Meghan Markle’s road up the steps of the palace

Stavros Agorakis, Monthly Editor

May 9, 2018

It’s a tale as old as time: Whether it’s Marilyn Monroe wooing the likes of Laurence Olivier in “The Prince and the Showgirl,” or Meg Ryan
charming Hugh Jackman in “Kate & Leopold,” fictional British royals never fail to fall in love with the American darlings who sweep them off their
feet.

It’s a tale as old as time, only now it’s reality.

California-born Rachel Meghan Markle will soon become the newest member of the British royal family when she marries Prince Harry on May
19. Markle, who graduated from Northwestern’s School of Communication in 2003, is the first American to be granted the title “Her Royal
Highness.”

The royal wedding is set to take place at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle — just a few miles away from Eton College, the private high
school Harry and his brother, Prince William, attended.

Royal families from countries around Europe — including Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Greece — are expected to swarm the ceremony
dressed in formal attire. According to a statement from Kensington Palace, Markle and Prince Harry weren’t required to invite international and
British leaders to their wedding; some prominent names were left off the guest list, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, U.S. President
Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama.

Though the 22 months from their first date to the wedding day may seem like a rush to the altar, Markle told Vanity Fair in October that she and
the prince are happy and in love, and that their relationship is strictly “for us.”

“I’m sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will
understand is that this is our time,” she told Vanity Fair. “It’s part of what makes it so special, that it’s just ours. … Personally, I love a great love
story.”

The young couple were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend in London in early July 2016, Markle and Harry told BBC News a few days after
their engagement in November. After two back-to-back dates and rigorous coordination of their calendars — Markle was on set for the seventh
season of the hit legal series “Suits” in Toronto — Harry took his then-girlfriend on a trip to Botswana, where they shared a tent and “camped out
with each other under the stars.” Harry later used a diamond from Botswana as the centerpiece of the engagement ring he designed for Markle,
along with smaller diamonds that belonged to his late mother, Princess Diana, to ensure “she’s with us on this crazy journey together.”

As with any royal romance, rumors began swirling early on and Markle quickly became the target of a media storm. She is not only the first
American to henceforth be referred to as “Her Royal Highness,” but she’s also a biracial divorcee who went to Catholic school. Four months into
the couple’s relationship, the Daily Mail began circulating headlines calling Markle “(almost) straight outta Compton” and scrutinizing her parents’
financial hardships. Another British tabloid, the Daily Star Online, published a piece saying the prince might marry into “gangster royalty.”

So, after months of keeping their love secret, Prince Harry asked Kensington Palace to issue a statement first confirming his relationship with
Markle, and also denouncing the media for its intrusion into their private lives.

According to the statement, Harry was “deeply disappointed” he could not protect his girlfriend from the “wave of abuse and harassment” she
had been subject to about her race from social media trolls and web articles.

Markle has never hesitated to speak up about her identity in the past. In a 2015 essay she penned for Elle magazine, she shared small vignettes
from her life as a biracial woman, choosing to “be braver, go a bit deeper” and be honest with the readers about her experiences.

“While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification … I have come to embrace that,” Markle wrote. “To
say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.”

On Nov. 27, 2017, when Markle and the prince officially announced their engagement, Twitter users trended the hashtag “#blackprincess” and
pointed to how such a union would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

Markle is no foreigner to advocacy. At Northwestern, she double majored in theater and international studies, and later became involved with the
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. She was also a global ambassador for World Vision, an
organization that brings humanitarian aid to refugees worldwide.

During her last quarter at Northwestern, Markle enrolled in a course called “Studies in Black Performance.” In those 10 weeks, eight students
would arrange their desks in a small circle in a Parkes Hall classroom and discuss black theater and race in U.S. society, said Harvey Young,
former chair of NU’s theater department and Markle’s professor in the class.

“When I think of Meghan, I remember her sitting at that little desk and speaking with a sense of urgency,” Young told The Daily. “Every so often,
she would stay after class, essentially for ad hoc office hours, and we would talk about a range of topics from the reading to her many activities
across campus to her experiences as a NU student.”

Young added that the royal family will be more relatable with a biracial woman who openly talks about racial identity joining it, especially because
people of color are underrepresented in British politics.
In February 2014, Markle visited Northwestern to promote the third season of “Suits.” Though she said during a campus event that she admired
her role as an independent paralegal in a show that created “female archetypes,” Markle will no longer appear in the series.

“I don’t see it as giving anything up, I just see it as a change,” Markle told Harry in their BBC interview. “Now it’s time to work as team with you.”

Email: agorakis@u.northwestern.edu
Twitter: @stavrosagorakis

Read more from May’s edition of The Monthly here.

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 Through passion and pain, artists rebuild the entertainment
scene in Puerto Rico with the aid of Northwestern funding

Stavros Agorakis, Monthly Editor

January 23, 2019

In times of crisis, relief efforts tend to be allocated to the affected people’s most urgent needs, like food, water and housing. But often, the things
that get tossed aside — like arts and culture — are actually the values that hold communities together.

“Culture is oftentimes — wrongfully, to my belief — considered to be a luxury or a secondary matter to more pressing things,” Communication
Prof. Ramón Rivera-Servera said. “What we forget to think about is the ways in which culture itself is key to thinking about solutions that impact
national affairs like the economy or education.”

So, in the aftermath of a pair of devastating hurricanes in Puerto Rico, a collective of 20 artists banded together under Rivera-Servera’s
leadership to rebuild the entertainment scene, which is developing alongside Puerto Rico’s roads, bridges and homes. The group hopes to not
only rekindle the residents’ passion for the local arts, but to also create a learning community for the artists to mature and grow.

Northwestern kicked off the two-year arts development project in Puerto Rico last August, aided by a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, which partly assists select colleges and universities to train scholars in the humanities. During the initiative, the 20 emerging artists
and mentors are altogether honing their craft and holding training sessions on the island, at NU and other college campuses they plan on visiting
for their artistic residencies.

The initiative will culminate in a final commissioned project in Puerto Rico, aimed to exhibit both the artists’ personal growth and their response
to the island’s troubling political climate, said Nibia Pastrana Santiago, a dancer, choreographer and co-mentor of the program.

Pastrana Santiago said the initiative comes at a very critical moment in Puerto Rico’s history. The territory declared bankruptcy in May 2017 —
the largest ever for a U.S. local government — just a few months before a pair of hurricanes dealt a major blow to the island’s infrastructure and
its residents’ lives. So, she said, now it’s more important than ever for artists to come together, nurture each other and make their practice “come
alive.”

“The future seems so uncertain in the political level, in its natural resources level and, of course, in the cultural productions,” Pastrana Santiago
said. “It takes a nation to be together to respond to the current political situation after the hurricanes. We’re still in the recovery process.”

Artists were one of the first communities to respond to the crisis, she said, immediately building networks among performers in Puerto Rico and
creating pieces that dealt with the hot-button issues head on.

