THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2017 | STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SINCE 1912 | VOL. 190, NO. 67 DAILY TROJAN
2 · News 6 · Opinion 8 · Lifestyle 18 · Classifi eds INDEX 19 · Sudoku 24 · Sports
Head women’s
tennis coach
Richard
Gallien is
stepping
down after 22
years at USC.
PAGE 24
By TOMÁS MIER
News Editor
As a Latino, low-income student
growing up in Los Angeles County,
George Sanchez merely dreamed
of attending college, but in 1977,
he embarked on his fi rst airplane
ride to Boston — to attend Harvard
University.
As a fi rst-generation student,
Sanchez struggled to carve a path
toward and through college. Now a
professor of history and American
studies and ethnicity at USC,
Sanchez uses his own experienc-es
as a college student of color to
aid students at the University who
go through struggles similar to his
own.
Sanchez parents possessed a
grade-school education when they
immigrated to the United States
from Mexico, which Sanchez said
was diffi cult because he lacked the
support he needed to create a clear
path toward higher education.
“Like a lot of fi rst generation
students, I didn’t know what to ex-pect,”
Sanchez said. “You were re-ally
worried about running out of
money, [of] being a burden to your
own family.”
Thirteen percent of USC fresh-man
are fi rst-generation students,
many of whom face the same chal-lenges
Sanchez faced more than
30 years ago at Harvard. Today,
Sanchez closely works with the
scholars from the Norman Topping
Student Aid Fund, who are typical-ly
low-income and fi rst-generation.
As a mentor for these students,
Sanchez worked with the current
director of the fund, Christina
Yokohama, to build a study abroad
program targeted toward fi rst-gen-eration
students.
“[We] were looking at the same
reports, and the reports were that
fi rst-generation college students
tended to not study abroad in com-parison
to other students at USC,”
Sanchez said. “It tended to be an is-sue
of not feeling comfortable and
not knowing why.”
Being able to visit a foreign
country with other Topping schol-ars
provided a pipeline for many of
them to study abroad: an education
that was previously unavailable for
marginalized students who often
lacked the knowledge and initiative
to travel.
For Felipe Hernandez, a ju-nior
majoring in civil engineering,
| see PROFESSOR, page 4 |
SPRING 2017
FINAL
ISSUE
Giving back to
By BRENDA VEGA
Staff Writer
Kimberly Alvarado and Ana
Mercado are two of the 750,000
DREAMers nationwide who are
protected under Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals and the
California Dream Act programs for
undocumented people.
After former President Barack
Obama issued the executive order
in June 2012, many undocumented
immigrants received work permits
and felt protected from deportation.
While the DREAM Act only applies
in California, the term “DREAMers”
is used to refer to undocumented
people protected under DACA.
Now, under the Trump adminis-tration,
undocumented students at
USC like Alvarado and Mercado fear
that they may be deported despite
these protections.
Although President Donald Trump
promised to focus deportation forces
on removing criminal immigrants,
Manuel Montes, a DREAMer, became
the fi rst with DACA status to be de-ported
to Mexico. He was spending
time with his girlfriend in Calexico,
Calif. when immigration authorities
asked for his documentation. Other
than Montes, there are currently 10
DACA enrollees in custody, accord-ing
to United We Dream.
For Mercado, a sophomore ma-joring
in contemporary Latino and
Latin American studies and sociolo-gy,
returning to her birthplace Jalisco,
Mexico would mean returning to a
place she left when she was only three
years old.
Mercado remembers that when
she was younger, U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement offi cers
came to her home. She remembers
her mother covering her mouth and
telling her to stay quiet.
“I remember when they knocked on
the door, my mom froze. Everything
can go from being OK to not OK in
seconds, and I felt that I started to
understand that we were different,”
Mercado said. “Even though we call
ourselves Americans … I am a for-eigner
to this country.”
DREAMers at USC feel
uncertainty, fear deportation
DACA enrollees at USC have
felt unsafe after a DREAMer
was deported under Trump.
| see DREAMERS, page 2 |
By KITTY GUO
Assistant City Editor
The general disproval rating of
the President has reached a his-torical
low with Donald Trump.
However, many Trump voters re-main
staunchly in support of him
and express hope and confi dence in
his future leadership.
According to a poll conduct-ed
from April 12 to 26 by the Jesse
M. Unruh Institute of Politics and
the Center for Economic and Social
Research, in conjunction with
the Los Angeles Times, President
Donald Trump’s core supporters re-main
stable and optimistic about
his direction in the coming months,
despite low ratings in America.
The Center for Economic and
Social Research surveyed 3,039
adult Americans, 2,584 of whom re-ported
that they voted in the 2016
election. The survey results were
weighted to match demograph-ic
characteristics such as race and
gender as well as population distri-bution
by location in order to ensure
a balance between urban and rural
residents.
The results showed low approval
LA TIMES/DORNSIFE
POLL FINDS TRUMP
VOTERS OPTIMISTIC
| see POLL, page 16 |
Tomás Mier | Daily Trojan
Trevor Sochocki | Daily Trojan
100 days of President Trump
At “President Trump’s First 100 Days Conference” on Wednesday at the Town and Gown, panelists discussed
Trump’s impact in the United States and abroad and the future of political parties in the country. Participants in this
panel included Christian Grose, Ron Klain, Peter Mancall, Adam Nagourney, Steven Schmidt and Dan Schwerin.
his barrio
Professor George Sanchez mentors
fi rst-generation and local students.