Libros sin Fronteras: In English, it means “Books without Borders.”
The scholarship fund, set up by the Youth Committee of Santa Maria with help from PUEBLO and the Santa Barbara Youth Committee, was originally intended for local students with AB 540 status—also known as undocumented students—who didn’t qualify for any other form of federal or state financial aid.
Now, money from the fund is more widely available, but the spirit of the scholarship remains.
PUEBLO—the full name is People United for Economic Justice Building Leadership through Organizing—is a Santa Barbara-based group that includes programs “designed to build the power and voice of working families in Santa Barbara County,” according to its website.
PUEBLO’s executive director, Belen Seara, said Libros sin Fronteras got its start in 2007. The Santa Barbara Youth Committee held fundraisers and awarded three scholarships to AB 540 students.
Seara explained that PUEBLO lets people in the community tell her group which issues are important to them.
“Each committee has their own campaigns,” she explained. “We’re not here to tell them what to do; we listen to them and we develop our own ways of providing any resources or training to the three committees.”
One of PUEBLO’s three neighborhood committees focuses on what the group terms “students’ rights.”
“We want to address the Latino achievement gap,” Seara said. “We’re trying to close the gap between those students that may be talented and very passionate about the work they do—but don’t have the resources to put themselves through school—and those students that come from more privileged backgrounds.”
The year after PUEBLO launched Libros sin Fronteras, the Santa Maria Youth Committee decided to copy the program—but include any low-income student, regardless of immigration status. Maria Solis, co-chair of the Santa Maria Youth Committee, was one of the people responsible for bringing Libros sin Fronteras to Santa Maria. They broadened the pool of potential scholarship recipients, she said, because of the economic crisis.
Solis graduated from UCSB with a degree in chemical engineering. While in school, she saw the need for some sort of financial assistance for her fellow Latino students.
“Many of my classmates were AB 540, and many of them have to go home, work for a year, and try and continue their education,” she said.
Solis added that the main goal of the Santa Maria Youth Committee is to raise $10,000 to be awarded to five students for the 2009-2010 school year.
While the youth committee is offering the scholarship to any eligible low-income student, there are still scholarship opportunities specifically for undocumented students via the Allan Hancock Foundation’s AB 540 Dream Fund.
The fund, said Mayra Morales—a member of the committee that reviews applications and grants the awards—is a private scholarship fund established to help AB 540-status students afford the cost of higher education. The awards themselves are small: $50 to $100 per student.
“A lot of times we don’t have a lot of money [for the scholarship fund]—often $1,000 to $2,000,” Morales said, “and because of the lack of money, we can only offer them in the fall.”
Though PUEBLO and the Santa Maria Youth Committee intend to allow any student—regardless of documented citizenship status—with a financial need to apply for the scholarship this year, there are some locals who want the standards to be tighter.
Paula James is the Central Coast Chapter chairman of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. The nonprofit PUEBLO, she said, has the right to use its money as it sees fit.
“I don’t have any problem with their offering scholarships to people,” James said. “I do have a problem with undocumented students allowed to stay in this country. Along with the scholarship, it’s absolutely imperative they have a student visa, that they get right with the law.”
PUEBLO Executive Director Seara responded to such concerns with an argument for education.
“PUEBLO’s position is to ensure everyone has the right to educate themselves, especially when we’re talking about children—there’s no argument against that,” she said. “I think that people are arguing against the progress of their own community. We strongly believe that everyone should be entitled to education regardless of race, gender, immigration status—before, it was race, gender. Now it’s immigrant status.”
Students interested in applying for a Libros sin Fronteras scholarship can contact the Santa Maria Youth Committee. Seara said they’re looking for excellent students with financial need and a passion for what they do.
Contact Staff Writer Nicholas Walter at nwalter@santamariasun.com..
This article appears in Jul 23-30, 2009.