“After your personal life gets a bit stable, you go back into your practice, you clean the studio, you find ways of dealing with old materials or
damaged goods … and you get to work,” she said.

Awilda Rodríguez-Lora, a Puerto Rican performance artist who joined the NU-funded project in the summer, said she is “extremely grateful” for
Northwestern’s help in rebuilding the arts scene on the island. After she returned to Puerto Rico in 2010 to energize her career there, Rodriguez
Lora said she faced many struggles most contemporary artists come up against, but now has the time and resources to just “look at the work”
and rethink her practice in the context of her experience after the hurricanes.

Rodríguez-Lora added that she finds it difficult to remove politics from her work — but that she hopes the audience appreciates seeing a project
and portrait that stems from her own identity, and from the questions she’s asking as a Puerto Rican native hoping to bring about change on the
island.

“It’s beautiful to have the opportunity to create work that represents us,” she said. “We’re doing it from here, from the ground up, from trying to
exist in this reality. People are really going to see genuine and contemporary work.”

The Northwestern grant, though a secondary fundraising effort to help sustain the arts scene in Puerto Rico, will fund a total of 10 artistic projects
over the course of two years. The mentors will also hold several training sessions on various topics for the artists to participate in, such as
portfolio development and workshop leadership.

The artists will come to the Evanston campus this spring, where they will share their learning experiences with the students, lead workshops and
reach a young audience that typically has little access to their work. They will then visit more universities — including Yale, Dartmouth, Ohio
State and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor — as part of their grand tour, looking to engage with as many people as possible and showcase
their projects.

Rivera-Servera said he’s excited for the artists to visit NU, since culture is that “critical glue” that sticks us to one another, and the one instrument
we have that allows us to just sit in a circle and openly share our stories and experiences.

“Our humanity demands it — it’s what makes us a different kind of creature from other animals,” Rivera-Servera said. “We have an attachment
to the urgency of beauty, not for beauty itself, but for what beauty represents: a regard to our commonality and humanity.”

Email: agorakis@u.northwestern.edu
Twitter: @stavrosagorakis
 In Focus: Student leaders struggle with University’s barrier-free
initiative for group admissions

Stavros Agorakis, Arts & Entertainment Editor

November 15, 2017

A self-described “overachiever,” Weinberg junior Danielle Hojnicki thrived in her high school social scene. As a leader and member of several
organizations — National Honor Society, choir, an art club, among others — she always felt eager to pursue her extracurricular interests.

But coming to Northwestern, Hojnicki said the process of applying to student groups differed significantly from her experience in high school. At
NU, the extensive application process freshmen go through to get into clubs quickly crushed her eagerness. By the end of her first year, she said
she was rejected by half a dozen clubs.

Hojnicki said freshmen often turn to clubs to build strong communities with other students early in their college careers. Not having had this
option, she said she doesn’t know what experiences she might have missed out on.

Following feedback on NU’s competitive student group culture, the University proposed a plan requiring groups to adopt open admission
policies. Originally announced in spring 2016 by the Student Organizations and Activities office, the initiative aims to improve the first-year
experience and increase accessibility by facilitating points of entry into groups.

The plan — later coined The Inclusive and Barrier-Free Student Organization Engagement Initiative — was rolled out in March, SOA director
Kourtney Gray said. The initiative defines an inclusive student group as one that has “no extraneous barriers to general membership” and that
allows “general members full participation in meetings, events, and other organizational activities.” Administrators previously said clubs not
complying with the proposal might lose recognition but have since dropped this consequence.

“Removing applications or making (student group admission) less difficult would’ve been very beneficial,” Hojnicki said. “I probably would have
had a different freshman year experience.”

Some student leaders criticized the University’s new direction, saying administrators have not communicated well about the initiative or the
extent to which it will affect student group activities.

SOA associate director Tracey Gibson-Jackson said administrators are not trying to enforce a blanket policy on all student groups, but rather
encourage new ways for them to promote inclusivity.

“Groups are thinking, ‘Oh my God. They’re putting a policy in place,’” Gibson-Jackson said. “It’s not a policy. … We’re not forcing people to
change, we’re just trying to educate students about what some of their peers are saying and about removing some barriers.”

A “mad dash”

Undergraduate students reflecting on their first-year experience with club recruitment said they faced unnecessary barriers to join.

Hojnicki said imposing barriers on admission to student organizations can often detract from an inclusive environment. Additionally, she said,
applications and “rush processes” may inhibit students from professional and personal development.

Weinberg junior Emily Ash said student group recruitment can be “terribly intense,” and described it as a “mad dash.” Although she was only
rejected from a couple of clubs freshman year, Ash said her expectations of the NU social scene differed from those of other students due to
advice from upperclassmen.
 “This competitive nature of student groups was very much part of the student
narrative that I got from my older friends,” she said. “They told me it’s a very intense
process and that I should be prepared for rejection.”

Medill sophomore Gabrielle Bienasz, who did not get into the first two groups she
applied to last fall, said some of her personal recruitment experiences were “awful.”

During an interview for a club sport team, Bienasz said she was asked whether she
liked beer. When she responded no, the student leaders told her she gave the
“wrong answer.”

“Certain student groups are more selective than Northwestern itself because the
qualifications to get into a student group are so ambiguous and personality based,”
Bienasz said.

Hojnicki said freshmen are especially eager to forge new identities in college, and
being turned away from student groups often leads to feelings of isolation and issues
with self-esteem. She said it can leave students asking, “Why wasn’t I good
enough?”

Because first-year students may become organizations’ most committed members,

Ash said groups should explore the option of admitting more freshmen. She hopes
the barrier-free initiative empowers students to feel more ownership over their first-
year experiences.

“My hope is that first-year students feel less pressured to perform or posture or
agonize about how they may appear in an application or an interview and focus more on identifying the right groups that they want to prioritize
being in,” she said.

Focusing on first-years

Administrators and student leaders have clashed over the initiative’s effect on the first-year experience.

Vice president for student affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin, whose department oversees SOA, said the administration has solicited input from the
community to help shape the final initiative.

“We heard from a lot of students, especially first-year students, that it was harder to get into a student organization than it was to get into
Northwestern,” she said. “This does not align with one of our principles, which is creating that sense of community and connection and
belonging.”

Telles-Irvin added there are several misconceptions about students’ transition to college. While many think freshmen can “make friends right
away,” she said the first year can feel “isolating and lonely” — a sentiment only reinforced when students get rejected from numerous
organizations every fall.

But several student leaders contested this notion.

McCormick juniors Molly Dudas and Sarah Wong, Mayfest’s co-directors of

promotions, acknowledged NU’s competitive culture but identified several problems
with admitting more members into their group. Mayfest — which puts on Dillo Day
every spring — is composed of 80 students, making it already feel “like a large club,”
Dudas said.

