SGA Meeting 10-1-17
Campus Center 7pm
Summary
The beginning of the meeting was spent going over some basic news of events on campus. We broke up into small groups to discuss feelings and provide suggestions for Plenary. We were able to hear check-ins from a few positions on Rep-co. Then the Migrant Right’s Coalition lead an open forum on DACA where students were able to ask and answer questions pertaining to the recent policy changes.
General Announcements
Annika Lutzenhiser ’19: Story core is re-launching and so we are going to have a bunch of conversations with affinity groups on campus
Ill put something out in the daily digest
Alisha Clark ‘18: any other general announcements, birthdays, weddings?
Someone raises their hand to say it’s their birthday
Calla Carter ’18: sudo hoot has a logo challenge out and so if youre interested in graphic design or art or something submit them by nov 26th we have great prizes such as apple watches
Plenary Discussion
Alisha Clark ‘18: We are going into the plenary discussion.. We are modeling it the same as last time. So we will break up into 5 smaller groups and discuss.
Everyone breaks up and talks for 10 minutes
So I have heard everyone, even in the nastiest emails. I addressed the concerns and feelings in my conversation with KCass. And plenary itself was not the best thing for me, of course not. I have worked on it since summer but of course the first time is not going to be picture perfect. After plenary I am not sure how I felt about the app. Admin loved it because it was fast and because they are able to see the actual numbers. I am still on the fence about doing it again because there was about 25 people who were unable to vote. How would people feel about possibly having Plenary in the gym.
Nanda Bhushan ‘19: please make sure that when you are giving criticisms that you are thinking about the feelings of the people who you are criticizing. Alisha is a fellow student who has other things to think of.
Community Forum
Nanda Bhushan ‘19: We are going to have a complete check in of committee roles and restructure them.
RepCo Check-ins
Michelle ’18 and Courtney ‘18: We are res co heads. The liaison people between res life and the dorm presidents, so we meet every week and talk about what is going on in the dorms. We also meet with Angie sheets regularly. Every Tuesday morning I meet with the heads of a lot of facilities and so if you have any concerns with those groups you can being them to me and I will bring them up in those meetings.
Sophie Goldstein ‘20: Elections head with Milan we deal with elections cycles during the year. We just had one very recently this past weekend. You guys get a lot of emails rom me throughout the year so please read them and nominate and vote.
DACA Open Forum
Alisha Clark ‘18: We are going to move into our DACA open forum. About a week before Plenary someone brought concerns to the meeting about SGA and DACA and so we decided to hold this open forum with the Migrant Rights Coalition. We have a brief video.
Alisha Clark ‘18: today for this event we are going to open up the floor to students. We are corunning this with the Migrant Right’s Coalition
Maria
Kayla
Rebeca
Leticia
Daniela Lopez Lopez ’19: we are all on the e board of the coalition
We want to emphasize that this is something that is effecting people here at BMC there are undocumented students at Bryn Mawr this is not just some abstract concept.
Kyla Fanning ’20: I have seen stuff about KCass signing on to things to protect their students, can they do that legally and how can we support as a student body.
Daniela Lopez Lopez ‘19: Her reasoning for not saying that we are a sanctuary campus was that she didn’t want to make Bryn Mawr a target that could put students in danger because ICE could come here. Something they are doing is not complying with ICE unless they have a warrant. The admin also does not keep tabs on who is and who is not undocumented here. Even if they asked we have no information to give. Working on programs to make sure that undocumented students do not feel any different than other students
Alisha Clark ‘18: even with my meeting they were saying that they really do not keep tabs on anyone. The college would ask questions back before proceeding with the warrant.
Daniela Lopez Lopez ‘19: quick plug. We actually created a support group through our club so if you are undocumented or protected under DACA there is a support group that we have just to talk about what you are feeling so if you want to email me I can give you more information about that dlopezlope@brynmawr.edu. I will tell you when and where this is meeting.
Rebeca Salas ‘19: Mine is not really just a plug for ways that we can act, but in the topic of immigration in general immigration is based on capitalism and we are a country based in capitalism. I want to hand out these pamphlets that we made to show ways to help. One of the biggest ones is boycotting stores that support the private prison complex, there are so many companies that are a part of this like victorias secret, starbucks, etc. We are going to go to a senators office with DACA recipients to help and change their mind.
Alisha Clark ‘18: in case some people are thinking what does a DACA student look like. Which is a horrible thought to think of. They are highly educated, they generally don’t have a criminal record, they are fairly young. The point is that they are all like us. You can’t use stereotypes or listen to Donald trump. They all pay taxes unlike someone else.
