We all know Gustavo and most of us enjoyed his commencement speech at UCLA last week. But even better was the student speaker, 22-year old Irvine resident Flavia de la Fuente (yes, the Force was very strong with Orange County Latinos that day.)
Flavia was described here as a “political science major who is a nationwide leader in the movement to pass the federal Dream Act.”
…De la Fuente was selected from a pool of 30 applicants by a 10-person panel of staff, faculty and students.
“We knew that Flavia would challenge the 2010 graduating class in a powerfully positive way so that they would want to emulate her experiences and take her speech to inspire their future endeavors,” said Joseph Brown, a UCLA staffer and a member of the selection committee.
De la Fuente will share the dais with Gustavo Arellano, author of the witty and incisive “¡Ask a Mexican!” column in the OC Weekly, who earned a master’s degree in Latin American studies from UCLA in 2003. She said her speech will challenge fellow graduates to stretch themselves.
“I’m going to focus on a theme of creativity and the importance of being artists in our own lives,” she said.
De la Fuente’s UCLA career has been distinguished by involvement in a range of political issues, including the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, human rights violations in Burma, and the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act, which provides a path to citizenship for undocumented college students…
De la Fuente said she made up her mind at 13 that she wanted to come to UCLA to major in political science. In fact, she still has a letter to herself, written in fulfillment of an eighth-grade assignment, spelling out the goal. “It was mailed by my homeroom teacher after I graduated high school and was on my way to UCLA to be a political science major, exactly as I had planned,” she said…
De la Fuente said she is most proud of her work on behalf of the Dream Act, a cause she was motivated to take up after witnessing the hardships endured by her undocumented classmates. In addition to activities advocating for passage of the legislation, de la Fuente serves as editor of DreamActivist.org, a nationwide online resource network for undocumented students.
“I don’t feel like you have to graduate to make a difference,” she said. “I feel, what better time to start than now!”
Great find! Awesome speech.
I loved her reference to the Dream Teamers but it was also awesome for her to point out that USC cheated.
Go Bruins!
I would like to ask her one question ‘is it fair for people to wait and others to be given citizenship for sneaking in?”
She has NO idea what she is talking about… My friend from china has been here without her husband for 5 years as she waits for him to get his Green Card.
He is taking English classes in China so that he is able to be fluent in English when he gets here.
I swear it seams the UC system vomit’s out idiots and liberal whack jobs only!
My kids will not be going UC!
My kids will not be going UC!
Your kids are gonna do whatever they want, and I can’t wait to see them rebel against your ignorant butt.
Hey little Quinns! Knowledge to be had here, outside your Mommy’s little world! Come and get it!
Parents might have sneaked in without their kid’s consent. Also it’s not their doing that the government has allowed them and given them certain advantages by letting them stay in the US, go to school and contribute to the country to now deny them a privilege which they consciously or not helped to put in place. In other words, watch your words my friend, and the same argument goes for anybody against the Dream Act. Watch your words and substantiate your arguments with facts and history.
Vern, Vern … calmite…. Ms. Quinn’s remarks always serve us an important reminder, that love, compassion, empathy, tolerance, and understanding are not structures that once built, will stand. These must be continually cultivated throughout each generation, or they will wilt like an unattended garden to be quickly replaced by weeds of hate, intolerance, civil war, ethnic cleansing. Quinn shows us what’s right below the surface if we let down.
As you well know Mr. Vern, I am not a pussy and I am not afraid to stand up to left wing whack jobs who will try to indoctrinate my kids with left wing BS.
My Kids are not spoiled little brats, they will be JUST like me!
You call it Knowledge, I call it ” fabrication of the truth!”
” Ms. Quinn’s remarks always serve us an important reminder, that love, compassion, empathy, tolerance, and understanding are not structures that once built, will stand.”
If Santa Ana teachers were a little less lovable, showed passion for teaching and had empathy for the kids they were failing each year…. Public Education that was once a great institution would again be a great institution.
Hate has a place like I ‘HATE’ the public school system.
Intolerance has a place like I am “intolerant” of the fact that YOU are paid so much to do a lousy job!
I consider SUSD a WEED that needs to be removed and thrown into the trash!
I am very tolerant and compassionate when it is appropriate to be so!
michell like the song states . teach your children well .. so they dont end up like far left vern .and this clueless wet behind the ears speaker flabia . who does not know what getting in line or better yet play by the rules .. and for our great sahs teacher , who has no idea what is like to work in the private secter and teachers and their public unions are killing california . dont forget who pays your salary ..
Ms. Quinn – You see this speech, you wouldn’t understand.
Excellent Speech! Thanks for sharing Vern.
