(engaging music) (dramatic music) - [Blaze Host] All right,
back to those terms, definitions rather,
that upset the liberals. Some college students felt that they were dehumanizing illegal aliens. - [Diane] Well, can you believe
that the Library of Congress would make a decision with a bunch of liberal students from
Dartmouth University, who sent a petition to them to say that this was a dehumanizing,
or an inflammatory term? (engaging music) You know, the reasons
why I like Dartmouth, the mountains, the trees, the river. It was beautiful. It was gorgeous. It was a place where I felt at peace and I felt like I could thrive. Because the first memory that I have of this country are mountains. So I came in into Ventura, California where my great-uncle was living. It was just this green,
green mountains everywhere, and I remember the
distinct smell of tomatoes. But I always thought that these mountains and this smell was a dream. It was fake imaginary. But it was actually real when I got to visit my great-uncle two years ago, and the mountains actually existed. I didn't make it up. I'm wearing my Blue's Clues. This one is from the Fourth of July, how very patriotic, and so literally that's my first picture
of me in this country. (dramatic music) In higher learning, this Ivy League, it's the best you can do. If you make it, if you buy into this club you become part of it. You're no longer just an
undocumented immigrant. You are this exceptional human being. I really was looking for something that could tie me to the US,
as somebody that belonged. As some one who deserved to be here. To me, Dartmouth was kind of this fit, with all of the traditions. (dramatic music) Melissa, she did an
Independent Studies with me looking at undocumented youth organizing, and as she begins to do
that, and she's putting together a syllabus basically of readings, she goes to talk to Jill. I met Melissa in her
first year writing class. And she followed up with me afterwards, because she was actually starting work on an independent study,
and she needed to develop a syllabus and a bibliography
for this independent study. So she came to my office and I wanted to start by showing her
our library catalog, which is basically a database for books and other types of materials
that we own in the library. And one data point on that page is the area were the subject headings are. And the subject headings
are controlled vocabulary that we draw from, that's established by the Library of Congress. So, I'm working with Melissa. I'm cognizant of her research interests and yet I'm rattling along my script. Okay, here's the book, here's this, here's that, and here's
the subject heading, and if we click on the subject heading this will lead us to more sources. And so we went into the
list of subject headings, an alphabetized list, and
saw that there were pages and pages of variations on
the term, illegal aliens. This was the term that had been used to categorize this particular book. My gut reaction to seeing
the subject heading, here at Dartmouth, was disgust, and also like perplexed, I was like why? Like, I thought this place
would know better or do better. Wow, I can't believe
you think these things. I know that there's undocumented students here on campus and you recruit them, and you still subject them to this sort of thing, and it's not okay. I realized that I wasn't
getting any feedback from Melissa, and when I turned to look at her I realized that
something had gone wrong. And that's when she asked,
why are using those words? That's not the term that I would use. That's not the term
anybody should be using. This is what I do remember. We have a COFIRED meeting
and she brings it up, and everybody is with her. (engaging music) Estefani is there, and Halimo, and Oscar, and they're like yeah,
this is really messed up. And so what can we do? (engaging music) CoFIRED stands for the Dartmouth Coalition for Immigration, Reform,
Equality and DREAMers. The crux of the founding of CoFIRED for me was that I personally
was done being quiet. I was done not saying anything
and expressing my voice. That was very much the
mentality that I had before coming to Dartmouth,
'cause my parents were afraid. (engaging music) Around the time when I
arrived and when Eduardo was a student, that was now at the cusp of a shift towards much
more agitative strategies that included students not only saying, I'm undocumented and unafraid, but really syncing up with
civil disobedience strategies to really make it known that
by hiding their identity it was actually doing a disservice. So what started changing
was student's organizations, when CoFIRED happened, we
started just doing things, whether people attended or not, we shifted from wanting to
increase awareness for everyone, to saying we have to do concrete things. My initial initiatives
were to get Dartmouth at least up to par with all
these other peer institutions by providing resources,
providing the support and the advising, providing
the network for these students. Eduardo, at that time, he was my mentor, was telling me about you. He's like, "she would be a great advisor for the organization, CoFIRED,
