Her book, my underground american dream. Shell be talking about that and her experience as an undocumented immigrant. And after that, shell be taking your calls as well. Booktv now continues in tucson. Welcome to the tucson festival of books. We wish to thank Cox Communications for sponsoring this venue. Mr. Connolly is sponsored by [inaudible] the presentation will last one hour, including questions and answers. Please hold your questions to the end. Immediately following this session, the authors will be autographing books in the sales and signing area in the ua bookstore tent on the mall, booth 141. Books are available for purchase be at this location. Please note that ms. Arce will be 20 minutes late to the signing area due to a live interview with cspan. We invite you to become a friend of the festival by texting friend to 520214 book or 5202142665 as shown on the sign at the front of the room or visit the friends of the festival booth, number 110 on the mall. Your gift makes a difference in keeping festival programming free of charge and supporting critical literacy programs in the community. Also out of respect for the authors and your fellow audience members, please turn off your cell phone. Julissa arce is a writer and social justice advocate. She is the cofounder and board chair of the ascend educational fund, a college and Mentorship Program that assists immigrant students regardless of immigration status, ethnicity or national origin. Prior to her advocacy, she built a successful career on wall street while undocumented. She speaks all over the u. S. And writes for various publications including huffington post, cnn and univision. Julissa is originally from mexico and spent her childhood and College Years in san antonio and austin, texas. Daniel connolly is a writer and investigative journalist focusing on ingration, economics and globalization. He has worked all over the southeast including alabama, arkansas and memphis, tennessee, where he is from and currently lives and works. Daniels work focuses on true stories that require deep investigation for the purpose of sharing the lives of those impacted by farreaching, complex societal issues. Thank you to you both, welcome to the festival and to tucson. Could you both talk to us about who you think the audience for your book is and, julissa, why dont we start with you. Well, thanks for having me. Ive really enjoyed my stay in tucson, so thank you. I really believe that my book at the very core is an american story. Its a very quintessential american story of working hard and persevering. Its rags to riches type of story. So when people ask me about the audience for the book, i really think that the audience for the book are human beings who read and can find themselves in my story in different ways. You dont have to be an undocumented mexican woman to understand what struggle is. You dont have to be an undocumented mexican latina to know what prejudice is. So i really believe that my story and my book has rez anticipated with people from every resonated with people from every kind of background, whether theyre citizens or not citizens, and thats what im most proud of in the book, is that different kinds of audiences have been able to pick it up. And the Amazing Things about books and why i love books is because they help us to see the world through somebody elses perspective, and thats what ive hoped to do in this book, is to let people into my life and, hopefully, they find themselves this some aspect of my story. Go ahead. Yeah. So this book that i i wrote is about children of mexican immigrants growing up in memphis, tennessee, and im a journalist and followed this group of kids through senior year and into the years beyond. The, i guess the audience is primarily young people around 18, 19, 20, kids who are looking at going to college, kids who have just joined collegement and beyond that college and beyond that, its also for a general audience because to understand where america is today and where were going, we need to Pay Attention to children of immigrants, in particular the statistic is that one this four young people in America Today is a child of immigrants, and the decisions that they make about their futures, going to college or not, will affect all of us. Thank you. I think one of the things that struck me so much about both of your books is that while a central theme, of course, is immigration, theyre both also coming of age stories. Can you talk to us about the similarities and differences between youth who are documented and undocumented. Julissa . Yeah. In the, in the debate right now about immigration theres this really big rhetoric about the bad immigrant and the good immigrant and who is a good immigrant and who deserves to be here. And what i have found is that i graduated in the top 5 of my high school class, and i still didnt have any access to college because i was undocumented. And 20 years ago undocumented students couldnt go to college. Still today many undocumented students cannot go to college despite their act dem you can a academic achievements and accomplishments. But what i have found when people read my story, people will say, well, you did it, you made it, you went to college and you became a successful person. So if you did it, why cant everybody else do it . And ill tell you why. One of the big reasons i was able to go to college was because texas, in 2001, became the first state in the u. S. To allow