Structural Patterns

In the article that follows, blogger Rachel Higgins provides an objective analysis of an often polarizing topic: the hotly debated DREAM Act and what rights, if any, illegal immigrants should have when it comes to securing federal money for college. Structural Patterns has looked at many of the issues art students face when choosing a school, but has rarely touched on the politics of that choice. As Rachel explains, how these issues are resolved may have long-lasting impacts on both students and programs. Rachel often writes about pressing issues in education, though she spends the bulk of her time editing a website for students interested in earning a quality degree on the Internet.

A Discussion Surrounding Immigrant Education and the Right to College

Illegal immigration to the United States has been a long-standing issue in this country – but in recent years, the DREAM Act has polarized the topic even further. Proponents of the bill have lauded its creators for implementing a system by which undocumented aliens can receive an education and contribute to the national economy, while detractors argue that individuals who enter the country illegally have no right to the same privileges afforded to legal citizens.

Introduced in 2001 by Senators Dick Durbin and Orrin Hatch, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act provides citizenship to illegal immigrants who entered the United States as minors, completed their high school education, and lived in-country at least five years before the bill was adopted. The conditional residency is extended to six years if the citizen either serves two or more years in the U.S. military or completes at least half of a four-year college degree program. Since he took office in 2008, President Obama has been an active supporter of the bill’s provisions. His latest measure came in June 2012, when he sidestepped Congress to defer deportation of undocumented citizens who met the necessary criteria.

As President Obama and his Republican rivals have argued over the DREAM Act, state-level support for illegal immigrants who wish to earn a college degree remains stagnant. While California successfully passed an initiative last year to allocate a set amount of financial aid to undocumented alien youths, other states have been forced to take alternative routes. In New York, for instance, initiatives to provide financial aid to undocumented citizens who wish to attend college have stalled. This has led several advocacy groups to create the state’s first scholarship program for illegal aliens; thanks to heavy contributions from a number of private donors and non-profit organizations (most notably the Fund for Public Advocacy), a handful of undergraduates in New York City’s university system will receive roughly $2,000 per semester. And in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry has supported measures that provide reduced tuition for more than 32,000 undocumented students; however, Perry’s proviso forces beneficiaries to pledge to obtain legal status within three years after graduation, as opposed to the federal act that grants citizenship amnesty. Supporters of illegal immigrant rights touted Perry’s plan, but most of his Republican colleagues argued against it – and the issue may have contributed to Perry losing the Republican primary appointment that instead went to Mitt Romney.

Supporters of the DREAM Act argue that the entire country benefits from measures that ensure education for all citizens, legal and illegal. “[The DREAM Act will] play an important part in the nation’s efforts to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently noted, adding that a higher number of educated citizens will bolster America’s standing within the global economy. The initiative also creates a wider recruitment pool for the U.S. military, and allows the Department of Homeland Security to devote more resources toward the deportation of individuals who actually pose a threat to national security. Finally, a recent study conducted by researchers at UCLA found that complete enactment of the initiative would boost the national economy by as much as $3.6 trillion in taxable income; in its present form, the DREAM Act cuts the federal deficit by $1.4 billion and will increase federal revenue by as much as $2.3 billion over the next decade.

But as John Hudson of The Atlantic Wire recently wrote, the DREAM Act has endured a large amount of opposition from conservative politicos. John Frum of The Week characterized the bill as a “deceptive piece of legislation with very sinister consequences” intended to mobilize Latino voters without producing the results they collectively desire; he also noted that the act essentially encourages immigrants to enter the country illegally on behalf of their children, who would face little to no penalties for their parents’ illicit actions. Mark Krikorian of National Review also referenced the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, by which a quarter of the beneficiaries were awarded amnesty under fraudulent pretenses. One such beneficiary, Mahmud Abouhalima, later masterminded the first World Trade Center bombing. And Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies noted that the DREAM Act is inherently expensive; if each immigrant received $6,000 per year in tuition subsidies, he argued, then the measure would cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $6.2 billion per year.

