. And do you have to have an agreement with the University? That is they are currently enrolled in?
Hyein Lee 23:11
Yes. So all of our scholars apply to our to our scholarship program. Our application opens rain or shine November, 1 of every year, and for the national scholarship, which would be this scholarship that New York students are eligible for. The scholarship, usually, application round closes at the end of February of each year, so students both need to apply to our scholarship program as well as one of our close to 80 partner colleges across the country that they would then intend to enroll in. So if they are a CUNY or SUNY scholar looking to apply for the scholarship, they would also have to apply for general admissions to the campus that they’re looking to enroll in. And we only work with select partner institutions. We keep mentioning the close to 80 partner institutions at 20 states across the country, in Washington, DC, and we find partners strategically who already have demonstrated a commitment to serving dreamers and or are interested in deepening a relationship with us to better serve not just our scholarship recipients, but also undocumented students on campus. And part of that is a model we have called the partner college model, where we ask each of our campuses to dedicate a team of campus staff who will support and provide the wraparound supports that our scholars need to ensure their college and career success.
Adriana Mintarsih 24:21
Thank you. Thank you. So we already discussed a little bit about challenges that we are still facing right now. So given the evolving political and social landscape, how do you adapt strategy to continue supporting undocumented, undocumented students effectively, and what have been the most significant challenges? In addition to what you have mentioned earlier,
Don Graham 24:40
everyone knows what the challenges dreamers face today are, because they’re in the headlines. Undocumented people are targets of the Trump administration. However, President Trump himself has repeatedly said words in praise of the dreamers, of undocumented students. He said it recently. On meet the press, and said in another interview that he admired those students and hoped he could reach an agreement with Democrats to, as he put it, work out their situation. We would love to see that. But everyone knows that immigrants right now, undocumented immigrants right now, are being treated as if they weren’t people now, two things that President Trump says we need a secure border with Mexico. I couldn’t agree more. I do not know one. I don’t understand what is required to create a secure border. I don’t know anything about the border, but I agree with him that we need one second. He said we need to deport people who are murderers, gang leaders, drug dealers, and I couldn’t agree more with that, we make no defense of such people. Of course, we need to deport terrible people who come to this country. We don’t think there are that many, but every single one of them should be sent back where they came from. But in addition to them, there are remarks. There are good people here who should not be caught up in disapproval of what’s going on in the Mexican border, or of the people President Trump condemns. So we’re going to work as hard as we can to help those people. One thing we know, they still want to go to college and our this year, 2025 pains that our our application round opens on November one every student who applied knew who was going to be president, and knew what President Trump’s policies were going to be if they took more than a month to apply. And we had more applications this year than we had last year. Yeah,
Gaby Pacheco 26:32
if I can add, you know, we’re having to pivot often and quickly, but our North start never changes, and we are supporting, and will continue to support first generation immigrant students with real opportunities, which we know a college education provides. The biggest challenge, I would say, right now, is the unpredictability of the immigration policies and how quickly it’s kind of like everyday changing, and the attacks that we see also on higher education, but one of the things that the dream that us, and I’m really proud of this and and to get to work alongside haine and our team, but we need all these unpredictabilities with clarity. We do it in collaboration with our partner colleges, and we do it with courage. We’re not going to wait for change. We’re building it, and we’re going to continue to support our students, and we want our students to know that.
Adriana Mintarsih 27:25
So we’ve talked about the challenges. Now. What about the greatest opportunities from the dream.us over the next five to 10 years, and maybe innovative strategies or ideas that you are most excited to explore?
Don Graham 27:38
We announced the formation of the dream.us. 11 years and one month ago, March 4, 2014 and what all of us had on that occasion was we think offering these students college scholarships will be good for the dreamers, but it will also be good for the rest of us. And we think we’ve proven that we think 1000s of nurses, 1000s of teachers, and not just any nurses, and not just any teachers, devoted, admirable, motivated people. If employers met these people, they would knock down walls to hire them. They are the they they will work as hard as employees as they have as students. This. These are wonderful young people. I’m not saying every single one, but a but on as a group, they are extraordinary. We are honored to serve them, and we really believe that their success, and they will be successful, will be very, very good for this country.
Adriana Mintarsih 28:39
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And what about ensuring the dream.us to remain deeply connected with the communities it serves. What role do personal relationships play in fostering this connections?
