When his cousin remarked that he would never achieve anything beyond working as a day laborer, Quinones quit his job and moved to Stockton, where he worked in a rail yard during the day and took classes in English at the local community college at night. At the encouragement of his teachers, he applied and was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley. English was still tough for him, so he focused on math and science courses, paying for college through a combination of scholarships, loans, and grants. Next stop was Harvard Medical School. He did well there, too. He completed his residency in neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco.
Now, Quinones is an award-winning brain surgeon and director of the brain-tumor-research program at Johns Hopkins University. His next goal? Find a cure for brain cancer.
Malia Politzer
The road leading into Oscar Vasquez's new home in Mexico.
Allan Cameron
Oscar Vasquez's house in Magdalena, Mexico.
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This is the first article this year of
New Times' occasional series
"Are Your Papers in Order?" in which we examine the treatment of undocumented aliens, brown-skinned U.S. citizens, and legal residents at the hands of local and U.S. law enforcement.
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These days, somebody like Quinones would be stopped cold. Particularly in Arizona.
Times were different when Quinones made it across the border. He entered at the tail end of amnesty programs in the late 1980s, after working for several years illegally as a seasonal migrant worker. Because of the amnesty program, he was able to get temporary work authorization, then permanent work papers, followed — eventually — by a green card that granted him legal residency while still a farm worker. Because he had legal immigration status, he was able to get loans and scholarships. He became a U.S. citizen while at Harvard.
The undocumented who grow up in Arizona cannot do any of these things. But that does not stop some from trying to succeed.
Erica is the first person in her family to attend college. A petite woman with a thick mop of curly black hair tied into a neat ponytail, she has lived in Mesa most of her life — her parents brought her over the border illegally at 11. She graduated at the top of her class at Westwood High School in Mesa, earning a full four-year scholarship to ASU, where she studied psychology.
She spent two years in college before Proposition 300 passed, taking her scholarship funds with it. The next two years were an emotional rollercoaster of scrambling to apply for the few private scholarship programs that do not require Social Security numbers. Because of her inability to apply for loans or state scholarships, she nearly dropped out of college four times. Still, she managed to scrape through, getting a bachelor's degree from ASU in May.
The day she graduated was bittersweet. Sure, Erica had her degree, but she could not use it to get a job. It hangs in a heavy wooden frame on a wall above her couch, a useless piece of paper. She wants to eventually get a master's degree and work as a high school counselor — to help other kids like her — but she cannot afford more education. Instead of working in her field, she cares for infants at a nursery, which pays her off the books. She cannot help feeling angry when she sees her undocumented friends — college graduates in engineering, political science, and bioengineering — working alongside their parents as landscapers, house-cleaners, or in construction.
One undocumented ASU bioengineering graduate managed to secure a job as a researcher for the university and another private company. But he lost it when Arizona passed the 2008 employer-sanctions law, which prohibits companies from knowingly hiring undocumented workers. Now he works as a waiter.
"It's frustrating. In high school, they always tell you that if you work hard, if you're good person, you'll excel in life," Erica says. "But even when you're [a] good person and you're doing everything right, you hit all these barriers. You want to quit. I don't feel like my life is in my hands."
Yet Erica is one of the lucky ones. She managed to get a college education. With the economy in turmoil and the crackdown on illegal immigration, especially in Arizona, the few scholarships available to undocumented students are drying up. Most undocumented college students enrolled today attend on a semester-to-semester basis, raising funds as they go. Many are forced to drop out.
It is no wonder, then, that many Phoenix high school teachers report that undocumented students are losing hope.
Joni Adams is a counselor at North High School — the same school Victoria Gutierrez and Joe Arvizu attended, before they were deported. Four years of new policies aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration have taken a toll on her undocumented students. The same kids who, just a few years earlier, would be sure shots at college are giving up. It is not difficult to see why: what is the incentive to study, when a college degree gets you nowhere? They get depressed. Their grades dip. Some disappear.
"It makes me feel like the job we have is impossible. We're given a catch-22, where we're supposed to advocate and care and nurture these children all through school, through their career-building years, pointing them to some kind of goal," says Adams, her voice stinging with frustration. "And yet the marker is moved by the government, and the goal does not exist. So, for these kids, the American dream we've been encouraging them [to seek] their entire lives is fantasy."
