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BY SAMME SHEIKH

In print | Published January 26, 2012

Applying to college served as a uniquely revelatory experience for high school senior Walter Enrique Lara. While reading through the catalogue of probing questions typically featured on college applications, Lara learned something about himself that he didn’t know before.
Unlike most college applicants, who might gain some self-knowledge from how they answer a particularly personal question, it was through Lara’s inability to answer a rather mundane or routine question that he learned a shocking truth about his identity.

Lara didn’t have a social security number to enter into any of his applications. He had no idea that his parents had moved from Argentina to the United States when he was only three years old. They had hidden this crucial part of his identity in America for what they thought would be his own good
“My parents never told me about our situation,” he wrote in a short essay, explaining his predicament. “They wanted to keep it away from me so that I wouldn’t think less of myself than anybody else, and so that I would not worry.”

“Papers,” a documentary screened in Scheuer Room in Kohlberg on Jan. 18 imparted to the 10 or so audience members in attendance that same understanding. The screening was part of “In Shackles: Shining a Light on Shadow America,” a week-long Swarthmore commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and his commitment to social activism.

“Papers” revolved around the stories of five different undocumented high school seniors — including Lara — from all across the United States, each story representing a unique aspect of life as an undocumented American student.

The film was born out of director Ann Galinsky and producer Rebecca Shine’s experiences working as tutors and mentors with at-risk immigrant youth in Portland, Oregon, and their dismay at the extra obstacles posed by the lack of papers.

After 15 years of building a life with his family in Florida, Lara learned that he was an undocumented resident in the United States. From that point on life would only get harder for him. Even though he was an honor roll student, Lara found that colleges couldn’t offer him acceptance, much less financial aid, because of his resident status. As a result, he worked as a cable contractor’s assistant. It was while on the job in 2009 that Lara was arrested by federal agents and made to face the prospect of being deported to a country he never knew.

Lara’s story is representative of the plight of some six million undocumented students in the United States. Their situation is a hidden one, often obscured by the polarized national discourse on immigration and immigration reform that — in the language of Capitol Hill — leaves the cost of human suffering out of the equation.

Another of the students included in “Papers” was Yo Sub, the 17-year-old son of Chinese immigrants born in North Carolina. The film establishes early on that Sub is an exceptionally intelligent and driven student. By the time he was a senior in high school, Sub had exhausted all of the academic opportunities at his public high school except for music theory and calculus and maintained a 4.5 GPA.

Like Lara, Sub did not know of his legal status in the United States; his parents never revealed this information to him. When Sub inevitably found out, he chose to send out applications to his dream schools despite the fact that he knew that he was an undocumented student. One of the most poignant scenes in the documentary is when Sub revealed that he had not received an acceptance letter from a single university.

At the other end of the spectrum and on the other side of the country lives Juan Carlos. Unlike some of the other interviewees, Carlos — though born in California — has always known that he was undocumented. For Carlos, it was precisely this knowledge that inhibited his academic drive.
“I can’t get a job anyways,” he shrugged at one point during the film. “It was hard to focus.”
In the kaleidoscope of emotions of “Papers,” from Yo Sub’s bitterness to Juan Carlos’ apathy, the film additionally explored the role of fear in the lives of undocumented students. Simone was born to Jamaican immigrants in New York City and in the documentary her face is never shown due to her concerns for anonymity. Constantly anxious about her precarious status in the country she was born, Simone spoke about her experiences with wage inequality and workplace abuse that she endured without complaint, so as to not garner unwanted attention towards her and her family.
Though understandably downcast in its portrayal of the current conditions for undocumented youth in the United States, “Papers” maintains hope in the form of the DREAM Act. This legislative proposal that was gaining headway as the film was being made would have created a path towards citizenship for undocumented students.

The end of the film features Lara, Sub, and hundreds of other young high school graduates across the country congregated in Washington D.C. to lobby for the bill’s passage in Congress.
Lara, a 23 year old young man, has at this point in the film gone through an unimaginable ordeal. Having been apprehended by federal agents at his workplace and detained for 20 days, Lata had become a lightning rod for the undocumented youth community nationwide. Garnering the support of lawmakers and regular citizens, Lara was able to stay in the country and avoid deportation.
Speaking to the crowd of students and activists in Washington, D.C., both Lara and Sub (who had won a Microsoft scholarship, despite his legal status) symbolized the promise of new possibilities for undocumented students.

“Never give up,” was the simple but powerful advice that Yo Sub had for his fellow undocumented students.

After the film had ended, it became clear that it made an immediate impact on the audience.
“I thought the discussion was really cool, a lot of people raised some insightful and important points,” Sean Bryant ’13 said. An intern with the BCC, Bryant was one of the people involved in bringing the film to Swarthmore.

“The story of undocumented students really struck home for me, especially with Simone’s story,” Bryant said, speaking about his shared Jamaican heritage with one of the film’s characters.
Even without such a personal connection, “Papers” is able to convey a frank and personal understanding of the disenfranchisement of millions of youth in America. Through the film, the audience in Kohlberg last Wednesday was exposed to the kind of social inequality Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to combat. The screening served as a relevant and enlightening addition to Swarthmore’s remembrances of one of our nations great instigators of social progress.

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