'cause she was undocumented." I was just like, "I never heard of a professor that was
undocumented, teaching." And so to see an actual
person that looks like you represented and teaching
you about something that is very personal
and explains your life and your experience, and
validates them was amazing. And I remember I was just looking. It looked like my mom, my
grandma, my great-grandmother. It was just a lineage of maternal support in a way that wasn't
ever really taught to me. I think it seemed worthy of action, personally to me, because I really believe that language is one of the
ways that we give meaning to the world, to our interactions. We can all cop up to having done something that's considered illegal, and yet, we don't walk around saying you are the illegal student who had
a sip of beer before 21, and you're the illegal
person for jaywalking. (traffic hums) All of the literature that had had under the subject heading
was not anti-immigrant. If anything, I think a lot of them were about uplifting and
humanizing undocumented peoples. But to see a word that
very starkly represents one way to dehumanize undocumented people, emotionally hurt me, but
also kind of did make me not really trust the library as a system. (engaging music) I didn't look at the system,
the cataloging system as actually an expression of values. I just sort of saw it
as this disassociated, neutral, organizing principle. And I have to say even I as an educator hadn't really thought about that. It to me, it's just a
catalog word that they use, but it's not just a catalog word. It means that you are giving value, and you are giving credence
to that subject heading, and that that is the way in which you're cataloging knowledge
on a global scale. According to that word and
what it allows you to do by dehumanizing, by othering those people, is to treat them as less than human, as less than we would treat ourselves. The fact that it's been used and codified in the subject heading
has tremendous power, because that shapes the
way we think and write. It does affect the way that minds work and the way you see this It's not like they're
picturing me, a classmate, a peer sitting next to them,
when they say, illegal alien. It's wielded most specifically
towards migrants of color and there's a racist
coding to it and by virtue of its power it becomes part of the ways in which anti-immigrant sentiment festers. (children play) It shaped who I could be friends with, and who I could talk to,
and what I could say. At the playground, where
people would be like, "oh you're from Mexico,
you must be an illegal", and you having to laugh
it off, and be like ha ha, yeah that's so funny, like I am. I had this nickname in middle school. They called me Floatie
because they assumed that I swam across the border,
or across the Rio Grande, and it literally took
me reflecting on that like last week, to be
like that was not okay. I actually think I gave
myself that nickname 'cause they were gonna give
me a more terrible nickname, and I was like, that'll be funny, Floatie. (water ripples) (plane hums) You know today, I'm a US citizen, which is kind of bizarre on its own. And I catch myself like pinching myself whenever I get on an airplane. There's always this
moment when I get to where they ask for your passport or your ID. I just feel like they're gonna catch me. (people chatter) As students, and at Dartmouth, the library is central to the education
and the representation of what Dartmouth is like. Now we're going from our
own institution, Dartmouth, to the nation's library institution. (engaging music) Oscar grew up in Park City. It's a small, northern suburb of Chicago in my home state of Illinois. He was quite a student. "I dedicated myself," Oscar
said, "solely to my education to honor the sacrifices my parents made." Well it was because of those outstanding academic achievements in high shool that Oscar was admitted
to Dartmouth College, an Ivy League school in
Hanover, New Hampshire. He's the first member of his
family even to attend college. He co-founded and co-directed
the college's first immigrant rights organization, and now he's in his
senior year at Dartmouth. (engaging music) Even though this looks
kind of meaningless. It's actually from my
grandfather, my mom's dad, and he was also undocumented and he worked in the carpet industry,
and her mom was in Mexico. And then my dad's parents
are both in Mexico. So we are separated by borders, by countries, and separated by states. In some ways the Dream Act
created the DREAMer narrative, and the DREAMer movement, by focusing and putting the spotlight
on certain narratives. We are deserving of addressing this issue. But so are my parents,
the original DREAMers, and so are the other 11 million of us. (bustle and commotion) In a globalized world,
one of things that states can still control is who
comes in, and who belongs. So you can manage then,
who belongs in this nation and what it continues
to mean to be American. And one of the ways that you
