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Wednesday, October 2010 7B

2B The Statement // Wednesday, October 6, 2010

the
statement
Magazine Editor:
Trevor Calero
Editor in Chief.
Jacob Smilovitz
Managing Editor-
Matt Aaronson
Deputy Editor:
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The Statement is The Michigan
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every Wednesday during the
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TH EJUNKD RAWER
random student interview by will grundler

Hi, this is the Random Stu-
dent Interview, in which
we attempt to gauge the
tragedy of the human condition.
Please state your name and class
standing for the record.
I'm Molly and I'm a sophomore
and I'm majoring in PoliSci.
What do you look for in a part-
ner if they're ugly to begin with?
What sort of values?
I guess just friendliness...a sense of
humor.
Maybe money? You know, for
plastic surgery?
Not really.
Have you ever felt the urge to
slap people who fall asleep in the
library, and if so, why?
No, because they probably need
the sleep.
But isn't it awful when their
mouths just hang open like it's
nobody's business?
I try not to look. I've seen homeless
people sleeping in the library before.
Have you noticed the chalk
messages on sidewalks recently?
Messages like, "You are loved"
and "It's going to get better"? Do
you feel loved and do you think it's
going to get better?
Actually, I write a lot of those for
DORAK (Do Random Acts of Kind-

ness).
Do you think they might make
a person depressed, say, if they're
not actually loved?
No. I think they always put a smile
on people's faces. I don't know if any-
body is not loved.
Well, Hitler. Moving on, it's
thought that if an obnoxiously
large -
Wait, what? There are flames out
there! (Motions to Diag.)
Do you take ADD medication?
I should. I'm just heavily caffein-
ated.
It's thought that if an obnox-
iously large asteroid hadn't wiped
out the dinosaurs sixty-five mil-
lion years ago, we wouldn't exist.
From this perspective, is it pos-
sible for you to take life seriously?
Yeah...uh...yes.
Why don't you think it was men-
tioned in the Bible, though?
(Pensive.) I don't know.
Do you think we should keep
old people around, or just kind of
move them somewhere to free up
space?
Yeah, they teach us a lot. They're
kind of wise, people say.
Do they add anythingto society,
though? Medical costs, I guess.
You're a political science major,

would it be political suicide or per-
haps revolutionary to save costs by
cutting old people?
No, I don't think people would go
for that, no.
Shouldn't the University
increase admissions of left-handed
students if they want to remain
"diverse"?
I guess there should probably be an
equal...an equal...
Equal rights?
Yeah. I'm left-handed, actually.
Right. When you interview for
jobs they probably screen you, you
know, for being left-handed -
Affirmative action.
Well, that's race. But how many
extra points should left-handed
people get in the admissions pro-
cess?
Like, on a scale of one to ten? Five.
Five? Pretty arbitrary. Mov-
ing on, what campus group do
you think we could do away with?
What about the Squirrel Club?
Oh yeah, we can do without that.
They don't do anything of value,
do they? They're like the mosquito
of campus groups.
They don't need to be feeding
squirrels.
There's Glee Club, too.
No, I like glee club. "Glee" is on

tonight.
I don't watch TV.
You've never heard of "Glee"?
I'll ask the questions. Do you
think that big orange statue thing
outside of Angell Hall needs to be
melted down and sold for profit?
Yes. It looks really bad. I've heard
that it's supposed to spell "Art." Is
that true?
Looks like it spells "X" to me. In
ten words or less, tell me how we
can fix the economy.
Uh...
One.
That's a word?
Two, three, four!
Stop wasteful spending.
Why don't we just create more
jobs, though?
Because that's also wasteful
spending, to pay people for jobs that
aren't really necessary.
I guess so. Look for this in
tomorrow's issue of "The State-
ment."
I've read these before. I read the
Daily every day.
Wow, you're our first person
to read the Daily every day! How
awful is it?
I love it.
- Molly is an LSA sophomore.
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sity does not have knowledge of this
information," Cunningham wrote in
an e-mail statement.
Since arriving at college Ibarra
has lived somewhat of a double life
because only a few ofher close friends
know she is undocumented.
"I kind of know people are going
to look at me differently if they found
out," she said. "I talk to people about
(the DREAM Act) and they always
.respond with 'if they're undocu-
mented and they're illegal then they
shouldn't be here.' Well, what would
you say if I told you I was undocu-
mented?"
Critics of the DREAM Act call it
an amnesty program and a way for
undocumented parents to use their
children to take advantage of the ben-
efits of living in the U.S. But Nawrocki
doesn't see it that way.
"I can't imagine a two year old
coming into America and thinking
'I'm screwing the system,' " she said.
"It's not amnesty, it's nothing like
that. They have to earn it."
Desire Semana, 19, is an undocu-
mented student and Detroit-area
activist working with the campus
organization By Any Means Neces-
sary. When he is organizing DREAM
Act efforts, Semana says he is con-
stantly dealing with what he calls
"anti-immigrant" bashing.

