I’m international and I have as much right to be here as you

In the song “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar, the rapper at one point switches up his flow to yell out “Schemin’! / And let me tell you bout my life” before going back into his cadence. The line has been running in my head over and over and even as I sit down to write this story, Kendrick is providing a soundtrack to an autobiography of sorts. After all, I am scheming. I’m thinking of how I want to tell my story.

The man, the myth, the author of this article

The first thing people notice about me is my name. Guillermo Perez sounds more like a telenovela actor than a kid that grew up in southwestern Connecticut. Fun fact, I was going to be dubbed Gustavo but my mom didn’t want two of those in the house and besides, Gustavo Enrique Perez III definitely sounds like a fake name. So much of my identity is tied to a name that substitute teachers could never pronounce. Every time they took attendance and there was a slight pause, I would instinctively  raise my hand.

My story is an immigrant’s story; but in a world of shrinking borders and globalization, I moved to America when I was 4 still retaining strong Venezuelan roots. Not surprisingly, this is a new phenomenon for a 7 year old to deal with.

How do you explain to a kid why gets called a “gringo” when he visits his home country but why he is lumped in as the “Mexican” or this “hispanic” in his classroom in the States. There was a clear divide everyday between speaking fluent Spanish at home and then transitioning to fluent English at school. A language barrier never materialized, so the lines of the two cultures were blurred even more.

My life summed up in airports on my left arm

Fast forward to March 27, 2014 and I open up an email to find an unfamiliar face staring back at me. Her name is Amy Jarich, she’s the Assistant Vice Chancellor & Director of Undergraduate Admissions at UC Berkeley, but all I care about right now is that she’s telling me congratulations. I scream at my phone screen and start jumping on my bed which sets off a chain reaction of hugs and ugly cries once the news starts going around my family. Our story goes west and I settle into a new environment quickly. I make friends from all over the world in my dorm, my classes, and eventually in the fraternity I join.

Cal prides itself on a diversity and a makeup that pushes boundaries of its students. A vibrant international and out-of-state contingent weaves itself into the fabric of the student body and simply put, the school wouldn’t be the same without it. Diversity here doesn’t just cut through racial and ethnic lines; here, you will interact with people that have a wide array of views, backgrounds, identities and stories. The diversity at UC Berkeley can be quantified by representation from 53 states/commonwealths and 74 countries internationally according to a statement by the Public Affairs office.

On March 29th, almost two years to the day after I was admitted, a report came out by the California State Auditor that denounced the UC system for an admissions system that disadvantaged resident students. Since 2010, non-resident enrollment has increased 82% while resident enrollment dropped 1%. The report said that to combat dropping state funds, the universities admitted more and less qualified students from outside of California, which crowded out home-grown talent.

In the last couple weeks since the audit came out, I’ve been having conversations with folks around me that are in my same boat. We attend a phenomenal university, with phenomenal people, but in a state that ultimately is not where we are from. The reactions have ranged from the dismissive to the accepting.

Daniel Saedi, a third year Econ major from Philadelphia, for example, says that the audit “creates a divide and makes out of state students such as myself feel inferior and can lead to increased social friction in an already divided campus.” Munashe Mazonde, an applied math major from Zimbabwe, concurred, and added that “having more out of states brings about more collaboration and cultural exchange that will be vital to tackling the problems we face going forward.”

And then there are responses like Michelle Cera’s from Brooklyn. A second year sociology major, she said that reading about the audit made sense because it explained getting into her dream school. The holistic process, for better or for worse, found us to be eligible for admission, and we agreed that we feel lucky every single day that we’re here because of it.

My story from Caracas, Venezuela to Berkeley, California has been unique and special and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. While the audit may drive a wedge between Californians and out-of-state students, at the end of the day we are all Golden Bears, synthesizing our narratives into a collective story at the best university in the world. After all, like Kendrick says, “we gon’ be alright.”