An Interview with Mickey Mestiza: The Right to Vote: For Many, A Dream Deferred
by Sandra Adell
In one of his most famous poems, the great African American poet Langston Hughes asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore—/ And then run?/Does it stink like rotten meat?/Or crust and sugar over — like a syrupy sweet?/ Maybe it just sags/like a heavy load./Or does it explode?*
For Mickey Mestiza and the more than 835,000 DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients nation wide, the right to vote is one of many dreams that have been deferred. Metiza, who is completing her first year as a student in the Odyssey Project, talked about her dreams and the challenges she and other DACA recipients face during the October 16, 2024 Project’s “Celebration of the Vote” event.
As a child, Mestiza did not understand what it meant to be undocumented, looking at herself as just one of the students. But an incident revealed the unstable situation the family was in.
“I've been here [in the US] since I was three years old and I'm now 26,” Mestiza said. “So I have recently, I would say, within the last two years, started a process that I've known to be as decolonizing and re- indigenizing and through that process, it's helped me find a sense of belonging. When I was in the 3rd grade, I had told or disclosed to a teacher that my dad had crossed the desert in order for us to get here. And I was sharing that, as seeing my dad as a superhero, right? Like seeing someone who did something for me to have an opportunity and I was excited to share that. But then it was after that experience learning that my family was in danger, my family had to sit down and tell us, ‘You just put us in danger.’ And I didn't know what that meant as a child, right? I thought maybe spiders would come through the wall, right, and come grab all of us.”
And as hard as she tried, she couldn’t get away from that danger.
“As an adult, I realized that the separation of families is real,” Metiza said. “And even through that fear, you know, as I started assimilating and started integrating into the community here, and got further and further away, the threat was still always there and is very real.”
Metiza received some relief when President Obama established DACA in June 2012 by the Obama Administration. It gave the “Dreamers” some rights and relief, but not totally.
“It provides temporary protection from deportation to people who came to the U.S. as children,” Metiza said. “They must submit an application to renew their status every two years. DACA allows recipients to apply for the documentation they need to work including a Social Security number, work permit and driver’s license. Like U.S. citizens, DACA recipients must pay federal income taxes on their wages, but they receive no benefits from federal programs like Social Security or SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) or federal financial aid for college. It also does not offer a pathway to citizenship. And DACA recipients cannot vote.”
A graduate of DeForest Area High School, which she described as one the best schools in the state, Metiza talked about how it felt to see her friends graduate and then go on to college. She also described how painful it was to attend an event that celebrates the right to vote, when she can’t vote.
“I watched all my friends go to the best universities across the country,” Metiza said. “And when I asked, like, what are my opportunities, what can I do, I stopped at the first no. And now I'm here with UW Odyssey and reigniting that passion within myself knowing that I do belong. I am deserving. And not only am I here to embrace the education and the systems that exist, but I'm also here to change it. I'm here to change it so that we can offer this opportunity to more people. And we've done an amazing job learning so far about the African American history. But I want to know more about our indigenous history. Because as I mentioned to you before, my ancestors have been here for hundreds and thousands of years. And there's not a single piece of paper or not a single border or any wall that can stop me from feeling that I belong here today. But that's been a process of healing, re-indigenizing and decolonizing.”
There are many intersectionalities and identities that made it a struggle growing up.
“I am a DACA recipient,” Metiza said. “And I do identify as trans, as non-binary. So that's another level of intersectionality that I have to live through and live with in my experience here. It was really difficult for me to come here tonight because I can't vote and so it's a deep, deep wound and a deep, deep pain. But I called Emily [Auerbach] and she reminded me that even though you can't vote, your presence can make a difference and your voice can make a difference. And that's why I'm willing to speak to you today. Because if more people understand what it is that people are going through, the psychological damage that it causes people of being called illegal, feeling illegal. And my conception of self, my identity as a child — since I was a child, was built on being illegal. That I didn't belong. That I didn't matter. And looking back at that now, I'm like, no wonder my body aches. Because this idea that I had of myself is not at all who I am. And so having our history back, and taking our history back, and understanding what happened through colonization is really important.