undocumented students to go to college. I was very lucky because 2001 is the same year i graduated from high school. But if it hadnt been for that law, i wouldnt have been able to go to college. And so many students still dont have access to a colleging education. College education. We all know the cost rises every single year, and its become very unaffordable for many young people to go to college. For immigrants, the stakes tend to be a little bit hire because somehow if you dont go to college and if you dont have a College Education, then somehow you become the bad immigrant. And if you didnt go to college, then youre not successful and, therefore, you dont deserve to be part of this country. And i think other young people who are american citizens perhaps face a similar stigma, that if you dont go to college, that means youre not smart, youre not successful. And the reality is that there are many paths to success, and there are many paths to having a good life, and it doesnt always mean you go to a fouryear school. But, again with, i think for immigrants it becomes a little bit, a little bit more because not only are you viewed as not being smart and successful, but then youre also viewed as not being a good candidate for being an american citizen. I would echo everything that julissa said and then also point out that being a teenager is not a picnic for anybody. Think about your own teen years, what it was like. And what, what i would argue is that regardless of whether the young person has citizenship or not, they need support especially the if their parents didnt go to college in this country. So in hanging out with the kids at Kingsbury High School in memphis, what i found over and over was that many of them had parents who wanted the best for their children but didnt know how to help. And so without people in the school to motivate and guide them, they were largely on their own. And so i think its also important to point out that the main people i write about in my book had significant immigration problems. Theyd been brought here illegally from mexico, but if we look at the statistics nationwide, the vast majority of young hispanic kids in america are citizens. So thats why i say that its in everyones interest to support children of immigrants regardless of their immigration status. And i know some people are uncomfortable with the connection to the illegal immigration issue. However, i do points out that the vast point out that the vast majority of children of immigrants are u. S. Citizens themselves. Yeah. So talk to us both about the loss that this country experiences, the lost opportunities, economic, societal, etc. , by creating this caste system or by creating this narrative of who is worthy ask who is not. Yeah. So, you know, the first thing ill point out is that many times we, when we think about immigration, we make it a latinoonly issue. And the reality is that there are immigrants who have come from every part of the world. There are white immigrants and black immigrants and asian immigrants that are both documented and undocumented. There are 50,000 undocumented irish People Living in the u. S. And we dont, when we think about immigration, we dont often think about anyone else other than a latino person, someone that looks like me. But thats not the entire story when it comes to immigration. In my book i talk about the fact s that what our immigration system looks like is a caste system, right . And the reason i say that is because we have created a system where no matter what you do, no matter how much you accomplish, no matter how you lead your life, there still isnt a way for you to become a citizen. There isnt a way for you to get out of that box that we have put you in. I was undocumented for over a decade, and many times as i travel across the country people ask me why did you wait so long, why didnt you become legal, why dont undocumented immigrants who are in this country illegally, why dont they headache themselves legal . Make themselves legal . And the question is pretty loaded, and the simple answer is that there isnt a process. There is no line. This line that we talk about is really a mythical place, an excuse that we use to ignore the fact that we need Immigration Reform. So we create this system where no matter what you do, you have no upward mobility. And that, to me, is the definition of a caste system, right . And thats what i think weve created in the u. S. And what were really missing out on is, as you mentioned, theres a ton of Economic Activity that were missing out of. When, when we keep labor that should be legal, we keep it illegal. So there are many undocking united immigrants who work in undocumented immigrants who work in the restaurant industry, construction, farms, and we keep that labor illegal, and theres a very good reason, theres a good reason why people want to keep that labor illegal, because we get it really cheaply, right in finish and we all benefit from that really cheap labor. I actually had someone email me recently telling me this is a country of, a nation of laws, and i agree. And he tells me that he employs some undocumented immigrants, and he supports the 45th president of the country. So i was very confused by that because i reminded him that employing undocumented people is against the law. Right . And so, but thats, thats unfortunately the attitude that many people have. And as long as we keep that labor illegal, were missing