Asociación de Tepeyac
By Alex Goetzfried
Around the corner from the wintertime festivities at Bryant Park, on 38th street, behind the glitz and glam of the Lord & Taylor holiday window display, is an unassuming door with a rain-faded blue sign that simply reads: Asociación de Tepeyac. Behind the rickety, double-padlocked door and up one flight of beat-up brown linoleum-patched stairs lies a humble center dedicated to education and raising awareness of important immigration issues for Latinos
The center, now open for 15 years, is run mostly by volunteers—who are surprisingly young—and are dedicated to helping Latinos get GEDs, learn English, apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and hold community-based events to attract more immigrants and promote education. Many undocumented immigrants who come to the United States from Latin America have no post-elementary education. For the most part, they have also been working full-time from an early age and going back to school can be intimidating.
“Our main goal is to educate our people,” Marisol Santiago, a paralegal at Tepeyac, said in between answering a phone that was ringing off the hook. “If they are educated, they get better jobs and better opportunities.”
DACA is one of the education-based opportunities that Tepeyac spends a lot of time helping its students with. The requirements can be daunting and confusing (a full list can be found on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website). But one of the main obligations for applicants is having a GED or high school diploma.
Santiago herself was brought to the United States at the age of 5. Here for 25 years, She is a DACA recipient but is still struggling with the process of becoming a full citizen. Santiago graduated high school and earned an associate’s degree from Westchester Community College while raising two children. It is easy for her to empathize with the struggle of Spanish-speaking immigrants who have been here—raised as workers—from a young age.
“Some kids came young and were raised as workers, 10 years old and younger; they came here to work and never studied,” Santiago said. “It’s very difficult but the
y’re doing it.”
Humberto Rochin, 19, from Guadalajara, Mexico, is a volunteer at Tepeyac. After earning a GED he hopes to attend a CUNY school for accounting. He is like an office manager, answering phones, coordinating the GED classes, teaching basic math and—most importantly—making sure student attendance is up.
“I make sure they come to class,” Rochin said. “The students have difficult schedules…a majority of students didn’t finish elementary school.”
Rochin has a very realistic view of the GED program, but is passionate about getting other young Latin American immigrants interested in higher education.
“In the beginning I thought they could get better jobs but I realized when they get the GED they don’t get better jobs,” Rochin said, sitting at his desk in a narrow hallway separating the classroom and computer room. “Getting a GED diploma doesn’t boost income, but they can do other things like go to college and apply for Deferred Action.”
One newcomer who came for the GED program and stayed to help other young immigrants understand the importance of education is German Vasquez, 22, from Guatemala. Vasquez has been in New York for three years and is now head of the youth leadership program at Tepeyac called WALK, a name symbolic of the program’s goal to continually move forward.
“For me it’s—we must go forward—Latinos in the U.S. don’t have much opportunity so we must know how to work hard for those things,” Vasquez said. “It’s not easy, no matter how old or your purpose you must work hard.”
Vasquez learned English in school, which is why he feels it is so important to bring other Spanish-speaking immigrants in to learn English.
“We try to push that and try to get people information easily because most don’t speak English, then they never try anything,” he said. “In our group, WALK, we try to be leaders, bring in more students because we need it. To succeed we must study, so our challenge is to bring more Latinos, then they can get classes and go to university.”
Santiago agrees, but admits it can be difficult, the guidelines for DACA are strict and many of the young adults and teens have difficulty finding the information they need. The other issue is many have lived here most of their lives and this is the only country they know, but DACA just provides a two-year extension and a promise they won’t be deported as long as they behave. It is risky because they do not get citizenship or amnesty and are putting themselves into the system, making some wary of the program.
DACA is just a small part of what the organization, along with many others, is fighting for—the Dream Act—which would require the same stipulations as DACA plus two years of college for full citizenship.
“Right now we have a movement,” Santiago said. “A lot of organizations are involved. Kids who are citizens are calling representatives in Washington and saying ‘I don’t want my parents deported.’”