'Undocumented & Unafraid' event to introduce new book, Arizona DREAMers

In May 2010, Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix were killed in a car accident in Maine. Both were graduates of UCLA, and both were graduate students in the East – Tran at Brown University and Felix at Columbia University.

And both were undocumented residents of California.

Fast forward to 2012. Reyna Montoya is a May graduate of Arizona State University, who earned concurrent degrees in political science and transborder studies, with a minor in dance, and Daniel Rodriguez is completing his last year at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at ASU and is co-founder of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition.

Both are undocumented residents of Arizona.

What links the two pairs together, besides their immigrant status?

Montoya and Rodriguez will be speakers at a free event on Sept. 13, titled “Undocumented & Unafraid: Immigrant Youth Movements in Arizona and California” that introduces a new book about Tran and Felix.

The event, from 6 to 8 p.m., in the Memorial Union Turquoise Room (220) on the Tempe campus, celebrates the publication of “Undocumented and Unafraid: Tam Tran, Cinthya Felix, and the Immigrant Youth Movement,” published by the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education.

In addition to Montoya and Rodriguez, speakers will be Sofia Campus, Fabiola Inzunza and Kent Wong. The event celebrates DREAMers, undocumented youth who organize and advocate for change in immigration policy.

The Los Angeles Times said of Tran and Felix, who had Vietnamese and Mexican heritages, that “both shared a particular passion: a commitment to assist undocumented students like themselves attend college, attain legal status and escape the shadow existence of illegal immigrants.”

That passion also is shared by the panel members for Sept. 13, who will tell their own stories of leadership and activism.

“Undocumented & Unafraid” is sponsored by Comparative Border Studies, School of Transborder Studies; Office of Educational Outreach and Student Services; School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies; and the UCLA Center for labor Research and Education.

An R.S.V.P. is required for this event. To reply, go to borders.asu.edu/special-events-Fall2012.

(For more information about Tran and Felix, go to http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/21/local/la-me-adv-undoc-20100521)