out on payroll taxes, were missing out on fair wages for everyone, were missing out on really incredible contributions that immigrants can make to this country. And if we look back at our history, i often i look at 1920s photographs. I love studying that era. And i look at pictures of immigrants from the 1920s working in sweatshops and living in cramped tenement apartments in new york city, little kids working alongside their parents, and i think that, you know, as americans we are so proud of the statue of liberty and what it represents. But we treat immigrants from then and the immigrants of now so differently. Be the reason those immigrants came here and the reason immigrant withs continue to come here immigrants continue to come here is because we come here for a better life and in pursuit of that better life, we create Economic Activity, and we create incredible benefits to society. That are also cultural. So were missing out on a lot of things by keeping people in the shadows and afraid. Yeah, just to expand on what julissa said, theres another metaphor that i think is useful to understand immigration in this country, particularly illegal immigration, and thats the metaphor of the coconut. Its hard on the outside, soft on the inside. So here were a few miles from the border, the arizona borders very heavily fortified with guards, barriers, etc. , and its very difficult to cross. But in my hometown, memphis, tennessee, very, very little Immigration Enforcement. And theres a reason for that, as ewe julissa just said. Theres a demand for lowcost labor, and businesses push back if the government comes and arrests their workers. So you have the situation where very strict enforcement at the border, very light enforcement in much of the rest of the country. And so you have, yeah, a caste system of People Living here with limited rights. And not only do they have limited rights, theyre locked in. They cant return to their country of origin and come back to the united states. One of the things i write about in the book of isaiahs is i ended up attending a funeral in mexico of a relative of this student who had died of cancer in mexico. Her own sister in memphis could not go back to see her because if she did, shed be locked out of the country. So we do have an illegal immigration system in this country that causes a lot of harm, and i think the question now is in the new administration is if the government starts cracking down, whats going happen . Are we going to see pushback from businesses that value this labor force, or are we going to see expulsion of many, many people from this country . Sorry, can i just add manager . So you mentioned that here in and in oh border towns other border towns there is tons of, like, Immigration Enforcement and where youre from, there isnt. But i just want to highlight that. Im not sure that thats totally accurate, and thats because just a couple weeks ago this woman in, young woman, 22yearold was a arrested after giving a press conference where she was speaking out against her parents deportation in mississippi. And she is a daca holder, so shes supposed to be protected by law from deportation and be given a twoyear work permit. Thats whats called daca. Its not amnesty, its not a to citizenship, but it is supposed to protect young people from deportation and provide them with a work permit. And yet she was not protected by that law because she was arrested and detained , and it took a National Outcry for her to be released. And, you know, in the eight years prior to this administration, 2. 5 Million People were deported. And not all of those people were deported at the border, right . So Immigration Enforcement happens all over the country. Regardless of what state were in or what city were in. People get deported and torn away from their families from every part of the country. Gist wanted to highlight that. So, yeah, thank you for doing that. The Daniela Vargas case is one that, is one of the first very ugly cases in the new administration. I think the question is, are we going to see that at a mass level, you know . Are we going to see something that really, truly changes the economy . And that remains to be seen. Lets hope not. So along this thread, i have a question for you both. If you could be crafting immigration policy, considering the dialogue that is going around nationally and we have some very heated dialogue and have had for many years, if you were sitting at that policy table, what would you want to see . So, you know, one of biggest ironies of my life is that my mother brought me to this country because she wanted me to be an independent woman and not to have to depend on a man and to make my own money. And i worked really hard to be those things and to do those things. But yet the only way that i was able to become a permanent resident and eventually a citizen was to be married. So, you know, i had to wait for, like, my knight in shining armor to come and rescue me. And that is, as i said, one of the biggest ironies of my life. And so thats part of what the issue is, that undocumented people who are here whether they cross the border illegally or, like myself and 40 of the people who are here undocumented never crossed the border, we came here on some sort of visa and then we overstayed. But regardless of how we ended up undocumented in this country, there is no path, there is no way for us to become legalized, right . And so to me, there