Underwater Dreams: Undoc Students Beat MIT, Still Can't Get Jobs, College

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Underwater Dreams: Undoc Students Beat MIT, Still Can't Get Jobs, College

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

At 1 PM ET today MSNBC will air a (truncated) television version of Underwater Dreams, an incredible documentary about undocumented students from Carl Hayden High School who, a decade ago, beat MIT students in an underwater robotics competition.

e: web livestream - http://www.livenewschat.eu/politics/

The documentary is getting a lot of press, in part because it's an amazing story, and in part because it's a sad one, as the victorious Carl Hayden students have been unable to attend college or get jobs due to their status:

Jonathan Alter, "These Undocumented Teens Outsmarted MIT�and Still Can't Get Real Jobs in America" posted:

The subtext of the tough talk about the tens of thousands of child refugees flowing up from Central America is that like Mexicans they will be a drag on the American economy�wards of the state who suck taxpayers dry.

Governments at all levels will face short-term costs, of course, but the economic fear of immigrants has never been warranted. Beyond the humanitarian imperative lies a stark historical truth: From Alexander Hamilton to Andy Grove to Elon Musk, new arrivals and their children�toughened by circumstance and self-selected for pluck�have give the United States the energy and drive that has made us great.

Most reasonable people get this. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Sheldon Adelson (!) wrote an op-ed in The New York Times last Friday bemoaning the insanity of training immigrants at our best universities, then forcing them to go home. But in pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, the billionaires seemed most concerned about wealthier �migr�s, whom they argued should be allowed to stay if they come with money.

Valid point, but it ignores the fact that poor, undocumented Hispanics�the ones most denigrated by Tea Party know-nothings�have much to offer, too, just as penniless immigrants (i.e. your ancestors) always have.

Those scraggly Latino kids on the corner you might think are thugs could be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg if given half a chance.

To understand why that's more than a platitude, check out Underwater Dreams, a seemingly modest human interest film that may be the most politically significant documentary since Waiting for Superman. (It opened in Los Angeles and New York on July 11 and can be seen on cable later this month).

The film tells the story of four undocumented Mexican teenagers who are members of a robotics club at Carl Hayden High School in the barrio of Phoenix; their parents speak no English, and their own horizons are limited.

With the help of dedicated teachers, they build an underwater robot and enter a grueling collegiate competition held at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2004. The boys figure they might learn something from the older college-age engineers showing off their robots.

The Carl Hayden team� Christian Arcega, Lorenzo Santillan, Luis Aranda, and Oscar Vasquez�get off to a bad start when their robot, nicknamed �Stinky,� takes on water during a practice round on the first day. In one of the film�s many humorous moments, they buy a box of tampons that turn out to have the perfect absorbency for plugging Stinky�s leaks.

After Carl Hayden does the impossible and beats MIT for first place, the film takes a disturbing turn that left me and the rest of the preview audience in tears.

A decade after the competition, MIT professors invited the winners to Cambridge, Massachusetts for a reunion with the MIT team they beat. Not surprisingly, the losers were now winning engineers; one of the MIT graduates had gone on to invent ear buds for Apple.

The undocumented winners haven�t done so well. Christian, who had finished second in his high school class, was forced to drop out of community college in 2006 under the harsh terms of Arizona�s Proposition 300, which denies state aid to undocumented students. Lorenzo went to culinary school and started a small catering company, where Luis, a janitorial supervisor, helps out. Oscar, hoping to join the Army and become legal, turned himself in to the authorities, who deported him to Mexico. When their story reached Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Oscar was allowed to come back to the United States and join the Army, where he served with distinction in Afghanistan. At present, he�s the only one working in a STEM-related business.

When the filmmaker, Mary Mazzio, showed the film to college students, a few wanted her to cut the MIT reunion scene because it made them uncomfortable. �Good,� she told them. �That was my intention. Now go do something about it.�

Anjelica Hernandez, a female member of the 2004 robotics team who is featured in the film but didn�t travel with the boys to Santa Barbara, is taking up the challenge. When I met her, she had just received a master�s in science from Stanford but devotes much of her time to highlighting the injustices committed against tens of thousands of young �Dreamers� who came as children and-- even with President Obama�s 2012 directive--are still having trouble getting legal. It was only last week that a federal court invalidated Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer�s mean-spirited executive order preventing Dreamers from obtaining driver�s licenses.

