Giving undocumented Americans a chance to dream
This documentary is on msnbc now; very inspiring! I'm sure it will be repeated.
Giving undocumented Americans a chance to dream
07/16/14 07:00 AM—Updated 07/16/14 02:28 PM
By Mary Mazzio
There were only four high school boys on the robotics team in 2004, all of them undocumented immigrants, the year Carl Hayden Community High School defeated engineering powerhouse MIT in a sophisticated underwater robotics competition. All it took was some duct tape, PVC parts from Home Depot, and a cheap spy camera found on the web to build the contraption, which the students named “Stinky.”
Fredi Lajvardi, a marine biology teacher, and Allan Cameron, who taught ham radio and computer programming, had started the Phoenix, Arizona, high school team a year earlier, only to find few takers. It took some serious cajoling and arm-twisting to put the prize-winning 2004 team together.
But their improbable win catalyzed something remarkable. Now, 10 years later, the Carl Hayden robotics team has 10 times as many members. And it introduced a new word, rarely uttered in this community of undocumented and low-income Hispanic students: “College.” Life in this community would continue to be hard but maybe – just maybe – something different was possible.
The robotics team’s 2004 win inspired a new generation of engineers and problem solvers. And it also inspired me to chronicle their remarkable story in a new documentary film, “Underwater Dreams.”
During the course of making this film, I had not realized how many students from this little robotics program later graduated from Arizona State University with engineering degrees. Or how many of them would become the next generation of civil rights leaders. This little robotics program at Carl Hayden, according to Suzie Kwan, a recruiter from Arizona State University, has sent more students to ASU than any athletic program.
The four original boys did not know at the time that they would become heroes – and they certainly do not view themselves that way. But with classic American can-do spirit, they showed the rest of us what it truly means to be American: to work hard and think hard and figure out a way to move beyond obstacles.
more...
http://www.msnbc.com/jose-diaz-balart/giving-undocumented-americans-chance-dream