do that is through exclusion. And so there are people we want, and there are people we don't want. And what I always say
is sometimes it's easier to scapegoat than it is to
deal with a structural problem. It's much easier to put
a wall up than to say, we need to think about restructuring the way the US economy works. Learning all these cues as
to how to navigate Dartmouth was especially hard the first term. I called my dad, and
we had a conversation, and I think it's when I
began to piece together that even though my dad
didn't attend college, he very much was in constant interaction with white male privilege. For example, a party that a
Greek organization hosted. It's like Bloods and Crips, right. And so I told my dad this story. Not very much expecting
him to say anything or even understand, but he
understood it very well. He was like, I'm translating
what he said in Spanish, but it was like, "those rich kids, what do they understand
about living in a ghetto?" About the really real
implications of going to school and being told don't wear
red, don't wear blue, don't wear basically any color, because it could be
associated with a gang, and that could put your life at risk. When I came to Dartmouth I
came in with the mentality of I'm going to take
a break from activism. And so I said I'm just gonna be a student, and I'm just gonna study, and I'm gonna be this stereotypical college student. Got to CoFIRED and sort
of realized that activism really can't take a backseat;
discrimination, oppression, it doesn't take a backseat. You can't just time it out and be like, okay I'm tired can you like not be sexist for a second or for 10 years? Can I have everything be perfect? (engaging music) So during that winter of 2014,
Professor Gutierrez-Najera brought to our attention
this Freedom Budget. - [Estefani] - So the Freedom
Budget didn't just include issues related to the
undocumented population on campus, but it also included that
of Black, Latino, Asian, underrepresented groups
basically at Dartmouth. And so we thought it was a
great avenue to push for change. I felt a complex mix of
things when the Freedom Budget came out and I saw the provision
about the library catalog. Oh my god, it was like,
I know what that's about and I was embarrassed
to kind of tell them. I was like, I know
exactly what that's about and I think it originated at my desk. So we have check boxes
with every single point of the Freedom Budget and we ask Hanlon to tell us if he either strongly disagrees or strongly agree with each point. Activism takes many forms. You need people at all levels
targeting the same issue. I think it's important to tackle language as it is to tackle policy, as it is to tackle other dimensions of issues, but at the end of the day you have to choose what avenue you want to take because you're only one person and you won't be able to
bring about change yourself. I think change comes
in a very communal way, in which multiple individuals are tackling the same issue from different ends. (protestors chant) We set up an initial meeting and we thought that our
explanations were pretty good. I was talking with the
students with my colleague, Amy Witzel, who was a former
cataloger at one point, and she was pulling out
her cataloging textbook from Library School and
was really getting into it. But the students weren't
satisfied with our explanations. They were like, "but what
are we gonna do about it?" And I think Amy and I were like, what are we gonna do about it? What can we do? And at that point Amy
contacted John DeSantis in our cataloging
department, and meanwhile, I contacted our our library administration to relay to them the fact that
we've met with the students and discussed their concerns,
but they really wanna see something happen here and
I think we need to respond. Fortunately, one of our
administrators at the time, Eliz Kirk, was really
in solidarity with this and suggested that okay we could make a subject heading change proposal. The Dartmouth Library could take this on. We'll do it if the students
join us in this effort. - [Melissa] We just assumed
that Dartmouth was responsible for the subject heading,
so we went in with the idea that we just wanted them to
change it and we would be okay. - [Estefani] We didn't realize
it was a national database that applied to every institution. It was in some ways our naive
understanding of systems. So we had a meeting with the students and the librarians, all together. I think it was in March,
the end of March of 2014. We felt that during that
meeting with the students that they began to understand
what was really involved here. They knew what the implications were of petitioning the Library of Congress, and in the event of a successful petition what the result would
be, that the consequences would reach far beyond just Dartmouth. We met with librarians to learn about the application process,
to gather other sources that use terms like
undocumented, unauthorized, as opposed to illegal, to
show the change in discourse that has already happened, and that now the Library of Congress
needed to catch up to. (engaging music) Before coming to Dartmouth, my perspective of librarians were just these older women, cranky a little bit for not
