Student Organization Center at Hilles

Shepard Street, Box #59

Cambridge, MA 02138
info@actonadream.org
www.actonadream.org

September 15, 2010

To whom it may concern:

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minor Act (DREAM Act), first introduced in
2001, is a piece of legislation that would provide a pathway for undocumented students to earn
conditional permanent residency in the United States.

In order to qualify for the DREAM Act, students must:

• prove good moral character

• have been in the country for five years prior to the bill’s enactment
• have arrived in the US as minors

During a six year period of temporary residence, students must complete at least two years of a
four-year college program or have served in the United States military for at least two years in
order to maintain their permanent resident status and eventually apply for US citizenship.

On September 14, 2010, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, announced that the DREAM Act
would be added as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (HR 5136), which
the Senate is expected to discuss next week.

Act on a Dream focuses on providing immigrant youth with equal access to educational oppor-
tunities and on raising awareness of the unique challenges faced by new members of our society.
To this end, we would like to present you with a story written by an undocumented Harvard
student. We hope that this will be of use to you in understanding the importance of this piece of
legislation.

Sincerely,

Act on a Dream
 Student Organization Center at Hilles
Shepard Street, Box #59
Cambridge, MA 02138
info@actonadream.org
www.actonadream.org

Carlos L.
Harvard College, Class of 2009
Chemical and Physical Biology

I always dreamed of knowing what lay beyond the mountains. They were my backdrop growing
up in Silicon Valley, and I always longed to learn what was on the other side.

I arrived in the valley when I was four years old, after my parents told me we would board a
plane for the first time and fly to America. I was delighted to undertake what was, from my
perspective, simply a big adventure. In contrast to my fantasy, the reality was that my parents
had decided to leave our home in Guadalajara, Mexico, and move to San Jose, California. This
decision to uproot the family could not have been easy, but they decided to pursue the American
Dream and try their luck in a country that promised a better life.

Our assimilation into American society was far from seamless. My parents had few financial
resources, had only a grade school education, and could not speak English. Six months after
our arrival, our tourist visas expired and we joined the ranks of millions of undocumented immi-
grants living in the shadows of this country. We left our homeland to escape economic hardship,
but now the previously green valley felt more like an inescapable pit and the mountains felt like
the limits of our cage. Determined to give their children a better life, my parents worked mul-
tiple labor-intensive jobs for minimum wage. They made innumerable sacrifices so their children
would not have to, finding solace in the hope that the next generation would take advantage of
the educational opportunities this country offers. To my parents, education was the vehicle for
upward mobility, and it was through education that we would lift ourselves out of the shadows.

Aware of the sacrifices my parents made to ensure my access to a proper education, I looked
to the mountains seeking the treasure we all hoped awaited me on the other side. My curiosity
towards the mountains’ mysteries typified my inquisitiveness and my yearning to understand the
world. Motivated by a desire to penetrate the unknown, I developed an affinity for the natural
sciences. By adolescence, my thirst for knowledge led me to consider a career in science. But
science alone was not enough for me. How could I justify spending my days contemplating
abstract ideas when my family and community of immigrants were weighed down by the brutal
reality of their daily lives? I sought a career as a physician so I could apply my intellectual pas-
sion for science, but also work directly with my community to lighten their burdens.

Driven by a profound appreciation for the opportunities this country had provided for my family,
I began fulfilling that sense of responsibility to my community by eighth grade. I volunteered
hundreds of hours at a local food bank that provided food and social services to the HIV-positive,
 Student Organization Center at Hilles
Shepard Street, Box #59
Cambridge, MA 02138
info@actonadream.org
www.actonadream.org

low-income community of the valley. Meanwhile, motivation and focused effort led me to aca-
demic success in high school and eventually earned me a fully-funded spot at Harvard College.
My education prepared me to serve as a counselor at a reproductive health community clinic in
the valley, as a peer contraception counselor in the Harvard student health center, as a sexual
health educator in Boston public schools, and as a researcher searching for a cure for future
generations by investigating HIV vaccination strategies in pre-clinical studies and clinical trials.
Using HIV as a lens, my experiences prepared me for a career as a physician-scientist spanning
both the clinical and scientific arenas. However, despite my fervor to become a physician, during
college I was painfully aware that my status as illegal alien threatened to impede my ingress into
an American medical school after graduation.

Yet, my story is also one of love. In my first-year dormitory at Harvard, I met and fell in love
with another aspiring physician, and she and I were married in the summer of 2008. Through my
marriage I have recently become a Permanent Resident of the United States. I grew up at the in-
tersection of two countries and cultures yet feeling as if I did not fully belong to either, so for me
permanent residency represented a turning point where I was finally embraced by the only place
I ever knew as home. Furthermore, a career in medicine is finally within my reach, and my wife
and I will be attending Stanford Medical School beginning this year.

Unfortunately, there are millions of immigrants who are still waiting for a path to overcome their
own barriers and hardships. My education has and will continue to provide me with the tools
to transform the valleys of adversity I encounter into lush lands of health and opportunity, and I
know that other undocumented immigrants who call this country home are just as eager to con-
tribute to our American community if given the chance. I left the valley undocumented and with
optimistic dreams, and now I return ready to embark on the next stage of my education legalized
and with renewed hope: hope that I can learn to share these tools with others as a physician, and
hope that those still in the valleys can be free to dream.