Don Graham 28:52
We make new personal relationships every year. We we work with different colleges. We work with different students, we get to know different students very well. One thing you should know, and one thing the public should know, when I heard about the situation of the dreamers, the first thing I thought to myself is, when Americans learn about this, they’re going to want it to change. And for tenure, for all the time we’ve been doing this. The public in polls makes clear that it feels students who are people of good character have never committed a crime. You had to prove that in order to get the DACA status who came to the United States as young children. Again, our average student came here as a four year old. A four year old in law cannot commit a crime. Four year old doesn’t have a mind. If you took a four year old in front of a judge and said, Judge, this child committed a crime, the judge would throw the policeman out of court if he did that, because a four year old can’t be accused of a law violation. Yeah, and but immigration, accusations of illegal immigration, which is not a crime but a civil violation, never go away. And your listeners, Adriana, should understand what you understand that if you come here as a four year old or a one year old or a four week old, you can never change your status. We do not give anyone away to become a citizen. They cannot pay a fine. They cannot, for instance, join the army. The army does pretty soldiers, but undocumented kids can’t join the army. No matter what your merit, you can’t. It doesn’t permit you to become a citizen. We have two Rhodes Scholars, one Rhodes scholarships while undocumented, and they’re still undocumented.
Adriana Mintarsih 30:43
Gaby and Hyein,
Hyein Lee 30:46
you know, we work at scale. We have in any given year, for example, this year, we have 4200 scholars who are actively enrolled in campuses across the country. And for us, programmatically, it’s really important, because we, as a small team of 13, as we’ve mentioned, we cannot establish personal connections with all of our scholars and our 4000 plus alumni. But it’s a big priority for us to do it at scale, and we really want to ensure especially during these uncertain times, as Gaby was mentioning that we’re in constant contact with them, that they know that we care about them and that we stand by them. We cannot emphasize this message enough so any opportunity we have to gather scholars virtually to communicate with them on social media, where they’re oftentimes on their phone, wherever we can reach them. It’s really important for us to have that connection with them, because in this moment in time, what we really hear from our scholars is that they lack trust. They don’t know who to trust in this moment in time, they don’t know who has accurate information. And we feel very privileged and fortunate to know that they can come to us with that information and for that information. And one thing I do want to emphasize right now is we’ve been talking a lot about our students stories and how personal they are. And anytime you get a chance to meet one of our students or alumni in person, it’s really life changing. I think for all of our staff who come to this work, it’s one of the most rewarding parts of this work is really to get to interact and have those personal connections with the students we get to serve, and we have a really, really unique opportunity, which is then to share those stories at scale. So we’ve been sharing 11,000 scholars over the past 10 years. We really want to emphasize and encourage, hopefully, your listeners to check out our 10 year impact report that we’ve been pushing and sharing with all of our supporters and our community, and it has these wonderful, rich, rich stories of our alumni, what they’re doing, who they are, living their day to day lives. But we’ve also incorporated stories from their parents. If we have a teacher, for example, a public school teacher in New York City who had quotes from her student right who talks about the impact of having a teacher like one of our alumni in their classroom, helping them their colleagues. And we get to paint this story during a time where undocumented immigrants, immigrants in general, are being talked about so unfavorably. We have the antithesis of that, right? Our mission, our North Star, as Gaby mentioned, remains true that immigrants are good for this country, but they’re also human beings deserving of happy, fulfilling lives, and we believe we have that story the report is really just worth your time to check out and read. So I would also direct your attention to our tenure Impact Report. Yep,
Adriana Mintarsih 33:04
and it’s available on your website, right? Yes, that is correct. And
Dina Refki 33:08
one question that I wanted to throw out there to all of you, we talked about the this, the impact of the program on your students, and the impact of the students on the economy and and society in general. What impact does doing this work have on you, because when you do that work, really, it has an impact as well. What has been the impact of doing that work on each of you?
Don Graham 33:31
It’s the most it’s the most gratifying work I’ve ever done. I’ve been a very lucky person. I’ve done what I considered important and influential work all my life, perhaps because we know we’re pushing water uphill. We know we’re swimming against the current. Being able to help these students who need the help of those who believe in them is immensely gratifying. And do it every day. We do it. We want to do more. I mean, by there, I know I speak from my colleagues as well as myself,
Gaby Pacheco 34:05
yeah, and I would say for me, is fulfilling a promise I made myself when I got my first college schedule, and I made it, and I realized, if I made it, why not my sisters, why not my friends that I graduated high school with that also wanted to go to college, but we’re in my same situation, and so 20 some years after making that promise, for me is both an honor to be able to be in the position that I’m in, to reach back into my community, hold the hand out and support them and bringing them and lifting them up, and it’s also a responsibility that we have to each other, and the fact that if we believe in education, if we believe in the contributions that we we all can provide to our society, and that if we also understand and know that we don’t live in islands, that I am here because somebody else fought for me, then I then it’s my responsibility to ensure that. Add we also are able to provide that same opportunity, and that the door of opportunity that was open to me is also continuously open for others as well.