She added that growing Mayfest’s general membership board, where most first-year
applicants are placed, may dilute the communal experience due to a lack of
responsibilities. General members typically shadow Mayfest committees and assist
with various tasks.

“Shadows alone jump into the committee and don’t have that many jobs to do,” Dudas
said. “If there are more shadows, there are less jobs and you don’t get your feet as
wet.”

Communication senior Andrew Restieri, co-chair of The Waa-Mu Show, said it is

necessary for some groups to not have total open admission. Waa-Mu — which puts
up an annual student-written musical — holds auditions for its cast and interviews for
its executive leadership.

But Restieri said the group also offers an avenue with no barriers to enter, letting
students assist on the artistic and business teams. Around 200 students are involved
in the production of the musical.

Restieri said it’s important that Waa-Mu allows for general membership — as it can be difficult for freshmen to get involved with student theater
— but that this may not apply to other organizations. He added that learning how to overcome rejection is an essential part of the college
experience.

“There’s a lot of real-world preparation in facing rejection, and I don’t necessarily think facing rejection is a bad thing,” Restieri said.

Implications of being “barrier-free”

In addition to diluting the freshman experience, the initiative has divided administrators and student leaders over its effects on attendance and
engagement with clubs.

Though the initiative’s guidelines allow for applications and interviews to determine leadership roles within an organization, these barriers should
not be prerequisites for general membership.

Gray, the SOA director, said creating a general membership group in clubs is “basically the whole initiative,” a comment that was met with
criticism from some student leaders.

Weinberg senior Maddie Parrott, president of the Institute for Student Business Education, said the group receives 200 to 300 applications
during its fall and spring recruitment cycles. Out of all the applicants, the group admits around a third each year to maintain a roughly 300-
member body.

ISBE members are immediately staffed into projects within eight subgroups, which Parrott said has helped “keep students engaged from the get-
go.” Creating a general membership board would largely shift their day-to-day operations, she said.

Parrott believes ISBE could “slim down” membership even more to make sure students remain active and accountable in the organization to
“produce the output we want.”

“When you have large groups of people … it can be very easy to sit back and have other people work for you,” she said. “If you cram people into
the organization, you can hit a limit.”

Leaders with open group policies expressed a similar view. Weinberg junior Calvin Anderson, co-president of College Democrats, said it can be
difficult to maintain high involvement because the group doesn’t enforce strict attendance policies. While some 900 students are on its email list,
Anderson said only 20 to 30 are “super involved.”

Weinberg freshman Hannah Mandell, who joined College

Democrats and plans to remain an active member, said it’s
important for leadership to consistently track student
involvement.

“I went to the first meeting and then the second one, and there
was a huge drop off with attendance,” Mandell said. “It’s really
important for (the presidents) to keep track of who’s actively
involved so that those people get preference for special events.”

Gray said student leaders should “get creative” to maintain

attendance and engagement.

Katie Pach/Daily Senior Staffer
Norris University Center’s SOURCE is a multipurpose space where student groups
can access resources. Several student leaders have contested the University’s
initiative to remove barriers in their admission processes.
“The students who aren’t fully engaged, they will fall off and
won’t return,” he said. “But how do you know until you give them
the opportunity? What are the ways you can empower your
fellow student?”
Several leaders also stressed the importance of having an
application process to admit new members. Studio 22, a
filmmaking group of 12 board members, asks applicants to fill
out a packet and come in for an interview to share their ideas.

Communication junior Megan Ballew, co-president of Studio 22, said applicants have to be motivated to both fill out the extensive packet and
discuss their interest in filmmaking with board members.

“In certain communities, you feel a sense of camaraderie because you all have passion and talent that someone saw in you and chose you for
this group,” she said.

Ballew added that general membership may promote a culture where students get into organizations to pad their resumes. Allowing these
members into the group would be “very disappointing,” she said.

“It’s hard enough when you have applications and you’re working with people who’ve said, ‘I’m passionate about this organization’ … and then
they get into the organization and they’re not,” she said. “With open admission, this would be even more of an issue.”

Weinberg freshman Anna Derrick, who wasn’t admitted to the ski and sailing teams, said first-year students “pick and choose” what activities
they’re involved in after they settle into their academics.

Derrick said this makes the student group culture less competitive in the long run, as students may find it more difficult to balance a rigorous
social calendar with school work.
In an October interview with The Daily, University President Morton Schapiro said groups shouldn’t encourage students to sign up just to reject
them later on in the application process.

“My heart breaks when I meet students who come here and they’re just told ‘no,’” he said.

Struggling to communicate

Before coming to NU in spring 2016, Gray said students, Associated Student Government and staff were already talking about making the
student experience more inclusive.

Re-registration data from more than 340 student groups in the past two years indicates that roughly 85 percent of these groups report having
“some screening process, fee, or barrier” to student engagement, according to the Student Affairs website.

Additional SOA data shows that 85 of 358 campus organizations do not identify with the barrier-free definition designed by the office, which asks
groups have no “extraneous” barriers to general membership.

Gray said the SOA team met with more than 40 organizations that self-reported having barriers to brainstorm changes they could implement to
improve their application and member selection processes. Originally, the office planned to meet with all University-recognized groups to discuss
inclusivity. In Winter Quarter, Gray said it selected 90 representative clubs for this purpose.

“It was never done solely from the administrators’ point of view,” he said. “Student voice was consistently (present) through all of it … to craft the
actual definition and get it out.”

From October until March last year, SOA created the barrier-free definition and supported the initiative’s launch via various student and
administration channels — including ASG and the Division of Student Affairs.

Although Gray and Gibson-Jackson said they have maintained a working relationship with ASG on the initiative since Spring Quarter, ASG
President Nehaarika Mulukutla told The Daily in an email she has not been personally working with administrators on it.

ASG Senate introduced a resolution in May 2016 that would disavow the proposal to push exclusive student groups to open their doors to all.
The resolution, sponsored by seven ASG members and signed by nearly 50 student leaders — among them members of ISBE, Studio 22 and
two club sports teams — was tabled.

Former ASG President Christina Cilento (SESP ’17) told The Daily in an email that the resolution was tabled indefinitely after the Office of
Campus Life decided to collect more student input on open admission policies.

Referencing students’ mixed reactions about the proposal, Mulukutla also said the office “almost completely” went internal to reformulate and
create the initiative in a manner that wouldn’t receive that “backlash.”

Brent Turner, executive director of Campus Life, deferred comment to SOA. Gray and Telles-Irvin said the initiative has not come up during
either administrator’s bi-monthly meetings with ASG.

Medill senior Alecia Richards, ASG’s vice president for student activities, said her committee is working on projects to promote equality on
campus. Her committee is focusing on building better connections with marginalized groups in organizations and making ASG more accessible
to the student body.

Richards also said ASG’s efforts may not necessarily run in conjunction with the administration’s barrier-free initiative.