returning your book on time, or being loud in the library. I didn't think that they
were gonna be too willing or understanding of the situation. But to my surprise, it
was the complete opposite, so, making me realize that librarians are actually people too. Ultimately, the students challenged us to be better professionals. I began to care, not just
as a catalog librarian, but as a person, as a human being, and it made me happy that I was able to help in any way that I could. - [Presenter] Here is an illustration of what proper cataloging can accomplish. I'm looking for a book on television. - [Librarian] Do you know the author? No, I don't, and I don't
know the title either. But it's a blue book. I think we can help you. - [Presenter] This boy's
problem was not an unusual one. Because the cataloger did a good job, the book was easily located, and the boy was further encouraged to
use the library facility. (delicate music) A subject heading is a designated term that represents a concept. The Library of Congress subject headings are used by almost every
library in the country. Officially, it is the Library of Congress. It serves Congress. To the rest of the library community, the Library of Congress
subject headings are ours too. Over the years, many
individuals have tried to reform Library of
Congress subject headings to make some of the
outdated terms more current. The most notorious, of
course, is the evolving descriptors for people of color within the United States. So, at one time the official
subject heading Negroes existed for a number of years, before it was changed to Afro-Americans, and after that it was
updated to African-Americans, and then finally updated again, to distinguish between African-Americans and Blacks of the United States. So, the leading proponent
of this type of change is a librarian in Minnesota, now retired named Sanford Berman,
who routinely submitted proposals to the Library of Congress. Many of which were accepted
and many of which were not, but he is primarily known as
a subject heading activist. (engaging music) So yeah, this is what we got back from the Library of Congress. It was right after the New Year. This proposal was made to
change the wording of existing heading, Illegal aliens,
to Undocumented immigrants. And then those five words
you just hate to see and read: the proposals were not approved. (dramatic music) - [Oscar] We provided the
evidence and then I think that was submitted in that Summer of 2014, and we didn't get a response
until the end of that year I think, where they had
rejected us initially. (dramatic music) The way that I first
encountered the subject heading proposal from Dartmouth,
was I was doing some kind of research, or reading
online, and I don't remember exactly what I was up to,
I mean I'm a librarian, I do that sort of thing a lot. I came across a news story
and saw that there had been this protest movement that had noted that "Illegal aliens" was being used as a term in their college library, and that students had initiated this campaign to get it changed. It was very inspiring. And then, so I continued
to research the story. I went from this elation to disappointment just a few minutes later, 'cause this had all taken place in the past. That what I was finding out about it, that they had made the proposal and it had already been declined. It was so fantastic this had happened. It would be really
unfortunate and unsatisfactory if it just ended there, and that was that. When Tina Gross contacted me, I guess it was a year later, and I was kinda like
wow, this is interesting that this person, she's
halfway across the country is working on this,
and she's working on it because she had heard
about what we had done, and she's kept it alive. And then I came up with idea
of submitting a resolution to the American Library
Association Council, the ALA Council, every librarian
network that I'm part of, that I thought people would
be sympathetic I contacted. People were very receptive
and a lot of people went out and contacted their networks. And so, I mean a lot of
people became involved. I actually found out that it passed nearly unanimously by watching Twitter. Still though, still when that happened, as excited as I was that
the issue had become a national issue, I really thought this is more of a symbolic
gesture than something that will actually bring
about change in the library. Two months later, the Library
announced, out of the blue, I mean nobody expected
this, the Library announced that it intended to change the headings. - [Oscar] I didn't realize
the impact that we had until Junot Diaz and Jorge Ramos shared on their Facebook page the
change that we had made. It said like, these kids are heroes and we were blown away, because they were at least for me is one of my heroes. - [Oscar] We realized that this was a big thing that we had done. Typical changes to subject
headings, even if they were in some way controversial to someone, there's just a monthly
list that they put out, that announces what all the changes are, and there's a certain subset of people who pay attention for
