Blog

August 30, 2021 | Elise Wildman | UC Davis

I am a political science major at UC Davis; this summer, I was an organizer with Un-PAC, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to democracy reform and mobilizing students and young people to get the For the People Act passed. The fight to pass S1, the For the People Act, much-needed structural democracy reform, exemplifies the degree to which corporations are represented in our government, not the people. Our representatives have continued to vote on behalf of their donors, disregarding the plight of students. As students, we are faced with unprecedented amounts of student debt amidst rising costs of living and the bleak future of an uninhabitable planet. We do not feel heard, nor represented, as decision-makers at every level of government are complicit. However, we have the potential to be unstoppable. As students and young people, we have cultivated vast networks of incredibly talented peers with an array of skills and interests. We have the opportunity to transform these networks into vehicles of social change. Through civic engagement, we can mobilize our vast networks of peers to take action.

Civic engagement can take many forms. Voting, especially in local elections, makes an impact. Furthermore, we must extend our civic engagement beyond electoral campaigns. Protesting, forming pressure and divestment campaigns to target local decision-makers, educating others about social justice issues, and listening to the needs of marginalized groups in your community are all ways to build power in your community through civic engagement.

Our level of civic engagement will have visible effects on local, statewide, national, and global levels. I’m extremely passionate about climate justice. The climate emergency affects all of us, especially marginalized communities and indigenous people. Line 3, a tar sands pipeline, is being built on Anishinaabe territory, violating their treaty rights. The construction of Line 3 will, and has already, contributed to the destruction of bodies of water that sustain vital ecosystems. Enbridge, the Canadian corporation behind the destruction in Minnesota, is permitted by the State of Minnesota to use 5 billion gallons of water, endangering wild rice vital to the Anishinaabe people. Water protectors on the frontlines who rightfully protest are met with violent Minnesota police, paid for by Enbridge.

I, like many other students and young people, recognize that this is another instance of corporations, with the aid and protection from the government, destroying the environment. Oil spills have already been reported along the Line 3 construction route. Millions of people depend on the rivers and lakes Line 3 crosses for clean drinking water. Our nation’s water supply is at stake. This is not simply an issue affecting indigenous communities in Minnesota. The water protectors on the frontlines fight with the utmost courage, protecting all of us on the planet who will be ultimately affected by the climate crisis and the destruction caused by multinational corporations.

As an organizer, I have had the honor of meeting and working with so many talented and passionate students and young people. Whether you participate in civic engagement already or are looking to begin, we all have the tools to make fundamental change. Civic engagement is traveling to the frontlines in Minnesota to help on the ground. Civic engagement is educating your friends about Line 3, uplifting indigenous voices, and taking action at stopline3.org. If you’re anxious about starting, remember that we have a right and duty to speak out and take action about the issues that affect all of us. When urging your elected officials to stand with the people, not corporations and their donors, remember two things:
Our elected officials have the obligation to listen to our voices, and we have the power to leverage our support for them.
When we mobilize our own networks of fellow students and young people, what we will accomplish will be revolutionary.

November 2, 2020 | Arta Khosravi | Corona Del Mar High School

Arta Khosravi is a senior at Corona Del Mar High School in Newport Beach, CA. She is passionate about cultural and religious awareness, and is a proud member of the Zoroastrian community. Arta wants to study international relations and public policy to further develop her interest in shaping laws and analyzing large scale challenges to foreign policy and social change. She can be reached at artakhosravi [at] icloud [dot] com.

My senior year of high school has started, and given the impact of COVID-19, it will be different than any other. But the universal question all high school seniors ask remains: what does next year look like? For every student, that question should be inspiring — an opportunity for a young person to articulate and work towards their dream. But because of pernicious, systemic failures, that is not always the case.

I am dedicated to going to college next year. Personally, a degree in higher education would give me the opportunity to further study political science and international relations, and would make my dream job as an attorney within reach. Without at least a four-year undergraduate degree and a juris doctorate degree from an accredited law school, my dream would be impossible to achieve. A robust education could be make-or-break when applying for dream jobs in the future.

That’s why I strongly support Proposition 16, this year’s ballot initiative to reinstate equal opportunity programs like affirmative action across California. Proposition 16 will be critical for young women students like me, who face uncertainty about their futures, and who need a fair shake to get a good education and good job, en route to building a successful life.

