There is a difference between reading about someone’s work and standing in the room where it lives.
Last fall, we wrote about Alouette Cervantes-Salazar, the coordinator of the Dream Resource Center at East Los Angeles College and a LumenSparQ Lumenary. We described the students she serves, the hope she holds, and the community she has built for undocumented and mixed-status students navigating higher education. On Thursday evening, we attended the DRC’s annual graduation celebration. There was a dinner. There was music. And there were about 25 students, wearing the custom graduation sashes LumenSparQ provided as a gift to the program, gathered to mark what it took to get here.
LACCD Chancellor Dr. Alberto J. Román was there, along with ELAC President Dr. Monte E. Perez. Dr. Román, who served as ELAC’s president before his appointment as chancellor, spoke directly about the stakes of the evening. He shared that he too comes from an immigrant household, that what these students have built, they have built for themselves and for their families. His words carried particular weight. These graduates are pursuing education in a political and social climate that has grown more difficult, not less. Immigration enforcement, policy uncertainty, and daily fear are not abstract concerns for students at the DRC. They are lived realities. To hear the district’s top official stand in that room, claim shared roots, and affirm the value of this work was not a small thing.
Then the graduates spoke. Three of them took the floor. Their words were earned.
“Long nights. Stress. But I kept showing up. People believed in me even when I doubted myself.”
“Things once thought impossible are now possible and real.”
“Life is like a train ride. There are many stops and people get on and off. I stayed on the train.”
These are students who have navigated higher education while managing immigration uncertainty, financial strain, and family responsibility. The DRC has served as their counselor, their legal resource, and on the hardest days, their place to breathe.
The evening ended with mariachi. Two of the musicians were among the night’s graduates.
Alouette carries a saying from her grandmother: as long as there is breath, there is hope. On Thursday, her graduates said the same thing, in their own words.