cannot be an Immigration Reform or immigration policy that doesnt include a path. Where it can be a tenyear path, but we cannot have a conversation about Immigration Reform without including a conversation about what do we do with the 11 Million People who are here undocumented, what do we do with them . We have to create a path for them to become legal. A lot of times, and i dont want to bore you with history, but immigration has been under different, different parts of our country. So, for example, immigration used to be under the department of labor. After 9 11 was the creation of homeland security, and so now immigration is part of homeland security. So when we view immigration now, we view it in the context of national security. Before yes we used to view it in the context of labor and economics, okay . And theres a good reason for for that. Listen, i live in this country, i want to be safe. But when we do that, were coupling all of these things and theyre very complicated issues, so were not going to solve the immigration debate in this panel. I wish we could with one conversation. Theres a lot of things to consider. But we have to stop talking about immigration in the context of we have to stop talking about immigration, meanwhile criminalizing and demonizing the immigrants who are here and who want to come here. And when we stop doing that, i think well be able to have a much better conversation about how do we create policies that do keep our country safe. And i can tell you that all of the immigrants that come here, we want to be safe. And, in fact, many immigrants and refugees come to this country because theyre escaping horrible, terrible conditions in their own country. So they dont want to come here to then be faced with the same challenges and the same issues. So we have to create a path for citizenship, and we have to create better, more efficient ways for people who want to come here. Because until we do that, people are going to continue to find a way to come here because theyre escaping terrible conditions or because they want to have a better life, and they simply, you know, i dont have any children, but i know that my own parents would have done and given anything to be able to give me a better life. And so we have to figure out a way to create a system that provides a more efficient way to come here. And we dont discriminate who comes here based on race because that does happen. Yeah. So im still actively covering the immigration issue and the immigration debate, so i try to avoid making strong statements about what our immigration policy should look like. I will say this, it might be many years before we see any new immigration laws passed. Other than very restrictive enforcement. And for that reason, youknow, i do advocate for children of immigrants, and there are specific things that governments at the state and local level can do for their kids with, while the immigration debate and fight continues in washington. One very simple thing is that when i was researching the book hanging out in a school, i saw how important it was for Guidance Counselors to help kids, point them in the right direction. Hiring of Guidance Counselors is something that takes local and sometimes state funding. And its something that a local school board can decide to do, hey, we need more Guidance Counselors to work with immigrant families. Similarly with scholarship funds, there are a number of really good funds out there. Julissa has one. Whats the name of it . Dsn educational fund. Right. So people can contribute to these funds and others like the hispanic scholarship fund. These are things that can be done while this, while this debate continues in washington. What other ways i think another thing that really struck me about the similarities between your week books and also thats very often part of the immigrant narrative is the importance of the family and how important family is to young people. What are ways on a more structural, institutional level within education that the incredible support and network that a family of immigrant youth can be, how can they be brought in more . So how to bring families into the education discussion. Yeah. I actually just today had a conversation with a young guy born in mexico, first in his family to go to college, and we were just here talking at this book festival, and he said one of the most important things for him was he went on these College Programs where he would spend a week, say, at a university, go to a dorm, hang out and basically live like a College Student for a few days. And be he said that this was very influential on him. And the other thing that he mentioned was his own parents, even though they had not gone to college themselves, they really wanted him to go, and they really pushed him and his sister to do it, and he succeeded in that. And so i think there are a number of things like that to expose kids to what is college, whether its a sleepaway program, whether its just a college tour, things of that nature. And then, of course, not everyone has to go to college. But the same can be done on various trades. I went to this trade school this memphis, they were teaching heating and airconditioning, and the heating and airconditioning instructor was so excited about it that i almost thought maybe i should do that, you know . [laughter] maybe i missed my calling. So i think bringing parents along on these field trips and helping them get a sense