MQ,
“I would like to ask her one question ‘is it fair for people to wait and others to be given citizenship for sneaking in?”
Our government , corporate America and our neighbors facilitated their presence here. This is done because they produce a benefit that outweighs any negatives.
“I swear it seams the UC system vomit’s out idiots and liberal whack jobs only!”
So non University educated individuals like you are the intelligent ones????. A large number of your tea bagger leaders are university are University trained. Are they idiots too?
” benefit that outweighs any negatives.”
MQ says:
A benefit to some and a negative too many! That is why the majority want to have immigration laws enforced. Corps exec’s I doubt send their children to public schools and they do not live in lower middle class and lower class area’s, now do they? So you are right, its great to have cheap labor work for you when they don’t effect your quality of life.
“So non University educated individuals like you are the intelligent ones????.”
There are a lot of people who choose not to go to college, I think Bill Gates was one of them. So yes Non-University educated individuals can be very smart. I unfortunately have met a lot of educated people who lets just say, where less than a 60 watt bulb!
MQ,
“A benefit to some and a negative too many! ”
A benefit to the USA. The world does not revolve around you or your minority supporters.
Francine J. Lipman
Chapman University – School of Law
Tax Lawyer, Spring 2006
Harvard Latino Law Review, Spring 2006
Chapman University Law Research Paper No. 06-20
Abstract:
Americans believe that undocumented immigrants are exploiting the United States’ economy. The widespread belief is that illegal aliens cost more in government services than they contribute to the economy. This belief is undeniably false. [E]very empirical study of illegals’ economic impact demonstrates the opposite . . .: undocumenteds actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services. Moreover, undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs.
Eighty-five percent of eminent economists surveyed have concluded that undocumented immigrants have had a positive (seventy-four percent) or neutral (eleven percent) impact on the U.S. economy.
Undocumented immigrants, like all U.S. citizens and residents, are required to pay taxes. Despite the historic and strong American opposition to taxation without representation, undocumented immigrants (except in rare and unusual cases) have not enjoyed the right to vote on any local, state or federal tax or other matter for almost eighty years. Nevertheless, each year undocumented immigrants add billions of dollars in sales, excise, property, income and payroll taxes, including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment taxes, to federal, state and local coffers. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants go out of their way to file annual federal and state income tax returns.
Francine J. Lipman
Chapman University – School of Law
Tax Lawyer, Spring 2006
Harvard Latino Law Review, Spring 2006
Chapman University Law Research Paper No. 06-20
Abstract:
MQ says:
Need I say more!
Undocumented immigrants, like all U.S. citizens and residents, a
MQ says:
This article is SOOOOO un-bias….. FYI to the Harvard LATINO law review the correct wording is Illegal Aliens…. EVERYONE SAY IT TOGETHER…ILLEGAL ALIENS!
The truth is in the pudding!
As far as anything the Feds say regarding illegal Aliens “YOUR FULL OF CRAP”.
The abstract is by a Chapman University professor. Chapman university is a conservative Republican leaning institution.
The point is that this conservative biased institution produced the study.
“As far as anything the Feds say regarding illegal Aliens “YOUR FULL OF CRAP”.
You are such a dope. The Feds say it and I am full of crap???
“FYI to the Harvard LATINO law review the correct wording is Illegal Aliens…. ”
This is another example of your stupidities. Harvard Latino law review members are illegal aliens?
It is understood that your propaganda is the word illegal alien. Similar to other hate groups associating words like JEW, Indian… the only good indian is a dead Indian,used in the conquest of the old West, Nigger etc.
MQ,
“A benefit to some and a negative too many! That is why the majority want to have immigration laws enforced. Corps exec’s I doubt send their children to public schools and they do not live in lower middle class and lower class area’s, now do they? So you are right, its great to have cheap labor work for you when they don’t effect your quality of life. ”
Illegal immigrants are less than 1% of the USA population. The illegal children of this less than 1% further lower the % that attends public and private schools.
How can the very small % of 1 % of illegal immigrant be responsible for the bad state of this country’s public schools when they are such a small % of the students?
How can this less than 1% of this country’s population me responsible for the economy, crime and welfare?
I have a dream……..a dream where Quinn is limited to one comment per post! WE ALL KNOW how she feels. She is not compassionate. She is not courageous. She is not creative. Otherwise I’ll just tivo past her diatribes of bigotry in sheep’s clothing. (Maybe we’ll luck out and she’ll go off in a huff )
hey, her and her siblings went to my alma mater, pretty random. ive been in more than a few debates with the DeLaFuente siblings in Mrs. Malkin’s AP poli sci class xD