that list every month and watch what's on it, but
it's not normally newsworthy So it was in March of 2016
that the Library of Congress announced that it intended
to implement the change. That it intended to delete the term "Illegal aliens" from its
controlled vocabulary. They would completely remove it. That was in March and
then there was a backlash from members of Congress who disagreed very strongly with this change. (dramatic music) - [Host] Joining me now,
Republican Congressman from Tennessee, Diane Black. Congressman, thanks for
being with me tonight. Thank you, it's great
to be with you as well. So we scrubbed these
terms in the first place because some college students felt that they were dehumanizing
illegal aliens. And to make that decision
on political correctness, to change something that has
been in the lexicon there at our Library of Congress since back in the early 1900s is
just unbelievable to me. Diane, let's move from
presidential politics to policy and combating
the political correctness on Capitol Hill; you've
introduced legislation to overturn a decision by
the Library of Congress to remove the term, illegal
alien, from their materials. What on earth is going on over
at the Library of Congress? There is where we have
political correctness gone amok. We see a group of very liberal students from Dartmouth University,
who sent the petition to the Library of Congress,
and they reacted to that silliness, because the
word alien are defined in Webster's Dictionary and Black's Law. They're used actually throughout our code. Ted Cruz has continued
to push the issue back on Capitol Hill; Cruz one
of four Republican lawmakers to sign a letter urging
the Library of Congress not to eliminate the term illegal aliens from search terms in cataloging. The House Appropriations
Committee has also approved a plan that would require
the Library to call undocumented people in this
country illegal immigrants. Okay, the Library concedes
that while it regularly reviews requests to alter existing
terms revisions are rare. Not true. And even rarer for terms of legal and historical significance, i.e., exactly the terms at issue here. Yet, it continues on this
Orwellian trajectory. There is no other way to put this. The Library has bowed to
the political pressure of the moment, such an action is beneath the dignity of the Library of Congress. Rather than engaging
in revisionist history, the Library should base its decisions on sound judgment, taking actual history, present facts, and future
efforts into account. Well, it should do all
those things, but doing that would not result in the outcome that these people are advocating. I don't know, I mean
it's such a knotted nest of both ignorance and bad faith. - [Chairman] The House is now in order. (gavel pounds) The House will be in order. Members please remove your conversations from the House floor. (gavel pounds) The Committee instructs the Library to maintain certain subject headings that reflect terminology used
in Title VIII of the US Code. That's what's so offensive
to the minority party. For seven and a half years
we've had a President that wants to ignore the intent
of our laws, of our land. We will not allow this body, this House, to ignore the definitions
nor the words of the laws that have been voted on in this body, passed by the Senate, and signed
into law by the President. So, I'm asking this body vote
no on this motion to recommit. Vote yes to uphold the laws of this land. And vote yes for your constituents on final passage, and have a good weekend. With that I yield back. If we removed negro and
oriental in the subject headings of the Library of Congress
before we changed the US Code, we should do the same for the now pejorative term, illegal alien. The Library of Congress is
our nation's first established cultural institution,
and it's hard to fathom why my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle would try to tie its hands to the slow-moving wheels of the US Code. Entering into an immigration debate on the legislative branch's
appropriations bill is a terrible precedent. The library changes
thousands of subject headings each year without
interference from Congress. Why this one? Why now? My side of the aisle could
certainly have pushed to have the Library
reconsider its decision after the Dartmouth petition
was turned down back in 2014. Because many Democrats
and Republicans believe that the term, illegal
aliens, labels a group based on a misconception
that an immigrant's presence in our nation is a criminal
violation, which it is not. But we allowed the process
to work, because the Library is in the business of
language and nomenclature, and should be free to make these decisions without political interference. The politicization of the
Library of Congress in order to perpetuate a misconception
about immigrants in our country is simply an issue on which my principles will
not allow me to bend an inch. Thank you. In the years of the
Congress and the Library language has involved,
that's why we've done away with terms like negro,