of whats available for their children is a way to bring them into the conversation. I, when i turned 18 and i went to college and i talk about it in the book, my parents made a very difficult decision to move back to mexico. Because we just didnt make enough money we used to sell funnel cakes, and we didnt make enough money to both support our family and pay for my college expenses. So they moved back the mexico and left me the business so that i could continue my education. And whenever i go to College Campuses and i tell the story, i ask the students to think about imagine if last time you came to campus, you did it not knowing when and if you were ever going to see your parents again. And thats sort of the decision that my parents and i made when i went to college, was we dont know when and if were going to see each other again. And so for me, it was a very lonely journey of going to college and pretty much being here by myself since i was 18. And i really did and i really do wish my parents had been able to be a bigger part of my college experience. You know, they couldnt it got to a point where they couldnt even in high school really help me with my education, right . They couldnt really help me with my homework. And it wasnt just the language barrier, it was because they didnt go to college themselves. But i am really happy to say that when my brother graduates from Texas Tech University in may, my parents two mexican immigrants will have four children with college degrees. And thats really incredible. Great. [applause] i think also one of the things that struck me so much about both of these stories is the amount of work that it took for these young people you, julissa, and all the young people that you focus on, daniel, in your book to understand the system here, the College System and what Financial Aid is. And so im going to just kind of keep going on our previous what else could we to do . What could the folks sitting here in the audience do in terms of helping immigrant families, daca, undocumented kids learn more about this whole system . First of all, i think that our country needs to really look at our College Education system for everyone. Like, im not just talking about immigrants and daca students, but i mean for everyone. Because if our system is better, it would be better for everyone. And one of, one of the aspects that i dont think enough of us focus on is, like, local and statewide elections and policies. But the reality is that who we choose to be on our school board makes a huge difference for how our children are going to be educated. So before we even get to the level of college, weve got to start at a younger anal. Its really a younger age. Its really an atrocity that there are kids in fourth grade that dont know how to read in america. In whats, you know, my family considers the best country in the world which is why we came here and not somewhere else. And then they dont succeed in college because we havent educated them properly to succeed in that environment. So before we get there, we have to focus on who is in the school board and we have to Pay Attention to whats going on in education at a National Level with our new secretary of education. We really have to Pay Attention to the policies. And by the way, thereve already been bills in congress that will be an atrocity to our education system. Weto then be faced with the same challenges and the same issues. So we have to create a path for didnt go to college themselves. But i am really happy to sayce s can go to college and in those 20 years still today, some teachers and counselors do not know that that is possible and so they will discourage their kids from applying to college and its not because they are trying to be, they are intentionally trying to keep them from going to college, they just dont know any better. So when you talk about whats actually educate our High School Counselors and teachers of what possibilities are available to the students, because there are states like alabama where theyve actually passed laws that ban undocumented immigrants from going to college, but theres also places like texas and california and 20 other states to provide instate tuition to the undocumented students and the scholarships like mine that are available to the undocumented citizens. So why all the resources are plentiful, there are some resources at the least we should be taking advantage of every resource that is available. When researching a book about isaias, i saw over and over that interested adults made a difference. A lot of the things that happened were due to oneonone relationships between isaias and the organizer of the big intervention at the house and people went to the house and there was a dramatic meeting where she was they were trying to change the course of his life. Thats oneonone relationship between a young person and adult can make a huge difference and i think some of us, myself included might feel like maybe because im not hispanic myself, maybe i shouldnt do this or the cultural barrier is very big. However, what i observed in this school and elsewhere is that kids need guidance, and they needed from caring adults regardless of their race or ethnicity and that is something all of us can do on this level saying i never got a scholarshp opportunity. You should consider taking honors and advanced placement courses rather than the standard because that will help you down the road. Then also again