Francisco Medina: Senior Helps Fellow Students Find a Better Life

On a July afternoon, most college students are soaking up rays at the beach, hanging out with friends or on a family vacation, anything to be as far away from school as possible. However, Francisco Medina is busily trying to get his peers to enroll in the upcoming fall semester at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

As vice president of the campus organization Espíritu de Nuestro Futuro, Medina has taken on the responsibility of encouraging and assisting undocumented students who want to attend college despite their lack of citizenship. As a volunteer for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, he served more than 200 hours over the last academic year providing counseling and advocating for young people who, like himself, look to find a better life in the United States.

“On the second day of my volunteer work, they took me to the immigration centers to talk to the children,” the Mexico City transplant recalls. “On the third day, I didn’t want to go back because it was really sad; I was ready to cry. It’s terrible what the kids tell you. I was working on a case with a young lady from Guatemala who was 15 years old. She told me she had been abused by five different guys. She had no parents and was probably going to have to go back to her native country. According to the psychologists and social workers I spoke to about her, she was going to kill herself. So there’s a lot of emotionally demanding work. The lawyer I was working with told me, ‘Don’t worry. Don’t take it so personally. Just do your best to help them.’”

Medina’s time in the immigration centers underscored for him the plight of young people who arrive in the United States only to be detained for their illegal entry. This opportunity to help others has inspired him to go to law school, where he plans on specializing in immigration law.

“The immigration centers are full of people under 18, just children,” he says. “They would tell me about the issues they faced in their native countries. I would listen and take notes and would have to tell them if they qualified for a visa, or give them solutions on how to qualify. They can be there for months or years. A lot of the children in the detention centers qualify, but unfortunately we don’t have enough lawyers to bring these cases to immigration court or who are willing to do that for free.”

Medina says he has been encouraged by his “angels,” Imelda Quintanar, academic advisor in the Educational Opportunities Program, and Jose López-Morín, associate professor of Chicana/o studies. A number of awards for his academic performance and community work have supported his efforts. He was recently awarded the Bill Coggins Community Leadership Scholarship from the Kaiser Permanente Watts Counseling and Learning Center.

Espíritu de Nuestro Futuro is a support group for students who are attending Cal State Dominguez Hills with the help of the California Nonresident Tuition Exemption Act (Assembly Bill AB540). Under this 2001 measure, nonresident students who have attended high school in California for at least three full years and have received a diploma or equivalent are exempt from paying the non-resident tuition, despite their lack of citizenship. Medina’s involvement with the organization includes outreach to his alma mater, Leuzinger High School, and assisting fellow students as they go through the admissions process at Dominguez Hills.

“When we talk to high school students, we tell them that when they come to Dominguez Hills, Espíritu is going to be their family,” says the Chicana/o studies and sociology major. “They won’t be fighting by themselves; they’ll be fighting beside us. And I tell them if I can do it, they can do it too.”

- Joanie Harmon