“I’m confident that ASG is making strides toward student group inclusivity, but we may not be calling it the same thing the administration is calling
it,” she said.

Administrators have struggled to inform student groups about the initiative. Last year, Gray said he met individually with 11 organizations,
including Mayfest, and held some roundtables targeted at groups with barriers. Later, his office presented the initiative to the rest of the groups
at the Student Organization Symposium during Spring Quarter.

Gray said SOA is currently looking to further publicize and explain the initiative through social media and email blasts.
Weinberg senior Ben Zimmermann, chair of Contemporary Thought Speaker Series, said
he and Gray have had regular meetings to discuss making CTSS more inclusive.

However, Ballew — the Studio 22 co-president — along with many other student leaders
said they had not heard anything new about the initiative since last year. Ballew added that
the administration is responsible for starting a conversation about the guidelines.

“It’s like the University has told us, ‘Oh we’re going to do this great thing,’ and then people
have questions about it, they have concerns, and (administrators) haven’t addressed
anything,” Ballew said.

A shifting mission

Since the initiative was first announced in spring, many student leaders have challenged
their groups’ engagement barriers and are adopting a more inclusive mindset.

Weinberg junior Jonathan Jen, co-president of the Chinese Students Association, said the
group saw many changes over the year partly as a response to the original open
admission proposal. He said the current executive board is the first to feature two inclusion
chairs, who oversee programming to make events more accessible to general members.

Moreover, Jen said the board will be more proactive in planning its social and cultural
events so that every level of programming targets the entire group. In addition, he said
more events will be open to the entire NU community.

Through discussions with Gray and the SOA office, Zimmermann — the CTSS chair —
said the group is adopting the barrier-free concept by increasing co-sponsorships of its events and collaborating with more diverse student
groups.

Last year, CTSS organized a poll for the first time to get further input from undergraduates, which Zimmermann said allowed the organization to
engage with more students.

“The point (of the initiative) is not to open the flood gates and let anyone join any student group,” he said. “You’re trying to make more people
have voice at the decision-making table.”

Mayfest is striving for inclusivity by not limiting itself to one type of applicant, said Dudas, the group’s co-director of promotions. Dudas added
that the organization tries to recruit diverse majors and music tastes in its membership by attracting a variety of applicants.

The group also plans to make the interview process more transparent to help applicants understand each committee’s responsibilities, Dudas
said.

However, other organizations foresee difficulties adapting their operations in response to the initiative.

ISBE — which receives funding from corporate sponsorships and ASG — would likely not change the way it allocates its resources with a larger
membership, Parrott said. Currently, the group allocates its budget in a more “ad hoc” manner, she said, with the president and treasurer having
regular meetings to avoid major deficits.

Parrott said ISBE receives “regular pushback” from ASG regarding the group’s inability to obtain A-status recognition, which would make it
eligible for more funding. Additional expenses resulting from a general membership board would likely not be covered by the student
government, she said.

For example, ASG would not cover costs related to food and catering that more bonding events would generate if the organization grew, she
said.

“It’s hard to operate a group with limited funds when you don’t feel supported by your university,” Parrott said. “It hasn’t felt like they’re super
engaged from a student group perspective.”

Ballew said Studio 22 — which receives financial support from ASG and the Department of Radio, Television and Film — would avoid planning
more events because there isn’t demand in the NU community.

She added that over-programming can be “a waste of money,” especially if it only stems from a need to assign projects to more members.
Ballew said the RTVF department has faced challenges about the number of events it holds, with some of them being expensive but ill-attended.

“Studio 22 in some ways is like my baby,” Ballew said. “I want us to get stuff done, I want us to be a positive influence in the RTVF community. If
someone on the board … doesn’t feel like they have much to do or doesn’t feel like they’re making a difference, that would hurt my heart.”

Searching for solutions

Ballew said the administration needs to be more active in collecting feedback from student leaders because the University may have only
considered the issue from the perspective of students who keep getting rejected from clubs.

Schapiro and Telles-Irvin both said they will discuss the barrier-free initiative with their senior staffers and ASG to further examine its implications
on student groups.
The SOA office is planning more outreach events to educate
students and staff on the initiative, as well as a second round of
one-on-one meetings with organizations that limit entry, SOA
associate director Gibson-Jackson said. She added that she
invites group leaders to meet with her office to discuss ways
they can promote inclusivity.

“This is not our office talking,” she said. “This is direct from your
peers saying, ‘This is hard. This needs to change. We don’t like
how this feels and we can’t be involved.’”

In an effort to incentivize the adoption of more inclusive

approaches to admission, SOA has developed projects to
further engage the student community.

Many of the conversations Gray, the SOA director, had with

freshmen and student leaders concluded with them expressing
a need for money to support inclusive processes, he said.
Whether these funds were allocated for training members or
reducing entrance fees, Gray said a lack of resources was a
common barrier across many organizations.
Alec Carroll/The Daily
Cahn Auditorium, where the Waa-Mu Show Northwestern
holds its annual musical. Communication senior Andrew Restieri, a Waa-Mu co-
chair, said the group offers an avenue with no barriers to enter by letting students
assist on the artistic and business teams.

SOA is planning a new system to merge three existing funds

already offered by the office into a single grant program that
encourages more access for student-led initiatives. Gray said the office has earmarked about $10,000 toward this new system, which is set to
launch this week.

In an effort to showcase positive aspects of the initiative, Gibson-Jackson said administrators will not penalize student groups for ignoring the
guidelines. As the process of organizational recognition is filtered through SOA, she said the office will not threaten groups with the possibility of
losing recognition.

Gibson-Jackson added that all students deserve to have a positive NU experience, a value she hopes campus groups of all sizes begin to
internalize over time.

“Change doesn’t happen overnight,” she said, “but if we keep working on these little changes, it will eventually change the culture. And honestly,
the students have been asking for this.”

Email: agorakis@u.northwestern.edu
Twitter: @stavrosagorakis

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 The teenage romantic comedy genre is witnessing a wave of
revitalization on film after years in hiding

Stavros Agorakis, Monthly Editor

February 13, 2019

John Hughes defined love for an entire generation.

Imagine being a teenager in the ’80s. Unapologetic neon jackets and Aussie hairspray-induced dos aside, growing up felt more like a thrilling
challenge than an awkward theme park ride. Life lacked Tinder, but had Patrick Swayze in it. It lacked Spotify, but had Peter Gabriel singing its
soundtrack. Most importantly, it had its downs, but was never swayed by the fear of you never finding your one true love — at least not in the
movies.

No director may ever capture the climax of a romantic comedy film better than Hughes, or Cameron Crowe for that matter. There may not be
another Lloyd Dobler holding a boombox outside your window to proclaim his love. Or a John Bender-type thrusting his fist into the air as Simple
Minds starts to play. Jake Ryan won’t wait outside the church in front of his iconic red Porsche to declaratively say, “Yeah, you.”