one thing apple can do in addition to the important political things mentioned, funding for scholarships, kids need money to go to college or do whatever other training they are going to need to do. Im going to take us into the future a little bit. Five years from now, what would you like to see that is the same, different or better on the front . In four years we will have an election. I dont know that i have a lot more to add, but i do know i hope that we are in a better place and at least we can have a conversation about how to move forward, because at the end of the day, our destinies are intertwined and the other realities is there are not two americas, there are one and our futures depend on each other and the one in every four kids under the age of 18 is hispanic. Its a little bit too late to change the demographics that are changing. Are changing. Growing up latina and america and living in a black and White America the conversations very often around race tend to be blackandwhite and we note the fact theres a Large Population of people that are not white or black and weve always been he here. People didnt come to america and they say america came to them. The border crosses them and so weve got to start learning more about that history because it is incredibly important and is a history that is not talked about. When i think about five years in the future, i think specifically about some people ive met during the course of the book and i hope they are specifically doing well and i hope as a society in addition to dealing with the big picture immigration issues that works in ways to motivate young people to do the best they can. Motivation was a big issue for a lot of the kids i met, so im still in touch with the kids from teams very high. One actually moved to tucson, thanks for being here and his girlfriend as well. [applause] when i think about the future, i want daniel to be doing well and the other kids i met to be driving as well. Talk to me about the incredible work ethic that these stories portrayed as a very common immigrant narrative, but in the context of the book, i read your book and there were times i thought how is she doing this . Shes working, going to school, worked all weekend. I wondered when did she sleep and that has never changed for you. Talk to me about that. One of the funny jokes and some of you may know her as a comedian, one of my favorites we very often get accused of being lazy but then we also get accused of taking peoples jobs. So, are we stealing their jobs and then taking a nap or whats going on, so there is a narrative that we dont come here to work hard. There are people that risked their lives and put their lives at risk. I cant imagine someone leaving their family, leaving their land and risking their lives to come and get a welfare check. If all we wanted to do is just get by, we would have stayed where we were. So we have an incredible work ethic cause we know what is at stake and we know the sacrifice that we are standing on. There isnt a day that goes by i dont remember the sacrifice my parents made the comment that my siblings made that my little brother made in order for me to have had this career that i had in wall street to be able to write this book and go across the country and so my story. That is what drives a lot of us is that sacrifice and wanting to honor that sacrifice, and then back to translate into having a strong work ethic and you have to. To expand on that, im not an immigrant myself, but i did spend a year inside this high school and hung out a lot with the families. After that more recently for the newspaper ive been working in it the coverage on a townhall and its so different, its like night and day. In collierville tennessee, the parents in many cases will pay hundreds or thousands of dollars so that their children can do things like run in the competitivand competitivecheerld and travel to disney world for a competition. So there is nothing wrong with that, but the immigrant families the kids have to work harder at a younger age and they are faced with adult responsibilities at a much younger age, things like caring for a younger sibling, working and earning money to support their family, and that is why it is so important to these kids to have the outside help, to have people at school that understand their story and are willing to support them and get them to where they need to go in their lives. We are going to take some questions now from the audience. We have a microphone right here and another one right here if you could come up and ask your question. Percival and from Fort Worth Texas and my middle child graduated from school in 2001 and obviously there were no barriers to my children to go to college, which unfortunately you mentioned the law was passed to allow people to go to college. That seems like an unlikely distinction for texas to have. The Current Governor must not know about that. [laughter] if it was enacted or became in effect in 2001 he left to become president in 2001 and maybe that was in process. I became a huge fan of george w. Bush in the last year. Another point you made that i have not heard since the discussion about immigration in the last here is the fac year ie i think since 1989 it was illegal for employers to hire undocumented. Id never heard of the product in the discussion. My question is you said you had been undocumented for ten years and there is no realistic path to becoming legal, so