Being a DACA student is creates “Taxation Without Representation,” something the Founding Fathers abhored.
“I can't vote,” Metiza emphasized. “I pay taxes. So for education, even though I've been here since I was three, I don't qualify for government assistance for FAFSA (the Free Application for Federal Student Aid). That disqualifies me from certain scholarships.”
As a DACA recipient, Metiza also is ineligible for in-state tuition fees. The State of Wisconsin does not recognize DACA recipients as residents for tuition purposes despite the fact that they collectively contribute more than $30.7 million annually in local and state taxes. As of 2024 only about 25 states have “tuition equity” policies allowing DACA recipients who meet certain requirements to pay in-state tuition. Wisconsin is not one of them. It’s what Metiza calls a “lockout state.”
Metiza recalled her decision to not travel to Mexico to visit her dying grandmother.
“I could have gone but there was no guarantee that I would come back,” Metiza said. “And the separation of families is such a painful, painful thing to feel, like we're not able to go back to see our families, not be able to connect with our families. I think it's the greatest pain that I've experienced in this life. And my biggest regret. But knowing I can make change now by speaking up so that other people have the opportunity, and for DACA recipients to have access to advance parole.”
Advance Parole is a federal program that allows DACA and other non-citizens to apply for legal re-entry to the U.S. prior to traveling. But like everything else associated with DACA, the application process is complicated and expensive. The current
fee for applying for Advance Parole is $630. (The fee in 2024 to renew DACA status is $605. Recipients must renew every two years.). For two years the UW-Madison’s Law School’s Mexico International Study Opportunity for Learning (MISOL), program helped DACA student through the Advance Parole process so they would be eligible for a month-long educational trip to Mexico City. The grant-funded program ended in October, 2023. For Metiza the MISOL program is a model for ways to bridge what she called “the barrier gaps and the access gaps.”
“We need to have these opportunities because the system is the way it is,” Metiza said. “We have to create. We have to get creative and we have to support each other in community to be able to bridge the barrier gaps and the access gaps.”
She also admits that compared to many other DACA recipients, she’s privileged.
“I'm privileged in a lot of ways,” Metiza said. “And I really have to mention that, because other people don't have access to driver's licenses. And so people are just trying to go to work, right? They're going to work. They're paying taxes. They're a part of our community. And when it comes to driving on the road, someone said it in such a plain way. They said, `They're almost like, immigrants are like little Sonic tokens on the road for police officers, because they can be pulled over and given tickets for not having a driver's license. They can get their cars taken away. And depending on the state and where they're at, they they can even face deportation because of that.”
The fact that Metiza said that they “don’t have access to driver’s licenses” is significant. Things that U.S. citizens take for granted, for example going to the DMV to apply for a driver’s license are fraught with barriers for DACA recipients: language and cultural barriers and the psychological barrier of worrying that by filling out an application, you can be taking a risk, putting yourself and your family in danger, as Metiza said she did when she told her teacher about her father crossing the desert.
Despite these obstacles and what she calls “the constant fear that people are living in on a day-to-day basis,” she’s thankful for her privileges.
“Thankfully, I have a work authorization that allows me to legally work,” Metiza said. “That in itself is an incredible privilege. DACA has never been enough and these children that were children when they came here, we’re now adults. We have careers. People have families. They have kids. There's a constant instability. There's a constant instability that we have not knowing. On the 10th of October DACA went back into the 5th Circuit Court [Of Appeals] to be challenged and it's like, even though I do have this, it's constantly under threat by the government. So what stability? What security do I actually have? And how am I supposed to build that within myself when it's a sand castle in the world around me?”
Despite that lack of stability and security, Mickey Metiza has not given up on her dreams, one of which is continuing her education at the Odyssey Project. She also has not given up her dream about one day voting along with the rest of the country. At the end of our interview, Metiza posed for a photo holding up one of the celebratory pins that were made available to the Celebrate the Vote participants. The slogan reads “Tu voto crea el cambio/Your vote creates change.”
That change is going to come someday.