Eduardo Rodriguez: 1 DACA Recipient in 800,000
It was just another Wednesday for Eduardo Rodriguez. He finished class early, went home and watched Netflix for a while, then headed to Bushwick-Hylan Community Center in Brooklyn to pick up his 5-year-old brother Max from pre-K.
As soon as Max heard Rodriguez’s footsteps approaching, he sprinted into his brother’s arms, excitement brimming from his face.
“How are you doing today, little man?” Rodriguez said as he smoothed the rumples on Max’s coat.
Caring for Max and his two other younger siblings is all in a day’s work for Rodriguez, who at 20 calls himself the “big brother in the family.” Not much separates him from other college-age youths, except that he is one of 800,000 DACA recipients in the U.S.
While much attention focuses on DREAMers who are superstar students, most of them, in fact, are just trying to live normal, debt-free lives.
Most days, Rodriguez commutes from Bushwick to Manhattan’s Guttman Community College in the morning, where he has just started his second year preparing for an associate degree in human services. From there, he goes to his part-time job at a Jewish community center in Bushwick, where he works as a cleaner and dishwasher.
Sometimes he agrees to do the night shift, even if it means he has to work till 3 a.m. “It’s tiring,” Rodriguez said. “But I am hoping to get a lot of work done this winter to pay for college tuition.” He said he gets paid $11 per hour.
Rodriguez’s life is typical of many DACA recipients: They work hard to pay for tuition or basic living expenses. Nearly 70% of families with undocumented parents live at or below the poverty line, and are typically employed in low-wage, unstable jobs. So, families with undocumented parents commonly rely on all working-age members to contribute, according to a study, The Effects of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on the Educational Outcomes of Undocumented Students.
“All this rhetoric about DACA, about how they are valedictorians or top in their class, and how they are doing all these great and amazing work is just not true,” said Janet Perez, a 25-year-old DACA recipient who works for a Latino immigrants’ rights advocacy non-profit called Mixteca. “These statements are impossible to fulfill.”
The “DREAMer narrative,” commonly used to polish recipients’ images, is stressing her and others, Perez said.
Stories of successful DACA recipients are not hard to find. One is about Santiago Tobar Potes, now a sophomore at Columbia University, where he was accepted on a full scholarship. He speaks six languages and plays the violin.
Still, many more didn’t make it that far.
Rodriguez came with his mother, Roxana Rodriguez, from Mexico when he was 4. His father had left them, and since she was unable to support their son alone, she crossed the border with him, hoping for a better life in the United States. They have since been living in New York.
Two years ago, as a freshman in college, he says he started drinking and hanging out with gang members. Financial stress was the cause.
He went into rehab, and that changed everything. “I realized that drinking was not the way I wanted to spend my life,” Rodriguez said.
He went back to Guttman a second time, though he is struggling to pay tuition, which is $2,700 per semester. His GPA is now 2.7, and is getting higher every semester.
He wants to transfer to John Jay College of Criminal Justice for a bachelor’s degree next year and become a parole office when he graduates. “I really want to help people,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez’s stepfather, Vicente Flores, is working two jobs — chef by day and dishwasher by night. “He seldom sleeps,” Rodriguez said, yet they are always on the brink. Even though his mother also works, as a tailor for a clothing line, caring for a family of six people costs a lot. Rodriguez shares a bed with his 15-year-old brother Vicente, and sometimes picks up his 12-year-old sister Yaret from school not far away.
And always, there’s anxiety over his immigration status.
Before DACA, Rodriguez worked in low-paying jobs that do not ask for work permits. He has worked 10 jobs since then, many of them while “hiding in the shadow,” he said.
When President Obama announced DACA in 2012, he applied immediately. Once he was approved, DACA allowed him to work in better-paying jobs and rewarding summer internships. Last summer, he worked with a non-profit called GrowNYC, where he got paid as an intern, and gained the experience of leading a team.
Now, Rodriguez fears that he “won’t have the luxury to go back into these jobs again.”
He can hardly remember the day he got DACA, but he can’t forget the feeling when the government announced they were ending it.
“My parents were terrified,” Rodriguez said. “They didn’t know what to do.”
Rodriguez described his parents as kind and tender, always thinking of helping others before themselves. They aren’t too worried about their own future, whereas Rodriguez, who has given the government a lot of personal information for his DACA application, has become the family’s biggest concern.
His DACA status is scheduled to expire next year.
He takes some comfort knowing that his younger siblings, who were born in the U.S., don’t have to go through this.
“They are all U.S. citizens,” Rodriguez said. “I am sure they will do so much better.”
Last December, Rodriguez went to Washington, D.C., for a DACA rally. On his bus was Luis Jimenez, also a DACA recipient, who works as a waiter on the Upper West Side.
Now 30, Jimenez recalled how he failed to finish an associate degree nine years ago because of financial stress. Jimenez said he feels more comfortable with his DACA permit but fears the government is going to take it away.
Now without a college degree, struggling to pay rent, and unsure about immigration policies, Jimenez is unable to make any long-term plans.
“I am not hopeful that the DREAM Act will pass,” Jimenez said. “I was so much more involved in this fight years earlier, but the fight has been going on for too long and the act is never passed.”
He feels that he no longer fits people’s perception of DREAMers, which are focused on younger people.
“Some of us are 35 years old,” Jimenez said. “We are just regular people trying to live a comfortable and happy life.”
Rodriguez also can’t make long-term plans.
“I still really want to finish college. That way, I would be the first one in my family to graduate from college…. I want to be a role model for my siblings,” Rodriguez said. “But I am still nervous, because I don’t have a plan for what my future is going to look like.”
