Students gathered in front of The Spot dining hall Wednesday morning to celebrate and stand in solidarity for the eighth annual national “I Stand With Immigrants Day of Action.”
VICE’s short documentary is a window into Rodriguez’s life story. He was born in Mexico and immigrated to California at age 6 with his mom and two sisters. He grew up in Visalia, about 45 minutes from Fresno in the Central Valley.
A sophomore biology major and resident assistant at the University of La Verne, Emely Ortega-Martinez appears to be like any other college student – young, athletic, studious and friendly. But she is also undocumented and one of the 700,000 DACA recipients in the United States.
Before being forced back to what had become foreign land, Jacob, who asked that his real name be withheld because of his precarious immigration status, had only vague memories of his life in Mexico. The native of Los Mochis, in the northern coast of the state of Sinaloa, found himself hopeless in a city whose future was hijacked by the effects of drug trafficking and lack of opportunities.