These characters are deeply imprinted in our minds and hearts. But as the teenage rom-com genre resurfaces in Netflix’s golden era, there
might just be a whole bunch of new romantic leads waiting in line to take their place.

Last year saw a great number of films balancing the line between an empowering coming-of-age story and a heartfelt, budding romance
developing between its leads. “Love, Simon,” released in March 2018, started the trend with a bang: not only did it fuel the teen rom-com wagon
with $66.3 million in the global box office — more than three times its budget — but it also introduced a gay love story backed by a major
Hollywood studio, 20th Century Fox.

Netflix was quick to pick up on the commercial and critical success of the film. Just a few months after, it released a line of pictures that played
on the same tropes as those of the ’80s, but modernized them to attract the audiences now purchasing movie theater tickets (or, well, streaming
service subscriptions).

Flicks like “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” did not reinvent the rom-com genre; they merely revitalized it. Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky’s
romance is no different than that of Allison Reynolds and Andrew Clark in “The Breakfast Club” — a female high school outcast and a preppy
athlete breaking through their respective cliques’ barriers to end up together — but a non-white lead and a rich backstory that enriches the plot
as much as furthers it help universalize the messages the movie gets across. Same with “Sierra Burgess is a Loser;” despite the film’s many
flaws, no picture in the ’80s ever featured a lead romantic actress who came close to being called anything other than skinny.

Teenagers worldwide are finally seeing themselves on screen, and as trite as this statement may read among studios’ ambitious yet narrow
efforts toward diversification, people are more than willing to believe and buy into a non-white teen love story.

Kerensa Cadenas, a movies staff editor at Entertainment Weekly, said that modernizing the rom-com is precisely what creators have to do to
keep the genre alive. Characters who previously had a singular defining trait — the athlete, the princess, the basket case — can exist outside of
their posse’s rep to outgrow social norms (after all, that’s what made Noah Centineo’s Kavinsky the Generation Z’s male heartthrob). Casts do
not all have to look alike, whether that’s in regard to their size, race or sexuality. Most of all, rom-com leads don’t have to represent the entire
minority group or community they belong in because their love tales and tribulations are shared among most, if not all, teenagers.

“Seeing positive representations … of diverse casts has really helped to get the people behind studios and streaming services ready to do more
of these films,” Cadenas told The Daily. “It’s also something that audiences miss. There’s something really comforting about a rom-com, no
matter its problematics, and if there’s the ability to make these movies and have them more accurately reflect the world around us, I see this
being a lasting revisiting of the genre.”

Why was the genre gone in the first place, though? After all, these films propelled actors like Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall to
stardom, and left audiences craving their return to the big screen. But in the next 30 years post-“Say Anything,” teen rom-coms were spread far
and wide. Rarely would a flick attract that much attention, and when it did — like “10 Things I Hate About You” in 1999, and “Easy A” in 2010 —
it wouldn’t spark a wave to follow up its success.

Collider.com senior editor Matt Goldberg explained this gap using the concept of a “donut hole” — studios will typically finance indies of the $5 to
$10 million sort or massive 9-figure blockbusters, leaving romantic comedies — which fall in between those two — forever on the drawing board.

Now, though, the rise of streaming services is allowing creators to no longer pursue their films solely on the chances of ticket-sale profit return,
but also on their “rewatchability” factor (or how often audiences may want to return to the movies, say, on a wintry Sunday night with a tub of Ben
& Jerry’s). Since Netflix, Hulu and the likes are looking for loyal subscribers, rather than one-time moviegoers, the “nice experience” that rom-
coms offer may be more lucrative in the long run.

“The romantic comedy has always been kind of comfort food,” Goldberg told the Daily. “It has these beats that are very safe and low stakes. At
the end of the day, in rom-coms, the worst that’s going to happen is two people don’t get together.”

As for the future of the genre, Cadenas, Goldberg and a good slice of the film expert community agree that we haven’t seen the last of teen
romantic comedies — or their stars. Already, projects like a “To All The Boys” sequel have been greenlit and are in production, while all the more
LGBTQ- and non-white-led stories are joining their ranks. Centineo and Nick Robinson, who starred in “Love, Simon,” are actively promoting
more sympathetic male leads that share nuances of teen love in the modern era.

And if studios and filmmakers continue to give new life to the genre, there might be a whole new generation ready to believe in love.

Email: agorakis@u.northwestern.edu
Twitter: @stavrosagorakis

Comments
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FEMA-funded Hotel Rooms Are Still the Only ‘Home’ for
Many Puerto Rican Evacuees
sojo.net/articles/fema-funded-hotel-rooms-are-still-only-home-many-puerto-rican-evacuees

March 20, 2018

The Baymont Inn & Suites sits on the edge of the University of South Florida campus outside
Tampa. A ceiling fan blows humid air around the lobby, where an array of giant stuffed animals
observe tourists coming and going in the early spring warmth.

But not all of Baymont guests are vacationers looking for palm trees and sunshine. About 15
rooms are home to Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria.

The hotel is one of more than 250 in Florida that entered agreements with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to provide rooms for Puerto Rican evacuees under the
Transitional Sheltering Assistance program.

The Baymont began hosting evacuees in November, and has put no cap on the number of
rooms open for TSA residents, according to General Manager Connie Bergkvist. There are a
total of 120 rooms available at her hotel.

The TSA program, which is providing aid in 38 states with the largest concentration in Florida,
was set to end months ago.Butthe deadline has been extended multiple times because of
continued poor living conditions in Puerto Rico; the latest extension shifted the end date from
March 20 to May 14.

In order to renew their aid applications, evacuees will need to show progress in their
permanent housing plans during a case-by-case midterm review scheduled for April 20. Puerto
Ricans will need proof of a long-term solution, through either an employment or a housing
contract, if they plan to stay in the U.S. after their transitional contracts expire.

1/5
Evacuees are struggling to determine their next steps. While some Puerto Ricans have found
housing solutions or jobs, others don’t know what the future will look like without their FEMA-
funded hotel rooms. (Stavros Agorakis)

“If [the deadline] is extended, … [the evacuees] are welcome,” Bergkvist said.

Learning English for an uncertain future

Sonia Noemi Rios, 48, spends most of the day in her hotel room, poring over English language
workbooks. She looks up words in an online Spanish to English dictionary when she’s
struggling with pronunciation. The first phrase she learned is essential to life in a hotel: “Can I
have a towel, please?” She pronounces it with an American accent.

Rios caught a flight to Tampa at the beginning of December without a plan. Her home in
Bayamón, Puerto Rico, was hammered by Hurricane Maria on Sept. 20. She lost almost
everything to the storm.

Rios said she arrived believing that she would have to live on the streets. But when she walked
out of the plane into the Tampa International Airport, FEMA representatives were at a table to
help folks arriving from Puerto Rico find medical care and short-term housing. She said FEMA
placed her in the Baymont the same day and has guaranteed to cover her room until April 20.

