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June 2, 2022
OPINIONS
Editor: Darlene Dukelow-Burton
viewpoints.opinions@gmail.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF KETUT SUBIYANTO | PEXELS
opinion series
America no longer a safe country
Immigrants lose faith in U.S. safety after recent attacks
JENNIPHER VASQUEZ NEWS EDITOR
We talk about the supposed American dream in ways that glamorize life in the United States. We have “the best schools, more opportunity to make money” and the so-called “safer neighborhoods” people migrate here for. People come to the States with the goal of leaving behind a life that wasn’t safe to hopefully break long reigning barriers of poverty. I hear about both successes and
failures. What happens when the dream becomes a nightmare? When the safe neighborhood where the life you’ve cultivated a home for your family is home to the school where your child has been slain? Is that really the American dream? Like many, I can’t shake the images of the parents of students who died at the hands of yet another teenager with a gun in Texas last month. I hear the voice of a man who pleaded with people to keep an eye out for his son, Rojelio, who he later found out did not make it. As a child of immigrants who came in pursuit of the American dream, it was heartbreaking to hear his pleas and later find out his child was one of the victims. To see someone who resembled my parents crying and holding his phone with a photo of his son was devastating. When I was attending Bullard high school, we received bomb
and shooting threats twice in 2014, which caused administration to cut the day short and send everyone home. The hours leading up to our dismissal were no different than the reports I’ve seen on school shootings from the mainstream media. There were many signs that the bomb threat was coming our way, but nothing was done until it reached a breaking point. Luckily, the aggressor was apprehended but that’s not always the case. The disaster is hardly ever avoided in a country that is supposed to be a safe haven and refuge to many. When we were released from lockdown, many of us were met at the gates of the school by our parents who had all been there for hours, frantically trying to get us out. This includes my mom, who left work as soon as she heard of the threat to pick me up — just like Rojelio’s dad did. The first tweet I saw about the shooter was from someone
questioning if he crossed the border to commit the act, based on his last name. No. An immigrant did not cross the border to kill kids. Immigrants came to the United States and their child was killed by an American. My parents didn’t come here and invest in a home in one of the safest neighborhoods in my hometown to later be worried that their children weren’t safe at school. This is not the American dream any of my family, every person locked in an ICE detention center or parents of school shooting victims envisioned. The convoluted phrase, land of the free, needs to stop being used so loosely in reference to America and its principles. The only version of freedom I have seen is the Uvalde shooter freely entering the campus while the students’ parents were the ones being detained outside for trying to
save their children. I am not open to the argument that you need your guns to be safe, or that it is your right. Those children had every right to live their life to their full capacity more than you need your guns. Many children of immigrants, like myself, are working daily to take full advantage of our parents’ sacrifices and make their journey to America worth every struggle. I shouldn’t have to fear going to school. I shouldn’t have to be relieved that one of my little brothers is homeschooled yet worried about the older of the two every time he goes to his college campus. I shouldn’t have to worry that my parent’s will be left without a child or that their life’s work towards the American dream will amount to nothing within a matter of seconds because of how easily, unknown and frequent these shootings have come to be.
Additional course material costs not included College programs must extend financial aid coverage for technology costs Programs at Riverside City College, like the Promise Program, appear like great alternatives for assistance with college expenses. In reality, programs like this don’t go far enough in many cases. They can only help students with expenses directly connected to the college and do not cover third-party costs for coursework. Financial aid is designed to aid students in college costs, but it is highly misleading. JOHN MICHAEL This design is due to too many GUERRERO courses usually associated with SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Computer Informations Systems courses relying on third-party websites to supply students with C o l l e g e i s e x p e n s i v e , course materials, virtual labs and especially for Science, Technology, assignments. Engineering and Math majors. Having experienced this issue
firsthand, I found it frustrating when I was told the Promise Program would be unable to cover the financial costs of my course materials from Cengage. As a college student who does not receive much from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), personal spending on basic needs and coursework is stressful. Knowing I am not the only student who struggles with these hidden costs for higher education is frustrating. The biggest complaint I’ve comeacross is that the costs of supplemental course material are not covered by financial aid, let alone included in the net course fees. This leads to many students
unexpectedly paying out of pocket. The same issue is extended to General Education classes. For art courses, students are expected to cover costs for rudimentary art supplies like sketchbooks, canvases, art programs and so on. These invisible costs plague almost every class that greatly relies on course materials outside of the main class. The Riverside Community College District can fix this ongoing issue by being more transparent with expenses that students should expect to encounter within each course. This should especially be the case with CIS courses. Knowing how much money students should set aside for personal costs will
help them plan out their college schedules to fit their spending costs better. Another solution would be to find a way for the college to extend support to students who wish to further their education but cannot do this because of the various software paywalls. This would help encourage people to attend college and even lower students’ stress if they’re living paycheck to paycheck. Although there should be a fine balance between supporting students and enforcing needed costs to run a college, students should not have to worry about unexpected costs when the district could do something to better prepare them for higher education.