Hyein Lee 35:11
I don’t know if I can add much more to what has been so eloquently shared by Don and Gaby, but I do think of this quote from Billie Ching King a lot, which seems irrelevant, but she always says, pressure is a privilege. And I believe in that. You know, it’s a privilege to be working in this moment in time on this, in this very incredible work, and when so many are retreating right, withdrawing back into the show without a fear, even citizens who are not willing to speak up, I feel the pressure is a privilege. It’s a privilege to be able to speak up for our students, be that voice when it’s needed the most. And there are moments in history that that feel really pivotal, that feel very important, and again, it’s just, it’s just incredibly humbling to be a part of this work.
Dina Refki 35:54
Thank you so much. So
Adriana Mintarsih 35:57
we have heard from Gaby and also don about the photo moment in their career and personal life that led them to focus on educational equity and immigrant support. I believe we haven’t heard from you. Heng, the photo moment in your career or personal life that led you to focus on this? Sure,
Hyein Lee 36:15
so mine. I’ll make it very quick. I came here as an international student, as an f1 student for college at the age of 17, I feel as though all of us are on the same immigration journey. And it wasn’t until I went to graduate school for my doctoral degree, long, long time ago, in 2011 that I went to the City University of New York. I started adjuncting and teaching in the CUNY system, any CUNY campus, you name it, I have taught a class there, and my education really started in the classrooms in 2012 when I first started adjuncting For intro to sociology, and I would cover immigration, and I will never forget the first class I taught on undocumented immigration. I was very new green to the topic, made mistakes, and had a student stop by after that class. He hung back and gave me really direct pointers, shared his story about how he was an undocumented immigrant from China, and I was just so humbled. And he said, You know, I would really, really appreciate it if you don’t use certain terms, I want you to hear my story and really rethink the way you think about undocumented immigrants, dreamers like myself and I will never forget that moment and how that really changed my life, and how being in the CUNY system and meeting so many dreamers before I even got to the dream.us at all. Sort of fate has it right that this, this work aligns, but meeting dreamers at CUNY really did change my life, and was the connection as an international student into this, into this work,
Adriana Mintarsih 37:37
I see, thank you for sharing. So now I would like to ask if you all have advice that you would want to give to other leaders in the nonprofit or education sectors about balancing personal conviction with the practical demands of creating sustainable change.
Don Graham 37:56
No, I know such. I know so many great leaders in the educational sector, and they don’t need any advice from me. God, it’s just full of such wonderful people. Well, I can share
Gaby Pacheco 38:05
what I’ve learned and what I have seen at the dreams at us, and what makes us so successful is that we don’t lead alone, and we do our work in partnership, and we’re stronger as a team because we’re doing this with colleges and universities that are really the ones that are on the campuses, supporting the students. And this is a shout out to our scholar advisors that we call and we’ve always called the linchpin of our program. They are the liaisons that ensure that our students have their questions answered, that they understand both what are requirements for their college, but also for the scholarship and even beyond the work that we do. You know, we work with other organizations, with immigrant rights organizations, with education organizations, those that are providing services at the K through 12. It really is the collaboration that makes our work so much richer and successful. And it is because we lean on each other. We’re not experts on everything, but we do know that there are experts out there, and we seek those experts when needed. For example, MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. Tom signs right has been such a great friend to our program and to dreamers. And every time that there’s something happening on the the discussion of the legal case on DACA, we go to the source and we go to the experts and ensure that we’re providing the information that our students and our scholars need. So what, what I have learned right strategy wise, is that if we stick to our purpose, like I said before in North Star, and we do this together, we’re going to we’re just so much more stronger, and the community really reacts to that and sees right, the conviction and the trust that we’re able to build with our scholars and our colleges and. The community as a whole. Thank
Adriana Mintarsih 40:01
you, Gaby, okay, thank you so much for all your insights today. I’ve learned so much from the three of you. Thank you once again, Dawn, Gaby and Hyein for sharing stories inside dedication with us today, the work of the dream.us is a powerful reminder that we invest in undocumented students. We’re not just supporting individuals, we’re strengthening entire communities and reshaping what’s possible for the future.
Don Graham 40:28
Thank you, Adriana, we all three would like to thank you. These people are often out of sight, and they shouldn’t be. And you by you’ve been generous, you and Dina, and we’re very grateful for being able to talk about our work.
Joel Tirado 40:49
Thanks again to members of TheDream.US team, Don Graham, Gaby Pacheco, and Hyein Lee for joining the Institute on Immigrant Integration Research and Policy’s Dina Refki and Adriana Mintarsih for this overview of the important work being done to expand higher education opportunities for undocumented students. If you liked this episode, please rate, subscribe, and share. It will help others find the podcast and help us deliver the latest in public policy research. All of our episodes are available for free wherever you stream your podcasts and transcripts are available on our website. I’m Joel Tirado; until next time.
Joel Tirado 41:32
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