and oriental, and lunatic, and retarded, because we
understand that even words that start off as neutral descriptors can over time become used as
verbal weapons and knives, to inflict pain and
disrespect, and sow division. The words, illegal alien, will be retired. This will change, whether it's now, or six months from now,
or 10 years from now. The question for all of
us is whether we today will do the right thing,
or whether a few years from now we'll apologize
for doing the wrong thing? Please support this motion to recommit and do the right thing, I yield back. (muffled debate in Congress) (muffled chatter) It feels like we're meeting celebrities. It's just the power that is so, it has like a corporal reaction. We're supposed to interviewing Congresswoman Debbie Wassermann-Schulz. But she's unavailable 'cause she's voting alongside also, Joaquin Castro. But this is I guess the day-to-day apparatus of working in Congress. Thank you. (muffled greetings) The Librarian of Congress made us aware of the petition from Dartmouth, as well as, from the
National Library Association, suggesting that they change
their subject heading. I enthusiastically supported that change and we ran into a
buzzsaw with the Chairman of the committee at the time. So we had a battle
through the fiscal year, through the appropriations
process over that. - [Melissa] Is that normal
for the Library of Congress, did they feel that it was
a politically-charged view and wanted to let you know beforehand. You know, I'm not sure. That's the first time in the
10 years that I have either been the Chair or the ranking
member of sub-committee, that the Library had made us aware of a subject heading change. To me, this was nothing
more than the normal, systematic process of
updating a subject heading. And then it had the added
outrage of the opposition, coming from the Republicans over something as simple as ceasing to use a term that was pejorative, and
offensive, and inaccurate. And so, there are some times when you just have to take a stand. - [Oscar] What impact
do you think this had in terms of the Library, Congress, all this opposition and contestation? I think this was emblematic
for Republicans of their belief that we shouldn't
be the refuge in the world. It was sad and I found it pathetic, and our bill is usually non-controversial. We don't really have too many battles, but this was specifically
about what we call people, how we refer to people, and everybody has to be able to maintain their dignity, and I was gonna stand up for dignity. - [Staff Member] All set, okay? Okay. We're gonna keep following this for sure. Yes. I know we did at least stop
from putting the language in that would've halted
the Library's ability to make the change in
terms, so that was great. - [Oscar] All right. And if there's anything we can do. - [Oscar] Yes. Helping you with finding research, or-- Thank you, I'm still on the committee. We're partners and allies in this. Absolutely. Thank you. [Oscar And Melissa] Thank you so much. (engaging music) That was amazing to
hear such blunt honesty. Like when she used the word pathetic. Yeah, for a hot-second I was
like, do I want to be...? I can do this. Amazing, nice to meet you. Joaquin Castro, great to meet you. An honor. Hi. Joaquin Castro, it's great to see you. Hi, nice to meet on in. - [Castro] Come on in. (muffled greetings) Now I don't know where
you all want me to sit. How did you become aware of the Library of Congress
subject heading change? Well, I had read about
the effort at Dartmouth to change the subject
heading illegal alien, So, I thought this is an
opportunity to really have the language reflect the humanity of the people we're talking
about and describing, rather than allowing what
has become a very offensive and politicized term to remain to be used. The effort last year made by
some members of the Congress was to make sure that
the Library of Congress continued to use the term, illegal alien, which was historic because
the Congress has never really inserted itself in the titles that the Library of Congress uses. And so, that was very troubling. That there would be an effort, essentially a political effort to
force them to continue to use what many considered
outdated language. What has been the impact
of all this contestation in terms of the way we think
about undocumented immigrants? Do you think this was
just political theater to divide this issue? Well, I think most of all it's raised the consciousness of people. They understand that
the term can dehumanize. What we've also seen is
something that years ago we would think remarkable,
which is journalism and the private sector are
often ahead of government now in using a term other than illegal alien. And ultimately, I think government will come along and things will change. [Melissa and Oscar]
Well, thank you so much. Yeah. - [Oscar] Thank you Congressman
Castro for your time. How much longer do
y'all have at Dartmouth? - [Melissa] Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Four days. Oh, you're graduating. On Sunday. Congratulations. Well you guys, y'all helped inspired other people to take