The latter topic – cost to federal taxpayers – has been a major talking point between supporters and opponents of the DREAM Act, with both sides citing different figures to bolster their claims. But as Rachel Leven recently wrote in Duke University’s Sanford Journal of Public Policy, the budget for U.S. citizenship activities is primarily financed through fees paid by immigrants; deferral applicants each pay $465, and the federal government estimated in August 2012 that the total amount generated from these applications would fall between $467 million and $585 million. Leven also noted that applying for deferral does not guarantee it will be awarded. Furthermore, a study conducted by the Center for American Progress earlier this month found that the 2.1 million beneficiaries under the most recently proposed version of the bill would generate $329 billion for the national economy, while passage of the act would create 1.4 million new jobs by 2030.

Despite Republican opposition claiming the DREAM Act is too expensive to enact in the United States, these studies reveal that the measure could greatly benefit the American economy in the long term. And in the process, millions of minors who were brought to this country illegally through no fault of their own have been granted the opportunity to receive an education and compete in the job market.

Rachel Higgins

UPDATE: After requesting a refund for my purchase of NBA League Pass Broadband, the purchase was promptly and fully refunded. However, I still consider it fraudulent that on the offering page it is not clearly articulated that only some games will be available. Instead the offer misleads the reader to believe that all games of the teams that one selects will be available. Therefore, I’m leaving the article below unedited, because people should not be mislead into a bad purchase.

I don’t have a television, so I don’t have cable channels such as TNT nor do I have network channels such as ABC. I would like to watch NBA games without having to watch poor streams from Europe or walk to the neighborhood bar. So when I saw the NBA League Pass Broadband that would allow me to watch 5 NBA teams play live games in high definition picture, mosaic view – 4 games at once… I paid the first of five installments of $26.99 to select 5 teams to watch live online. Below is the offer that I signed up for.

After I paid, I logged in to watch OKC versus San Antonio, but I couldn’t watch the game, I could only listen to it. The screen told me to watch on TNT, so I went to the TNT website thinking that perhaps I could watch it there with my new $27 a month league pass. But I couldn’t watch it online there either. I needed a television with cable to watch the game on TNT. Today, I wanted to watch the Knicks versus Heat and once again, I could only listen to it. Later, I’d like to watch Lakers versus Clippers, but that is also available as audio… I can’t watch it via broadband live as advertised. Below is the screen of my choices… the two games that I’d like to watch are only available as audio.
NBA LEAGUE PASS BROADBAND IS A LIE. Of the three games that I’ve wanted to watch in the 24 hours since paying $27, not one is available as live broadband video. Don’t give them money, just watch the free European feeds, they work and they are free! I just watched the Knicks wrap up their win over the Heat via European feed. I want my money back for the service that you offer but fail to provide!

Here are a list of possible ways to help with Sandy recovery within Brooklyn:

Donate Blood, Red Cross blood donation center is located at 120 Lawrence St just off Willoughby St. near Metro Tech. They are closed tomorrow, Friday November 2nd. Today there are two hour waits, so it’s best to call and schedule a donation: 1800-933-2566. Here’s the page listing donation locations in NYC.

The Salvation Army has set up shelters across disaster zones. People can donate $10 to the Salvation Army by texting “STORM” to 80888.

People can email their name and borough to nycservice@cityhall.nyc.gov to get information on how to assist.

The BrooklynBased site has a page on how to help.

Last Thursday, October 25th was the celebration for the opening of ReGeneration, an exhibition at the New York Hall of Science in Corona Park, Queens that will be on view through January 13th. I will be writing one or more extended articles regarding the works in the exhibition. Meanwhile, I am posting a video of the Undocumented Drones being installed at the Hall of Science as part of my installation titled “a geography of being : una geografia de ser”. This is an installation comprised of a video game and three wooden figures with screens and motors that are networked to the game. The figures or undocumented drones help the player along through the game at specific points. Each figure has a corresponding icon on the game screen that tells the player that the small robot has a message. If necessary, the player may step away from the game to view the undocumented drone’s embedded screen for instructions.

This is the title screen for the new game that I’m building. The video game is one component of the installation titled “a geography of being” that will be featured as part of the exhibition ReGeneration at the New York Hall of Science. “a geography of being” is a creative reflection on the realities of undocumented youths in the United States. The exhibition opens on October 27th 2012 and will be on view through January 13th, 2013. Along with the video game, “a geography of being” will feature kinetic wooden sculptures titled “undocumented drones” that are networked to the game to help the player along the three levels of the game.

