Submission: UCLA professor distressed by appointment of Napolitano as UC president
Napolitano spoke at UCLA in April 2012, while acting as the United States secretary of homeland security. The event was protested by about 45 students. The UC Board of Regents appointed Napolitano UC president in July.
How would you feel if you were a UCLA student and the incoming University of California president had deported your mom, dad, brother and sister? That’s the simple reason why former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s appointment as the newest UC president has raised so much controversy among many of us in the UCLA community. Between 2008 and 2011, the United States deported an estimated 1,550,000individuals, the vast majority of whom were just hard-working immigrants trying to support their families and who were contributing millions of dollars a year to the U.S. economy. Quite notably, Napolitano presided over most of these deportations as U.S secretary of homeland security.
Let me share a story which illustrates the point.
I am close friends with a student at UCLA who has had four family members deported in recent years. He came into UCLA as a freshmanfrom the San Diegoarea, and had even been accepted to Columbia University. His uncle was deported after reporting that burglars had broken into his house in the middle of the night. His younger sister was thrown over the dangerous U.S.-Mexico border by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in the middle of the night with little more than the clothes on her back. His father, the main breadwinner of the family, was also deported; so was his mother. Can you imagine the personal devastation that my friend has experienced?
Now try to put yourself in his shoes. Can you imagine how he felt after hearing the announcement that Secretary Napolitano – the person who presided over the deportation of many of his family members – has now been appointed overseer of the entire UC system, including UCLA?
Now multiply my friend’s experience by tens of thousands of times in the lives of students at UCLA and the UC system. Can you see why many of us, especially in the Latino and Asian communities, are upset by the appointment of Secretary Napolitano as the 20th president of University of California?
Romero is a professor in the department of Chicana/o studies at UCLA.