The instability we face in education is exacerbated by California’s statewide ban on affirmative action, which has impacted 24 classes of high school seniors before me — ever since Proposition 209 passed in 1996. Since then, California’s public colleges and universities have been unable to consider the diversity of their classes in making admissions decisions, held back from ensuring equal opportunity was being extended to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin or where they were from.

When Proposition 209 passed, banning these equal opportunity programs, students of color like myself were immediately hurt. Even though our acceptance rates into the UCs and CSUs were below where they should have been, they worsened.

Affirmative action programs are powerful because they actively counteract discrimination. They recognize that our systems in public education, in hiring, and in supporting minority- and women-owned businesses have been skewed for far too long. For example, we know that women have seen more success in states that practice affirmative action — they receive more lucrative promotions, and they are able to start on high-paying career paths because of doors in school, work, and business that are open to them.

In this current moment, when we need to empower every community to succeed to fight against a global pandemic and the economic crisis it has caused, Californians have a chance to fight back: by passing Proposition 16 on the November ballot.

Proposition 16 would reinstate equal opportunity across the board — because affirmative action is about much, much more than education, despite what opponents may say. We must guarantee equal opportunity to every Californian in their ability to get a good job and build a stable life as well as access high quality education — because institutional racism negates even the most impressive college degree.

If we’re serious about delivering on our Californian values of equal opportunity for all who call our diverse and dynamic state home, it’s absolutely critical we pass Proposition 16. As a student of color who wishes to attend college and build a career in California, Proposition 16 will change my life.

Right now, in this moment of instability, I and millions of other Californians need equal opportunity more than ever.

July 27, 2020 | Karina Lee | UC Riverside

The census is important to me because it affects the funding of various programs, such as food stamps and Medicare. My parents were immigrants who never had a postsecondary education, and they had their fair share of struggling to get on their feet. These programs pulled my family through numerous hardships while I was growing up. Now, as a student in higher education, I receive financial aid, such as from the Federal Pell Grant program, which reduces the amount that my family needs to pay for me to attend college. This program is affected by the census, as well. The census matters because it allows for funds to be appropriately allocated to these federal programs that my family, and so many others, depend on.

July 27, 2020 | Kymberley Chu | UC Davis

I did the American Census a few months ago. This was the first census I did. As an international student on the F-1 Visa, I am not eligible for FAFSA and most forms of federal aid. Instead, I rely on merit scholarships, on-campus employment, and financial support from my parents to pay for tuition. Nevertheless, I still did the census because it would help in terms of diversifying representation and providing data for my campus’s basic needs resources I can still utilize (e.g.
visiting the food pantry).

There were some preconceptions about it and reasons as to why international students should do the census. Firstly, the census does not ask for your citizenship status. Unlike voting, all residents (regardless of their legal status) are urged to complete the census because it provides demographic information for federal, state allocation of funds towards public services we use.These funds play a role in how we utilize public transportation, mental health services, food bank/pantry services, and more programs we have at the University of California campuses. In fact, they play an important role in funding the services we use in the long term despite our temporary stay. The more funding allocated, the more roads are fixed, the more accessible basic needs services become.

In addition, the census does not disclose demographic information to anyone else. International students on the F1/J1 visas do not need to worry about getting permission from their international student advisors or worry about the threat of deportation. Instead, it is a chance for non-American foreigners who attend the University of California system to exercise their democratic rights here if they wish. Marginalized students from different countries and racial, ethnic, religious backgrounds can use the census as an opportunity to solidify their public representation. This is crucial for both representation data and federal allocation of funds towards the services we can still use as we study in the United States. The census promotes more inclusivity as all who currently live in the United States are urged to do it rather than
exclusively limiting it to American citizens who can vote. Specifically, the census does count foreign students who live on/off-campus who attend college in the United States by asking for their American residency address. International students receive both paper questionnaires and Census IDs in the mail. We can complete the census through a bunch of flexible options: online, mail, or by phone. Although the census may take some time to complete, all information is kept confidential.

Although many international students are on F1 visas and do not have access to FAFSA, we can voice out our concerns by completing the census. Overall, the census provides the data for how much federal and state funds are allocated to the public services we use on a daily basis.