action, including myself and I wanna say thank you for that. Thank you. We'll get there. Good to see you. (uplifting music) Having no legal status,
but occupying this area that we were in, like 'cause
in many ways it's subversive, to hold no legal status,
to live outside the law, and then to go into the offices of the people that
literally create the law. And so, it made it seem so
imaginary, the law that is. That all it takes is you
get down, whatever it is, the paper, you write out the text of it, and you vote on it, and debate, and make changes, and stuff, but literally it's words on a paper. (water ripples) - [Melissa] I think that
when I was undocumented the only thing that I could
think that could save me was papers, and that I would
someday lead a normal life, and getting a green card,
and now being a US citizen has really made me question whether papers are really even the answer. (water ripples) The realization that this
subject heading was problematic, and not just in an intellectual way that it was problematic,
but that it was actually hurting people, I think made
me confront my own whiteness. By just sort of accepting
that term being there and not questioning it, I was
in a sense using that term. (delicate music) Carrying out our principles,
such as providing courteous, reliable services to all people regardless of immigration status. That in this country today, unfortunately, that is not a neutral value. That's something that actually
often has to be asserted, and fought for, and taken
very seriously as an issue. (muffled chatter) We don't get this a lot. We're always in confrontations. We're always in tense mode
and there isn't always time for us to feel appreciated
or feel like we're doing something good, but we are,
for everyone who put in man hours, I know that you had classrooms, finals, and other things,
we're still students. And so, I just wanna make
sure whoever sees this, if you're an activist, if
you're involved in this, if you're being affected by this, that that's not a small task. It's a very respectable thing. For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this
country, be forewarned. This is a new era. This is the Trump era. And there are vast numbers of additional criminal, illegal
immigrants who have fled, but their days have run out. Our prisons are bursting
with illegals right now. What about the law-abiding majority? (dramatic music) - [Melissa] We're in a
moment where immigrants are seen in a pejorative way. (crowd chants) Build that wall, build that wall, build that wall, build that wall, build that wall, build that wall, build that wall, build that wall. What inspires me about really
troubling moments like this is the indomitable spirit of people who wanna resist and who take
up the mantle of activism. If we move away from hard
topics, which we're apt to do, I think we have a very
hard time talking race. And we have a very hard time
talking about these issues. Understanding the
communicative aspect of this becomes a really nice entry
into this larger conversation, which is why is there so much
anti-immigrant sentiment? Dartmouth didn't do it, you did it. So that's where the credit needs to be. Yes, Dartmouth has given
you tremendous resources to be able to do some
of the work you've done. But it's you. It's the group. And it just wouldn't have
happened without you guys. As people of color, as
undocumented, we still face certain things and I
don't think we could have done as much as we could have without you, and Professor Anguiano,
helping us in getting forth and creating that path, and demonstrating what other kinds of things
educators at Dartmouth could do. Well, you guys have a
big piece of my heart. You know that. (delicate music) I'm graduating on June 11th. I've been here for four years and not once will my parents step foot on this place that I've lived, studied
for the past four years. Their initial goal as
to why they came here, for me to be able to cross that stage, get my education, and
they're literally not gonna be able to come here
because they're too scared to make the trip all
the way from Illinois, crossing Indiana, Ohio, New York, Vermont, all the way to
Hanover, New Hampshire. They're too scared of being deported and they're too scared
of family separation, and when they told me that that
was very, very, very scary, and of course it made me cry. (muffled announcements) (gentle guitar music) Life in Georgia just seemed so restricted, that there were so little possibilities, that I had just had to get by, and fight in all the ways that I could. To think about the fact
that I've now been a part of this battle, not just a
fight but an actual battle and continue to be, because
it's very much in limbo right now, what's gonna happen
at the Library of Congress. (delicate uplifting music) I feel like myself and
other people in CoFIRED, and activists, and people
who just care about the community are
definitely leaving some part of their soul, or their heart here for other people, who just
don't see themselves here. (delicate engaging music) (engaging dramatic music)