New York State Youth Leadership Council is helping to organize a series of workshops regarding Deferred Action:

Legal Assistance for Deferred Action on Wednesday Aug 15th from 12pm-6pm at St. Mary’s Church 440 Grand Street (between Pitt St. and Attorney St.) – Manhattan. Take the trains F to Delancey; J, M, Z to Essex St.; B, D to Grand St.

Staten Island Deferred Action Workshop on Tuesday, Aug 14th from 5:30-8pm at St Mary of the Assumption Parish located on 2230 Richmond Terrace Staten Island, NY 10302

Manhatan Deferred Action Workshop
on Thursday, Aug 16th from 6:30pm-8:30pm
at Little Sisters of the Assumption on LSA Family Health Service, 333 East 115th St, New York, NY 10029, 3rd Floor.

NYSYLC UndocuMic on Sunday August 19th from 3-5pm.
WHERE: La Casa Azul Bookstore 143 East 103rd St New York, NY 10029 Registration starts at 3pm
Damage is $5. Contactinfo@nysylc.org for any questions.

An amazing documentary by Sam Feder, a grad in Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts MFA program (IMA) is making a final push to reach her Kickstarter campaign. This is an amazing project that should get all the support possible!

I had been so excited to see Tom Sachs’s “Space Program: MARS”, unfortunately it turned out to be a disappointment and a sharp reminder of how lame work that is executed to target the Art Market can be. I also made the mistake of taking my nearly four year old son, the kid was bored and I should have known better.

I’m a big fan of Tom Sachs’s work, his amazing craft at assembling functioning sculptures out of materials never meant to be used in the forms that he does or as he calls it bricolage. I’m also well aware that the end product of his work is the art object and what interactivity is available in the work is meant exclusively for the artist and a few friends. However from MARS I hoped for something different, more spectacular and more available to a general public. Ahead of the visit, I checked to see if the exhibition was kid friendly, according to the Armory site it was, so this fed my image of an immersive and interactive installation.

Upon entering the space, I was not entirely surprised to find that the Armory overwhelms the work. The installation feels like museums pieces staged on platforms in a gigantic armory. I think that each element would have been amazing in a museum or gallery where the environment itself is at a much smaller scale. But in the armory, the pieces look like scattered work that do not come together as a whole. The installation is not interactive, in fact twice I was told to get off a platform when trying to get a closer look at the work (second photo below) and later told to take a notepad off a stool, because the stool was part of the art… And then there was the annoyance of Sachs’s assistants skating or bicycling around the armory and climbing into the sculptures which just made it all feel like a playground for the artist and his friends.

Tom Sachs MARS, first installation upon entering the main space

Tom Sachs MARS, Ground Control

Part of the reason that I’m writing this is that visiting the Tom Sachs MARS show brought into focus the effect of work created for a market driven audience and the limitations of a space like the Armory on Park where Art is meant to be seen and not touched. Tom Sachs’s sculptures themselves reminded me of an exhibition that I saw last summer in the Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Art. The exhibition titled The Due Return by a collective that goes by Meow Wolf, was entirely immersive, other worldly, engaging and fun. It didn’t carry any of the pretentions of the art world, it was a magnificent and sincere installation that still felt like fine art. The Due Return presents a giant ship that sails through space and welcomed anyone of any age to traverse its various levels and rooms and discover countless interactive elements. I can’t imaging coming across an installation like The Due Return at an art establishment in New York City and it’s disappointing. Below is an image from a post featuring The Due Return.

Meow Wolf's "The Due Return" Captain's Deck

Interactive Screens on the Captain's Deck

Typing log in the Captain's quarter

My son could not get enough of The Due Return and we visited multiple times during a residency in Santa Fe. Whereas he was bored at Tom Sachs Space Program: MARS… I certainly understand that MARS was not designed to entertain young kids, but it should not be promoted as “an immersive space odyssey”… immersive for whom?

Kid bored on MARS

In speaking with one of the store attendants (the exhibition has a store that features products in collaboration with Nike), the attendant told me that although the installation itself isn’t that exciting, the performances appeared to be something special. I did not attend any of the performances, however my recommendation is if you are going to see the show before it ends this week, do it on an evening of a performance, don’t go just for the exhibition.

On May 31st, 2012, my three-year old son and I did our first collaborative animation. Iggy did the water and rocks and guy standing on the beach along with all other red and blue art work. I added the suit running on the water.

Marquese Scott, PUMPED UP KICKS|DUBSTEP