Dream Student Achieves American Dream!

Viewers, one of my readers referenced the following article written by columnist Frank Mickadeit from the OC Register. I thought it was a very timely article, particularly in light of the fact that several Dream students are currently staging a Hungry Strike in front of several Congressmens' offices in support of passing the Dream Act:
You couldn't better illustrate the deep rift in Orange County over immigration than by looking at what happened on opposite ends of the county
Late Tuesday night, the Yorba 'Zona (Yorba Linda) City Council did what councils in Villa Park failed to do and Costa Mesa couldn't quite bring itself to do: 1) endorse Arizona's immigration law. 2)Less than 24 hours later, in Newport Beach, I watched a college-bound student being honored for outstanding scholarship stand before 350 people and, to great applause, proudly declare his Mexican birth and undocumented U.S. status. The latter occurred at billionaire Henry Nicholas 's estate, on a sprawling patio overlooking the Pacific. The occasion was the celebration of the young men and women from Santa Ana and Valley high schools who graduated from the Nicholas Academic Centers affiliated with those campuses. Nicholas has supported the after-school tutoring program the last three years, but it has its roots in the work of retired Judge Jack Mandel, who began tutoring students in 1970.

Mandel's very first tutee was a surprise speaker. Raul Tapia went on to become Cal State Fullerton's top grad and then to Harvard Law and a big-time practice. I thought the old judge was going to cry when his confident and impeccably dressed protégé strode to the stage. Each of the 66 2010 N.A.C. grads is headed to a college in one of 10 states or the District of Columbia (though none to an Arizona college). This year's N.A.C. class is up from 24 in 2009, the expansion due to the addition of the center at Valley High. Altogether, they won $1 million in scholarships.
Back to our undocumented scholar. "I knew being an undocumented student was going to be an obstacle," he told the audience in nervous but unaccented English. "I knew that lots of undocumented students (get) into great colleges and couldn't pay for it." That would not be a problem for our guy, as it turned out, because he earned a privately funded scholarship that will pay for all four years at a highly ranked university. He noted that another undocumented kid won the same scholarship the year before, both of them overcoming the sponsor's reluctance to award it to someone not here legally. He said he told her, "Ma'am, I'm pretty sure your investment will (pay off)." What struck me was the utterly tenuous, fragile nature of this young man's presence. As I remarked to a retired judge (not Mandel) standing next to me: One moment this kid is at a billionaire's mansion, reveling in his and his classmates' moment of glory and on his way to a great university, and just like that, (snapping my fingers), he could be picked up and hauled back to Mexico. And were this Arizona (or maybe even Yorba Linda), he probably would be, the instant he declared his status.
The retired judge suggested I reveal the kid's name and accomplishments but not his immigration status. "That's not the story here," he said, "although it is a good story." But I decided to reveal the scholar's accomplishments and his status but not his name. To me, his status is a necessary part of this ongoing story.