Dreams Deferred and Dreams Denied

As faculty and administrators at federally designated "Hispanic serving institutions" (defined as colleges and universities having a minimum Latino student population of 25 percent), we came together in part because of the lack of research on the experiences of undocumented students, particularly in the Midwest; our own personal histories with immigration; our ongoing interactions with undocumented students; and our commitment to progressive immigration reform that includes amnesty.

During the course of two years we have collected more than forty oral histories of undocumented students in the Chicago metropolitan area. Research from the Center for Urban Economic Development suggests that approximately twenty thousand undocumented students live within the city limits, thirty-five hundred graduate from high school each year, and 6.1 percent of these high school graduates enroll in a postsecondary institution.