how did you do it . He was the governor of texas even when it happened and interestingly, when i was in college i applied to the scholarship that i dont think was meant for the undocumented immigrants. They didnt ask for a Social Security number, so i applied and got it. It was a very public celebration and i still have this big poster that he gave me and it says you are a ray of hope for the future, and i believe it like i am a ray of hope in the future. [laughter] this bill, house bill 1403 is under attack and they want to repeal that law. They educate going through high school and then the night and the opportunity to go to college. The question about how i became documented, i was married to a u. S. Citizen and that is how i was able to address my status. But a really big point in my journey as i didnt come here i crossed the border and came here with a visa and in the immigration law, that makes a huge difference how you got here. To me there isnt really a difference because i that made a big difference in my case and because my husband was a u. S. Citizen, i was able to become a u. S. Citizen myself. It was a long process that started in 2008. One thing really quickly for someone that cost the border and then they fall in love and marry someone, many still dont apply because there is a ten year ban that passed under bill clinton and when you are here for more than a year and leave the country you automatically get a ten year ban, you cant come back for ten years, so for many people even though they are now married and have u. S. Citizen children, they still wont apply because they will still be banned from the country for ten years so that is the impossible position people in my situation have to make. How do we connect people who sympathize with migrants and those specifically there is a connection here, and im grateful for that. The libraries are sponsoring this and the schools that seem in many places to help people get information that there are a lot of allies out there or people that would like to be allies and my question is in this political environment, how do you connect those dots carefully . I didnt have that problem when my parents came from 2,000 miles away and i was 9yearsold and it wasnt until Junior High School i got a Social Security card and that is the first time i had any documents and it wasnt until 40 years later i needed a birth certificate to get a passport. So, i didnt go through that. But ive been here for 50 some years and i am more a part of the Southern Arizona culture of van iem the michigan farms and the people i left behind. So, it is a hard time for migraines but we have analyzed so how do we connect . Everything from big brothers and sisters to the specific local groups, that is one thing that comes to mind. It will put you in contact with a family so the next thing you know, youre learning the familys story and it needs. Maybe some of my panelists will have ideas. The one line of defense we have is the judicial branch, as you have seen with some of the executive orders that have come out. So, organizations like the National Immigration law center which im on the board of and the aclu of course that are going to be critically important in this time to protect immigrants, so connecting with those kind of organizations is going to be important. I want to thank you for coming out here saying you are an ally because that is what we need. People who are not immigrants themselves to come out and support. That is what its going to take. But whether it is supporting those National Organizations and im sure here in arizona and tucson there are organizations that support children and mentor children and you can go into schools and provide and know your rights workshops which many immigrants dont know that even though they are undocumented they have Constitutional Rights provided simply by the fact that they are on american soil. That includes not opening the door unless the they have they t and a lot of people dont know that so perhaps going into your community and providing those workshops it is going to be really important. As i mentioned the young woman who was detained it is becoming more and more dangerous to sort of come out as an undocumented immigrant, so we are going to need voices like yours to stand up and provide a voice for those that dont have one. Mine isnt so much a specific question as a topic i hope you can touch on. I do volunteer right now and want to do as a career is teach. From the standpoint of the children i am wondering how much i guess of a barrier the language issue does play for example you said you were a loving when you came here. How much was school paper of your story and i know there are some states where it is illegal to teach in Public Schools so im wondering if there is something in the english language and schools that is relevant to the discussion. I have a unique situation because my mom was a kind if you sink or swim kind of mentality. I didnt go to Public School until my last two years of high school so she put me in private school and it was all English Speaking and i failed open book tests because i didnt know how to speak english and so i had a different experience. But my mom did all of her efforts and resources into making sure they learned the language first and foremost because it is a barrier. The reason she didnt want to put me in the classes is because there is a stigma if you dont speak english you are not smart