“I am happy. My room has a small kitchen, I have two beds,” she said. “But the month will pass
quickly, and I hope I find a solution before April 20 comes.”

2/5
Rios’s shiny lip gloss, shy smile and black T-shirt, embellished with the word “blessed” in
sequins across her chest mask the fear and uncertainty of being an evacuee.

“I send [FEMA] letters explaining my situation,” she said. “I write to them: ‘I don’t have a house
and have nowhere to go. I don’t know, and I’ll end up on the streets, I just don’t know.’”

What Rios does know is that she won’t be returning to Puerto Rico. On top of the devastation
from the storm, she said doctors in her hometown aren’t equipped to treat her medical
conditions properly.

Her disabilities, byproducts of the cancer she overcame a few years ago, prevent her from
working, she said. Even if she were equipped to work, she doubts she’s be able to find a
decent job in Bayamón.

“My mother who is there says that crime has gone up,” she said. “Jobs aren’t there anymore.
Many are living without light or water.”

Recreating a hometown
Crucita Velazquez, 58, chose the hotel because her niece works there. She was visiting family
in Grand Rapids, Mich. when Hurricane Maria severely damaged her home in Yabucoa, Puerto
Rico. She knew she couldn’t return and hated the cold Michigan winter so she applied for
FEMA aid to cover a room in the Baymont, where Veronica Velazquez manages the front
office.

Another Yabucoa family followed. Carlos Velazquez, who isn’t related to Crucita or Veronica
but grew up near them on the island, moved to the Baymont with his mother.

While her niece Veronica attends to the front desk at the Baymont on a Saturday, Crucita
watches her baby, who sleeps soundly in her car seat. When Crucita visits the lobby from her
room on the second floor, Carlos trails behind, carrying the car seat.

“It’s not been easy, but I’m surviving thanks to my niece,” Crucita said. “[Being with her has]
been real nice. Carlos helps out, and the people here have been real nice.”

Crucita has tried to make her room more like a home during her three months in a hotel room.
She cooks rice and beans to share with Veronica and Carlos, on a small electric stove that she
stores in a cardboard box. Cans of food are stacked in TV cabinet drawers.

She said the people at the hotel are friendly, and that people stop by her room to visit. But
she’ll have to move out of the Baymont soon because FEMA will stop paying for the room on
March 20.

3/5
Crucita Velazquez, a Puerto Rican evacuee from Yabucoa, chose to live at Baymont because
her niece, Veronica, works there. (Stavros Agorakis)

Carlos and his mother have already moved across the street, where they found an apartment
they could afford. He’s enrolled in Tampa’s Howard W. Blake High School, where he likes to
play pick-up basketball. Still, Carlos doesn’t know if they’ll move to another apartment soon,
and he doesn’t know if they’ll return to Puerto Rico.

“There’s not much more we can do for you”

Henry Cruz had never been to the United States before Hurricane Maria hit his hometown of
Barranquitas in Puerto Rico. Suddenly left without a job or viable home, he flew to Tampa
because he’d heard about some job openings, but when he arrived, the positions were filled.
After a few days at the Baymont, he got a job stocking freezers at the nearby Walmart.

Like Rios, though, Cruz does not speak English and he often cannot understand what his
supervisors, all of them English-only speakers, are asking from him at work.

“The experience at Walmart is something that I wouldn’t hope for,” he said. “My only hope is
work, but the boss is demanding, and orders us around to do this, do that. It’s been different.”

When Cruz returns to the Baymont after work, he said he has no one to talk to. Since he
relocated to Florida, where he has no immediate family or friends, he spends his afternoons in
his small hotel kitchen, cooking meat with garlic and onions and waiting for the day he can
return to the island.

4/5
FEMA cannot help Cruz find an affordable apartment in the U.S. either; officials have
repeatedly told him “there’s not much more we can do for you,” he said. Florida Gov. Rick Scott
said earlier this year that Florida doesn’t have a long-term solution to continue providing
affordable housing.

But Cruz said FEMA has assisted his family back in Puerto Rico by providing volunteers and
repair funds toward rebuilding Barranquitas infrastructure. Although he doesn’t know when the
entire town will be rebuilt, he is ready to move back.

“Until the [April] 20th day, I’m going to stay here,” Cruz said. “Just the 20th day.”

What now?
At least 60 percent of Puerto Ricans receiving TSA assistance in the United States don’t plan
to return to the island when funding expires, a FEMA representative said, although that could
change in the future as the island rebuilds.

In Florida, “individuals are redirecting their lives,” said Richard Maladecki, CEO of the Central
Florida Hotel and Lodging Association. “They’re following their dreams.”

But evacuees are still struggling to determine their next steps. Some Puerto Ricans, like Carlos
and Cruz, have found housing solutions or jobs. Others, like Rios, don’t know what the future
will look like without their FEMA-funded hotel rooms.

5/5
 

City of Stars: Producer Jordan Horowitz rises to new

heights with ‘La La Land’ fame

Source: Dale Robinette

“La La Land,” produced by a team including NU alum Jordan Horowitz, is a romantic musical centered on a jazz musician and an
aspiring actress. The movie has resonated widely with audiences, earning about $135 million in domestic box office sales.

Stavros Agorakis, Reporter

February 23, 2017

Jordan Horowitz’s first memory of his stint in the Northwestern film scene was portraying a high school agent who
helped students find dates for the prom.

Now, Horowitz, 36, (Communication ’02) is one of the youngest producers hoping to win at this year’s Academy
Awards. The film “La La Land,” which he co-produced with Fred Berger, Gary Gilbert and Marc Platt, is vying for
14 Oscars on Sunday, tying the record for most nominations received by a single film along with 1997’s “Titanic”
and 1950’s “All About Eve.”

“La La Land,” written and directed by Damien Chazelle, is a romantic musical film that follows an aspiring
actress, portrayed by Emma Stone, and a jazz musician, played by Ryan Gosling. The film reinvents the classic
tale of trying to make it in the City of Angels.

“The film was all of our collective journeys and very much the idea of transplants, coming to L.A. and pursuing
your dreams,” Horowitz said. “We definitely pulled from our own experiences of having moved to L.A. and
wanting to be in the film industry.”

From Shanley to Hollywood

Like many other theater majors who have come through Northwestern, Horowitz spent most of his formative
years at college in Shanley Pavilion.

“There were many times when I got locked into or out of — or broke into or out of — Shanley,” he said. “It was
just a box … and it afforded a lot of opportunities for just changing the shape and making the design of the space
tie into the piece you were working on.”

Primarily an actor, but also dabbling in a cappella, Horowitz said he tended to stay away from mainstage, faculty-
directed productions. The collaborative atmosphere bred in the black box was what made him respond more to
original work, and what kept him loyal to the tight-knit theater community, he said.

