A dispatch from Logan Phillips, an Arizona-based poet and activist with the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam, and longtime CultureStrike ally, about a small triumph at Pima Community College. Young people have campaigned successfully for in-state tuition for students who qualify for the White House’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a temporary reprieve from deportation that the Obama administration recently launched in response to massive grassroots pressure for immigration relief for undocumented youth:
Pima Community College, Board of Governors Meeting, February 27, 2013. Tucson, Arizona. Tonight the Board will decide whether or not to provide in-state tuition to students who receive work permits through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). Student and poet Alexia is called up first to speak.
After 60 more minutes of passionate and articulate comments from community members–all in favor–the Board voted 4-1 in favor of the measure.
Support for the measure was organized by ScholarshipsA-Z, an organization that provides resources and scholarships to students, families and educators in order to make higher education accessible to all regardless of immigration status.
Alexia works with the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam and Spoken Futures, Inc.
In a follow-up report, Logan writes that even this modest victory can be a breakthrough for young people like Alexia whose futures have been in limbo as they navigate the immigration crisis: “As problematic as Arizonan politics are, don’t write them off. The course towards the future is being charted here.”