Act could fix an unfair system.
"The fact that undocumented stu-
dents are not allowed to get financial
aid to go to college is discrimination,
it's second class treatment, it's Jim
Crow," said Rackham student Kate
Stenvig, the president of BAMN.
The protest was one of many that
took place across the country that
day, including protests at Wayne
State University and the University
of California at Berkley. And on Nov.
1, BAMN and other organizations
around the country will again be ral-
lyingin support ofthe DREAM Act on
college campuses across the country.
Though heightened awareness of
the DREAM Act has only recently
made its way to Ann Arbor, a move-
ment has been growing surround-
ing the legislation for months and in
some places across the country, even
years.
In July, students gathered in Wash-
ington, D.C. for what they called
a "mobilization" in support of the
DREAM Act. In addition to rallies
and a mock graduation, eight undocu-
mented students staged a sit-in in the
offices of U.S. Senators Harry Reid
(D-Nevada) and John McCain (R-
Arizona) demanding thatthey support
the DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill.
The eight students are in the pro-
cess of standing trial, but they were
able to have
some influence

With that one interaction, McCain
proved the activists' point. They
aren't getting the same benefits as
other students because they aren't
citizens. And as they see it, without
the DREAM Act they have no viable
path to become citizens.
Martinez said it was this pre-
dicament that drew her to organize
for the DREAM Act. As she sat in a
Washington D.C. coffee shop on a
day off from her summer internship
at the U.S. Department of Education
this summer, Martinez talked about
her undocumented friends from high
school, who are just like her, except
for one detail.
"They couldn't go to college like I
could," she said.
Martinez emigrated to the U.S.
with her family from Mexico legally
when she was younger. Though she
found the transition to a new country
difficult, she was helped along in high
school by a group of friends - some
documented, some not - who also
shared her immigrant experience.
"These students are just like me,
they're just as smart as me or even
smarter, but they're in a state of
limbo," she said.
She added that the worst thing
about not passing the DREAM Act is
that "you're wasting talent."
Robelledo agrees, saying right now
she is essentially prohibited from
contributing to the society that has
provided her with an education up
until this point.
"We want to give back, but we're
not being allowed to because we don't
have a simple number," she said.
"It's really sad to see that because
we grew up like Americans. If I were
to go home, I wouldn't know what
home was," she continued. "We've
been here for so long, we grew up
here. (Citizenship) is the only thing
that is preventing us from continuing
to do what we're doing. Why not let us
do it the right way?"
For Semana, the legislation isn't
just about being able to contribute.
He also thinks it's necessary for him
to get access to the American dream.
"I thought I was in a country where
there were great promises of equali-
ty," he said. "But what I expected was
not forthcoming."

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"IF THE DREAM ACT WERE TO PASS ... I along the way.
Reid pushed for
WOULDN'T HAVE THAT FEAR OF MAYBE the DREAM
Act tbeintro-
GETTING DEPORTED TOMORROW." dc to be intro-
-duced as part of

His response: "I have as much of a
right as anybody else to an education.
I'm a human just like everybody else."
On a blustery afternoon last week,
Semana was on the steps of the Mich-
igan Union with a few other BAMN
activists holding signs and trying to
engage passersby. Most students just
walked by without giving a second
look, some stopped to listen and one
started arguing with one of Semana's
fellow activists. But despite the low
turnout and spitting rain, the protest
continued - in part because of the
participants' views that the DREAM

the defense bill
last month and
some of the students rubbed elbows
with McCain, albeit in a sort of ironic
fashion.
It's one of LSA senior Priscila Mar-
tinez's favorite stories from the rally.
Martinez, who is also a member of
One Michigan, said she and some of
the other activists were in an elevator
with McCain after the sit-in. She said
the students were trying to engage
the senator in the elevator and he told
them that he appreciated their activ-
ism, adding that he always appre-
ciates it when citizens come to his
office tovoice their concerns.

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