Imagine Christian, Lorenzo, Luis, Oscar and Anjelica trying to drive to a robotics competition, knowing that if they�re caught without a license, which they can�t legally get, they could be deported.

Now comes a new wave of young immigrants sent north to escape rampant gang violence in Central America.

Before agreeing to give the president the $3.7 billion he requested to hire more judges and otherwise handle the refugee crisis, Republicans in Congress want to toughen the bill and make it easier to deport children. To get the money, Obama will likely yield on the point.

With dreams of immigration reform in 2014 slipping away, attention has turned to next year. Grover Norquist, who is pro-reform, told me recently that Republicans think that if they win control of the Senate they can pass a �legalization� bill that gives immigrants documents but, by denying any path to citizenship, essentially relegates them to being second-class citizens, exploited like those in the guest worker program.

Is that what we want for the students at Carl Hayden High, where the robotics club is still going strong?

Underwater Dreams will be screened soon in the White House. It should also be seen in every high school in the country, where it will inspire thousands of kids, and in Congress, where it might just jolt a few politicians out of their stupor and help them see young people for who they are, and who they can be.

Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/14/these-undocumented-teens-outsmarted-mit-and-still-cant-get-real-jobs-in-america.html

If you can't see the televised version today, you can also see it in AMC Theaters, which has committed to free community screenings in 100 cities.

***

This is a really important documentary because it is so drat sympathetic. I believe it has the potential to influence the immigration reform debate. Its television sponsors certaintly think so:

quote:

Telemundo, mun2, MSNBC and AMC Theaters will feature Underwater Dreams, a new documentary film by award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio and narrated by actor Michael Pe�a. The film chronicles the compelling and inspirational story of four teenage boys, the sons of Mexican immigrants, who entered a sophisticated underwater robotics competition, going up against the likes of engineering powerhouse MIT. The film will be a central pillar of NBCUniversal Hispanic Enterprises and Content�s new nationwide pro-social campaign, Aprender es Triunfar, aimed at closing the Latino student achievement gap, especially in STEM education. In support of reaching many Latino families with this inspirational message, AMC Theatres has committed to hosting up to 100 community screenings, free of charge, at AMCs across the U.S. to enable school and non-profit groups to enjoy the film on the big screen this summer and fall. In addition, in late July, MSNBC, Telemundo and mun2 will broadcast a special television version.

I know we just had the semiannual D&D slapfight over immigration reform in the Vargas thread. If possible, I'd like to steer this thread to be about Underwater Dreams as a political agent. By whom was it constructed? How is it being mobilized in the debate? What are the reactions to / about / around it? And, if others want to watch the televised version today, maybe we can TV/IV a bit about the broadcast version.

Petey fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Jul 20, 2014

# ¿ Jul 20, 2014 17:02

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 13:02

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Streaming now on the web at: http://www.livenewschat.eu/politics/

# ¿ Jul 20, 2014 18:05

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Stanos posted:

Pardon me if I don't exactly take something Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Sheldon fuckin' Adelson agree on at face value. If it's for expanding green cards and letting educated people live in America I can get behind that. Perhaps even an offer for people who go to school here. But I have this sneaking urge they don't give a poo poo about that and just want to expand H1Bs for the carousel of temporary indentured servants.

I do however agree that something needs to be done about the illegal immigrants already here that isn't "a massive wall of burning tires" or plain deportation.

Your skepticism of tech companies' interest in immigration reform is warranted.

In this case, however, we have a group of students who were brought here as children, came to school, and are fully American except for a piece of paper saying so. Per your second point, it is very important, for many reasons, that we find a way to allow them to be at home.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2014 22:16

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Cercadelmar posted:

Petey, you mentioned the film version was different, were there any major differences?

Well, it's half again as long, so I think the story is just much more coherent. I know the students and I think Mazzio did well by them in both versions though (and they think so too).

There will be a big showing at the Museum of Science on Aug 7th (Mazzio is from Boston) w/ lots of politicos and I hear there will be a "major announcement" this week. Of what, I'm not sure.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2014 01:48

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Maddow reporting (see also HuffPo) that Obama is returning from his vacation early to pursue unilateral executive action on immigration reform for DREAMers.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 02:55

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