Daniela Lopez Lopez ‘19: when you ask who they are, they’re Americans. They were given this temporary deferment from deportation and then you can renew it again up and until it is in place. These are people who grew up here. Your neighbor could be on DACA.
Azalia Sprecher Hidalgo ’18: they can look like anyone, not all DACA recipients are Latinx. I think we should push back on the aspect of contributing to the economy. They are human beings, not just dollar signs. It is all just xenophobia. Fearing people because they are the stranger because they look different or are from somewhere different.
Rebeca Salas ’19: on my capitalistic rant, when they are being deported and held in detention centers that money is going to the shareholders, these large companies. We cant make it all about money, these are people.
Alisha Clark ‘18: we are gong to pause for a minute and show this video:
I want to stress the open forum so that people can learn form each other, I don’t want people saying something ignorant because people are hurting right now. If you are not upset, you are not listening.
Daniela Lopez Lopez ’19: does the community have any more questions, concerns
Lizzy Muhammad ‘18: I think it was Rebecca who was talking about incarceration as it relates to DACA.
Rebeca Salas ‘18: I am not an expert. I just kind of generalized it in terms of all migration.
Daniela: when ice arrests people they put them in detention centers and can hold them for weeks. There was a story about a DACA recipient who was held for 6 weeks because they did not have the proper documentation at the moment. In Philly in the last month ICE arrested 107 people.
Alisha Clark ‘18: If you want to talk more about private prisons America has a long history of imprisoning African Americans
Azalia Sprecher Hidalgo ‘18: so the way that these prisons and the government operate is that they hire private corporations and so they are getting paid. The soap. Food, blankets are all from outside companies and in turn they sponsor some political campaigns. To see how this is part of the private prison industry.
Kayla Patton ‘18: yeah everything is super connected I just wanted to add on that even if it is not privately run it still brings in over a million dollars of profit for berks county. So people may be inclined to have a detention center there, they rent out office space to ICA officers and that is how the profit is made.
So ICE arrived at the beginning of this week as part of an operation called “safe cities”. Philadelphia had the highest level of arrests. And it was an operation to arrest folks who were undocumented, who were committing crimes. They are targeting sanctuary cities. Way of masking the xenophobic ways that they have been operating. The crimes are things like loitering or smoking in front of buildings. They will continue as long as they have money for it.
Rebeca Salas ‘19: in the detention centers these people are being treated really inhumanely
Just to piggyback a lot of the crimes that they are committing are survival crimes.
Also pushing back on the idea of the ideal dreamer who maybe would not go to college route or who did not do that well in school, they may have different interests, they may not be just like us. Also a lot of the culpability is put on the parents and that is something that we need to reevaluate as well.
Daniela Lopez Lopez ‘19: here is even some pushback against being called dreamers because that criminalized the parents. So young people are being asked to not be called dreamers because their parents are the actual dreamers.
Leticia Robledo ’20: I just want to add. One thing we can do is to aid DACA and undocumented folks who were effected by the natural disasters and they are unable to access FEMA funds and so continue donating to the brining it home campaign.
Rebeca Salas ‘19: we made a venmo that you can donate to if you can not donate physical things.
Leticia Robledo ‘20: this is not just for Houston. It’s for Puerto Rico. Mexico, other Caribbean islands. Especially PR right not because they are not getting any governmental funds.
Alisha Clark ’18: so this was originally something that I began as a response to what happened in Houston, south Africa, and South Asia. It was anonymous and people we able to get a package of things that they would need. It is bringing it home because it is focused on Bryn Mawr. Because our community is diverse there is no disaster that is not hitting home. When people say bringing it home it is all about coming together.
Annika: when is the next meeting of the migrant right’s coalition
Rebeca Salas ’19: we do not have a date yet it will be the week before fall break. We will have a dinner and it will be more a community centered dinner to talk.
Kyla Fanning ’20: I wanted to say thank you for opening up the venom and where the money will be distributed, I am assuming it will be going to Bryn Mawr students but I wanted to make sure.
Alisha Clark ‘18: if people need things right now they are able to pick up some more things. But the items right now will be shipped
Kayla Patton ‘18: when you send money to folks in PR its not the most helpful because there is a limited amount of stores to shop from. We will be shipping things to a church or organization
We have another organization we are shipping with to Mexico and looking for a place to ship to in the us virgin islands.
We hope the venmo will be able to just cover the shipping costs and we can use to buy more supplies.,
Maria: to close you can follow us on Facebook., we will be having events throughout the year.