June 22, 2020 | Karl Jang | UC Davis

For me, the 2020 Census is not only my first census in the United States, but also the first one submitted by myself. My only prior experience with the census was the 2010 Population and Housing Census of South Korea, which awarded two volunteer service hours to students if completed online. When I asked my parents to respond, however, they were reluctant; I later found out that the Korean Census contains over 40 questions, including sensitive information such as the name of the graduated college, date of the parents’ marriage and even the existence of any deceased offspring. While detailed censuses could, of course, provide meaningful insights, all of these findings can be void if responders were discouraged to truthfully submit their answers in the first place.

I assumed this would be the norm in America as well. For almost three months since receiving the first mail notifying my roommate and I regarding the upcoming census, erroneously thinking that it would take forever to fill out the questionnaire, we shoved it aside from our priority list. After responding to nine questions on my laptop in less than ten minutes, in retrospect, I regret not finishing it earlier and missing out opportunities to talk about it with my acquaintances. Luckily, the UC Student Association provided me a chance to remedy my previous mistake and in order to take full advantage of this internship program, I have been educating myself to teach others about the census.

Being the first census since 2000 to coincide with the presidential election amidst of COVID-19 and social justice movements, regardless of ethnicity, citizenship status or political stance, the 2020 Census is an opportunity for all residents of the United States to practice their democratic rights. What truly differentiates censuses from elections are their inclusiveness: unlike elections in which only citizens are eligible to participate, so long as the respondent lives in the United States, everyone is encouraged to take part, by online, phone, or mail. As mentioned earlier, the survey is extremely straightforward, but it will influence the next ten years of America. For us college students, our headcounts will affect the allocation of financial aid grants and transportational developments, including the opening of new bus routes and road repairs for commuting students. Electoral districts and vital social welfare programs serving low-income students — SNAP, Medicaid and Section 8 Housing Vouchers Program, to name a few — are also determined by the census data.

All of these potentials, however, could be distorted if undercount occurs. Historically, due to our mobile characteristics, college students are officially designated as Hard-to-Count; the majority of UC students also identify themselves as ethnic minorities, who too are categorized as Hard-to-Count communities by the Census Bureau. Underrepresentation was one of many justifications for past discrimination and even today, undercounted communities could be denied from sufficient funding intended to alleviate the impact of systematic racism. With the deadline of this year’s census extended all the way to October 31, everyone has been granted more than plenty of time to participate; we should not let this opportunity go in vain.

April 30, 2020 | Valerie Johnson | UC Berkeley

I am a junior transfer student at UC Berkeley studying Political Science and Public Policy. I am serving on the UC Student Association Census 2020 Outreach Team to help make sure that as many UC students get counted in the census as possible, because getting counted means getting more resources for our campus communities!

I had never filled out a census before this year, as they only are administered every ten years and ten years ago I was 11 years old. The census is a new thing to most UC students, just like many of us have voted for the first time in recent years. Because I initially knew so little about the census, I had no idea how seriously it impacted my campus community and the resources that I’m offered as a student.

When I took the bus to downtown Oakland twice per week for my internship, I used my student transit card and rode for free. I didn’t know that I was able to do that because of a student fee and because of investment from my university that uses census data to provide federal funding for university services. As a low-income student, I receive a federal pell grant to help with my university expenses. The money for this grant is also allocated based on census data and student eligibility. I couldn’t afford to attend a university without this federal aid, and it’s made possible partly because of census efforts. So many more services and opportunities for students receive funding and resources based on census data, and I had no idea how to even fill it out!

Through my involvement in student leadership and in legislative advocacy, I got involved in the UC Student Association and started working to advocate for all UC students on matters ranging from campus advocacy for community spaces to lobbying legislators to pass legislation that will increase financial aid. With the census coming up, I started to see folks taking leadership in helping students get counted, and knew I wanted to be a part of something that would impact generations of students to come. I did my research, filled out my census, and joined an amazing team of leaders working to ensure that students get counted. Because of our high levels of mobility and fluctuating housing situations, students are defined by the US Census Bureau as a hard to count population. Knowing this, it’s even more important for students to take lead on making sure our population gets counted.

Every student who gets counted in the census results in about $1000 of university and community funding per year over 10 years. You and I as students can get counted and see improved and continued services and resources as a result! You don’t have to go to a protest or start a petition to be a leader and an advocate, you can start by just getting counted in the census. Filling out the census is participating in your democracy and advocating for your community. Pledge to fill out the census to make sure #UCCounts!