Notes from Underground 1.2 – ‘International’ Student: Nine Years and Counting

2008-02-26T15:50:36Z

The California Non-Resident Tuition Exemption, AB-540, applies to students of non-immigrant status who have attended a California high school for three or more years and obtained a diploma or passed the GED. Unfortunately, even while I have lived in California continuously for nine years with a non-immigrant status, I fall short of the three year requirement by a couple months. What this means in terms of a University of California Graduate program is that instead of paying $9000 per semester, I would pay around $25000 and also be ineligible for financial aid. Furthermore, teaching assistantships that are usually paid positions are also unavailable to me since I cannot legally work in the United States. Faced with no other option, my family exhausted personal savings, loans and credit card limits to get me through as much of my higher education as possible. I did get paid teaching assistant positions but received no monetary or credit compensation for them, choosing to accept them for the experience.

America is my home. And yet, I am considered an outsider, an ‘International’ Student, by higher education institutions. It only gets funnier when the International Student Office at any given university, refuses to acknowledge me as an ‘International’ Student because they view me as an immigrant, as someone who is not just here temporarily. Caught between two warring worlds, I retreat back underground where no one questions my sense of belonging. Let us admit what this is really about. In an increasingly globalized world where borders are getting more indistinct and blurry, our insecure reactions to these changes are to seek the familiar, nativism and homogeneity, and even impose difference with strong rigidity. Maybe it is time that we let go and define ourselves as ‘global students?’

non-immigrant at Brave New Films

Notes from Underground 1.2 – ‘International’ Student: Nine Years and Counting