and that will be further from the truth. Because of that stigma, to change that needs to happen isnt just political. There needs to be a cultural shift. There needs to be a cultural shift that learning have to speak english doesnt mean youre not smart and making sure the kids are taking those classeclasses now that is and hw classes know that isnt how you as an educator view them and it isnt remedial classes. Im learning any language and some of that is happening already because in la than many of the private schools are now bilingual. I see a little kid speaking fluent spanish and their parents understand speaking it multiple languages the u. S. Is like the only country in advanced isnt the right word but like a superpower country where we only speak one language. If you go to europe they will at least speak english and french and italian and they speak multiple languages. Its only here but for some reason we think that speaking another language other than english is a bad thing. So, we have to start changing culturally and creates pieces in schools where kids dont feel like they are less banned because they are not speaking english. The teaching of english as a second language is for those kids that are new to the country that really need that, what i saw in Kingsbury High School in memphis researching the book was the kids seemed to not only feel confident that the fact of the family i wrote about the youngest son in the family doesnt really speak much spanish and communicates with his parents and his brother acting as an interpreter. I think we will see a big shift towards english among children of immigrants and i do value the speaking of multiple languages. I want to say thank you first off. Im a firstgeneration american anfirst generation americanand i remember reading all the books and nothing represented my experience, so i think it is a beautiful and wonderful things yourthingthat you are putting r narrative out there and i hope that more choose to pick up this book and have it not just like you said a mexican or latino topics that they american topic. There was a teacher that should have been a professor. He liked High School Students said he chose to stay at that level and he will always be my hero. I remember thinking to myself everything in that book as to do with my parents coming from mexico. The other piece i want to ask about is how can we harbor social media to get through what we are seeing as a culture of fear. There was the time we were trying to talk about college and now it wasnt my issue but its strange to have conversations with classmates where we were all uniform at one point in time and broken down differently. Now we see fear where students dont want to talk about their status. No one wants to talk about it which puts up a barrier to resources, so how can we harness the books you are putting out with social media and get these kind of forums where people can get educated and be able to break through that is a tough question and im not sure necessarily social media is the best way to do it because ultimately it ends up being persontoperson if i know somebodsomebody whos parents dt than a legally that changes how i think about it and so it seems to me that at Public Events and meeting people i keep coming back to the mentor programs and that ultimately ends up bringing in more change and yes you can communicate later with social media but the first thing is the persontoperson contact. What inspired me to share my story is the story of antonia. We have similar stories of when we came here and the kind of careers we had. I remember reading his article in the Washington Post where he came out and said i am undocumented and that inspired me. He made me feel like i belonged because my whole life i had gone not knowing someone that had a similar experience as me. He was filipino so its not like i could see every part of myself that he gave me the space to feel like i belonged and it also encouraged me so i think there is a big taboo without being undocumented and i have to be honest, i was very ashamed for a long time to be undocumented. It felt like i was wrong like as a human being i was wrong for being undocumented. So, what started to peel that back was hearing more stories like mine, so its important for people to share their personal narratives and come out and say if you are a citizen now at one point in time you were undocumented so please share your story and take away the myth. Its not safe to come out and say i am undocumented so its even more important for myself for people who are citizens because what youre doing is putting a human face to the issue that tends to be so politically charged. Thank you so much that i this all the time we have. Thank you for attending and your support of the festival. Dont forget to become a friend to make sure that this remains a free event. [applause] please note that ms. Arce will be 20 minutes late to the signing. Author julissa arce is making her way over to join us and take your phone calls. Here are the numbers in the 202 7488000 in the east and central time zone, 202 7488201 if you are in the mountain and pacific time zones. We will be discussing immigration policy and also what you heard the altar panel discussing. But festival of books is held every year on the campus of the university of arizona. We are covering events at the gallagher theater but outside on the university quad, quite a few different events are going on