That’s not to say he couldn’t tackle the classics. Acting Prof. Mary Poole said Horowitz could master
Shakespeare and the Ancient Greeks like few others, silencing the room every time he performed with his rich,
low voice.

“He was just ferocious,” Poole said. “He was a very strong-willed young man as a person, and he really
understood persons fighting for what they wanted.”

Poole recognized Horowitz’s desire to get involved with contemporary work, and she encouraged his plan to
move to New York out of college, where he started a theater production company with alumna Maureen Towey
(Communication ’02).

When Horowitz and Towey weren’t earning a living at their day jobs, they would rehearse works such as “The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” an adaptation of a Mark Twain short story, in a church
basement cafetorium daily with other NU alumni.

“We had to wait until the people there finished playing bingo before we could set up our show,” Towey said.

A couple festivals later, though, Horowitz still didn’t feel at home.

“I realized pretty quickly that being a theater producer wasn’t going to take me where I wanted to go,” he said. “A
lot of the producers in New York that I respected had come from money or from a family with a history of working
in theater, and I didn’t.”

So, he said he eventually flew to Los Angeles — where he has been living for the past 11 years — and took a
shot at filmmaking, riding by on confidence wherever he lacked the technical knowhow.

Towey said filmmaking marked the “natural evolution” of Horowitz’s career.

“He is ballsy, and he’s brave in his beliefs and the work that he supports,” she said. “Jordan has always been the
type of person that you just really want to have on your team.”

The path to “La La Land”

Now a “business artist,” a term he coined to refer to the theater department’s encouragement of artists working
behind the scenes on stage and screen, Horowitz said he is interested in meaningful, authentic pictures that
speak to the goodness of people.

“Passion speaks volumes, specificity speaks volumes, and that tends to be a driving force for me,” he said.

Much of Horowitz’s career in L.A. has been defined by indie movies holding up these values, though not all of
them have been big-scale successes like “La La Land” or the dramedy “The Kids Are All Right,” a 2011 Best
Picture nominee for which he received his second producing credit.

Yet, he said he always stops to reflect on why other movies didn’t go the distance — a trait Poole traces back to
Horowitz’s college years — in order to improve future projects.

Many of these indie pictures were released in the five to six years that “La La Land” was in development, during
which the directorial vision didn’t sway from the original pitch. Horowitz said it is a modern musical that tells a love
story without cynicism.

Horowitz added that the reason why the film has resonated with audiences — earning over $135 million in the
domestic box office — is because, apart from being of a genre that people have grown up to, it is a feel-good
movie grounded in human emotion.

“There is a real undercurrent of sadness and loss and compromise in ‘La La Land’ that pulls it back down to this
authenticity,” he said. “That’s why people have broadly responded to it from young to old, male to female.”

Despite the challenge “La La Land” was to develop — due to high Los Angeles production costs and the long
time the film was in development — Horowitz said everybody in the cast and crew did their best work.

On the early morning of the Academy Award nominations found Chazelle, his three co-producers and the film’s
protagonists all scattered across different cities and time zones, tuning in to the live stream. With every category
announcement — “La La Land” receiving nods in 13 categories — Horowitz said they cheered together, grateful
that everyone’s work was honored.

“There was a lot of love on set, and we all remained close at the aftermath of the film,” Horowitz said. “The first
thing I thought (when the nominations came out) was how amazing it was going to be to go to the Oscars with
our entire crew.”

Recalibrating the narrative

Horowitz said his commitment to positive storytelling was reaffirmed after this year’s presidential election, when
he realized filmmaking can have an important role in advocating meaningful and powerful messages.

The morning after the election, Horowitz posted on his Twitter account that he was “going quiet for a bit,”
tweeting scarcely until his return in late January. He said he backed away from social media to retain a more
reflective stance on the current events.

“Except for Instagram, because that’s really just pictures of my son,” he said. “I felt there was no harm in that,
and my mother would be upset if I stopped posting on Instagram.”

In the weeks that followed, Horowitz returned his attention to the people — his son and wife — and projects that
mattered most to him. He removed himself from work that he felt failed to contribute to society in a meaningful
way.

“I also looked at ‘La La Land’ then, and thought I was really happy to be able to bring this picture out into the
world,” he said, as the film had not been released outside of film festivals at the time of the election.

Horowitz added that more movies espousing similar values to “La La Land” of promoting empathy over cynicism
will continue to be made in Hollywood, especially in the four years to come. Producers are among the few people
in the industry who are in “control of their own destiny,” so it is their responsibility to choose the right stories for
the audiences, he said.

Despite the “institutional hurdles” that exist at the studio and agency levels, Horowitz said he will not stop
championing original stories and upcoming writers and directors. His upcoming projects include “Fast Color,” a
movie directed by his wife, Julia Hart, which he produced and co-wrote, and the T.V. series “Counterpart,” which
he produced.

“People are a little tired of spectacle, things blowing up and people dying,” he said. “I don’t think that’s where our
collective conscience is right now, so I’m hopeful that we’ll see stuff that’s more reflective of where we want to
go.”

Poole said she is pleased Horowitz is producing quality work and supporting artists with a unique voice. She said
she knows Horowitz will not lose his path in Hollywood — she said would trust him with her life and retirement
fund — and he will stand up for the values he believes in.

And she said she is vouching for him to go home with the big prize on Sunday.

“Someone who remains honest and interested in quality in the midst of that, I think, is somebody who deserves to
be admired,” Poole said. “I want to see him get up there.”

Email: agorakis@u.northwestern.edu
Twitter: @stavrosagorakis
Trump told Congress his new immigration package is
bipartisan. That’s when the Democrats laughed.
medillonthehill.medill.northwestern.edu/2018/01/trump-told-congress-his-new-immigration-package-is-bipartisan-thats-
when-the-democrats-laughed/
Stavros Agorakis

WASHINGTON — During his first State of the Union address, several of President Donald
Trump’s remarks Tuesday were met with silence or lukewarm applause from Democrats. None
of them appeared to divide the House chamber more, though, than his immigration reform
package.

As expected, Trump called for bipartisan support of a four-pronged immigration proposal the
White House unveiled last week. While Republicans on one side of the floor cheered on
Trump’s speech, many Democrats booed and at one instance screamed “lies!” as he urged
Congress to end chain migration.

After Trump presented his proposal to allow 1.8 million “dreamers” to get citizenship after 12
years, to fund a border wall, end the visa lottery and eliminate chain migration – allowing
immigrants to bring family members into the country more easily – except for immediate
family, he called his reform a “down-the-middle compromise,” a phrase that caused several
Democrats to laugh loudly.

“For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem,” Trump said. “This
Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen. Most importantly, these four pillars will
produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to sign a bill that puts America first.”

Eskinder Negash, acting chief executive officer of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants, said he hopes both parties will come to an agreement.

