Edelina Burciaga, sociology graduate student, has received a $3,000 research award to study how undocumented students are impacting the immigrant rights movement. 

“Undocumented students have been advocating for the passage of the Federal Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act for the past ten years,” says Burciaga. Advocacy activities have ranged from staged graduation ceremonies to more recent acts of civil disobedience, such as sit-ins and hunger strikes. 

Through interviews with the student activists, Burciaga aims to learn how their participation is impacting the immigrant rights movement. 

Already, she says, their actions have been successful in raising the profile of the undocumented student movement and pushing passage of the DREAM Act to the top of the immigration reform agenda.

Funding, provided by the UC Center for New Racial Studies, began in July and will run through June 2011.