“The devil is in the details in those kind of things,” he said. “But this is very much the proposal
that everyone has been talking about.”

The chamber was packed with “dreamers” who were invited by members of Congress, among
them Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Kamala Harris, and House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi. The young adults, who were brought into the country illegally as children, have
temporary visas that begin expiring in March, after Trump ended the Obama administration’s
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

A number of lawmakers wore butterfly pins in support of the dreamers.

In contrast, guests in the first lady’s box highlighted the need for border security and
protection against gang violence. Melania Trump stood by the families of victims most likely
killed by MS-13 gang members, along with Agent C.J. Martinez, a supervisory special agent for
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations unit,
whose work has led to more than 100 arrests of these gang members.
1/2
The new immigration proposal Trump stressed in his speech would grant citizenship to 1.8
million undocumented people brought into the U.S. as children, more than the Obama
administration’s DACA order protected. However, the proposal also intends $25 billion for
increased border security.

Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., previously led a bipartisan immigration proposal in
the Senate, which was rejected by Trump and declared dead by GOP leaders.

Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for
Refugees and Immigrants, said Trump has supported resolving the partisan fight over DACA in
the past.

Nonetheless, Trump has held a firm position on border security since his campaign trail days.
His hallmark promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border has divided Congress. His
signing of the travel ban, an executive order barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority
countries from entering the U.S., just a week after Inauguration caused national uproar. A year
later, partisan conflict over immigration resulted in a three-day government shutdown as
Democrats initially refused to pass a federal spending bill without a DACA deal.

“What we see as a result of these acts is separated families and so much uncertainty and fear
for folks who are either waiting to come … but now find themselves in limbo, or people who are
here awaiting family reunification,” Blake said. “The impacts are direct and real on individuals
and families.”

Some of the president’s more incendiary remarks have sparked divisive responses from
various immigration groups. Over the year, Trump has accused Mexicans of bringing drugs
and crime, and has reportedly called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries.” He also
called for more than 200,000 El Salvadorans to leave the U.S.

Marguerite Telford, communications director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group
that presses for less immigration, said Trump’s comments are only “a teeny tiny part [that
shadow] his accomplishments.”

America’s Voice executive director Frank Sharry said in a written statement that Trump plans
to slash legal immigration by 50 percent, the largest such reduction in nearly 100 years.

“This is the White House plan. … Build a big, stupid, wasteful and insulting border wall, paid for
by American taxpayers and not Mexico, so that Trump and his followers can extend the middle
finger to Latin America,” Sharry said.

Despite the dissenting response on immigration, Trump pressed Congress to come to a fruitful
solution and protect both dreamers and the nation’s borders.

“Let’s come together, put politics aside, and finally get the job done,” Trump said.

2/2
 Select Page
a
a
THEY MARCHED 250 MILES. NOW THEY WANT
CONGRESS TO HEAR THEM OUT.
by Stavros Agorakis | Mar 1, 2018 | Featured, Immigration

ELEVEN UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS AND ALLIES MARCHED MORE THAN 250 MILES TO REACH WASHINGTON, D.C. ON

THURSDAY AND CALL FOR A CLEAN DREAM ACT. (STAVROS AGORAKIS/MNS)

WASHINGTON — When Li was seven years old, he left Mexico to reunite with his family in New Jersey.
Seventeen years later, holding a temporary visa through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, he walked
for two weeks to send a message to Congress — pass legislation that will grant him and 700,000 other
“dreamers” permanent residency.

Li is one of 11 people who marched more than 250 miles from New York to protest Washington’s inaction on
“dreamers,” or undocumented youths brought into the U.S. as children. President Donald Trump ended the
DACA program, but two federal court rulings have delayed the end March 5 end of the program. The Supreme
Court this week denied a Trump administration request to rule on the matter.

The number of walkers symbolizes the 11 million undocumented people currently residing in the U.S., Li said.
DACA recipients make up only 5 percent of the undocumented community.

Li said he joined the rally — formally called the Seed Project and organized by the Cosecha Movement, a
nonviolent group calling for immigrant protection — to protest against an administration that has consistently
fought to “ship” him back home.

“When [Hurricane] Sandy came through Jersey, I helped rebuild my hometown,” he said. “I didn’t see anybody
with a Trump hat. And now [Trump] is trying to say I don’t belong here.”

The protesters ended their march near the Washington Monument at the heart of D.C., just over a mile away
from the Capitol and across the street from the White House.
The Supreme Court ruling effectively gave dreamers temporary amnesty beyond the date Trump had set for
DACA to expire. Now, nearly 700,000 DACA recipients may apply for renewals of their work permits, but the
administration will not be required to accept new applications.

But the ruling also took some of the deadline pressure off of Congress to act on the issues.

The Republicans have been advocating legislation to protect dreamers while funding more border security,
including billions for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

However, Democrats slammed every bill that came their way with that tradeoff. In a record eight-hour
filibuster-style speech on the House floor in early February, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi read multiple
dreamers’ personal stories and cited Bible passages to ensure activists and immigrants alike that Democrats are
fighting for dreamers’ safety.

Inaction on the Democrats’ part, though, has angered pro-immigration Americans, fueling more rallies
nationwide.

“I did not walk alone, I walked with a community,” said Haydi, a 20-year-old dreamer from the Honduras, who
joined the 15-day march from New York to D.C. “To my friends and my family members who are
undocumented, it’s time to come out of the shadow. Do not let them win. Do not let them tell you how much
you’re worth.”

Haydi and Li declined to allow the use of their last names to protect them from possible future deportation.

“Maybe the delay might give us a chance to regroup, get in motion and calm down,” said Republican Sen.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “It’s pretty clear to me that the only deal other than a punt is going to be
border wall for DACA.”

Graham, one of the few Republican senators putting in an effort to work with Democrats on a fix for DACA,
introduced an immigration bill with Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., which the White House called
“dead on arrival.”

Trump has been vocal about only signing a bill that aligns with the immigration package he proposed during
his State of the Union address. His framework suggests “four pillars” on immigration, which include a pathway
to citizenship for 1.8 million dreamers, a $25 billion investment on border security and the wall, an end to the
visa lottery and the elimination of family-based migration.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said dreamer protection will only be possible if the president backs off his “aggressive
rhetoric and intense lobbying.” He added that senators from both parties are unlikely to cooperate if Trump is
not willing to hear out immigration reform deals that veer off the White House framework.

“As long as the president and the secretary of homeland security are … going to campaign really hard and
personally lobby against any bill that is less than the four pillars the president is looking for, I’m not optimistic
we’ll get something done,” Coons said.

In the meantime, 24-year-old dreamer Li said he challenges lawmakers to listen to the undocumented
community and fight for their protection.

“When the Trump administration targets families, they’re targeting my home,” Li said.

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MEDILL TODAY NOVEMBER 30