Reporting Texas
News and features from UT-Austin's School of Journalism
byErika González and Noemi Castanon
Elizabeth Mazariegos flips through her folder full of school reports, letters of recommendation and college documents, feeling worried. “I never thought I could get this far, and now I feel all my effort is disappearing overnight. It’s like everything I achieved is not enough,” said Mazariegos, a 31-year-old Guatemalan who has lived in the United States for two decades.
For years, the U.S. policy of Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, protected immigrants who came here as children and allowed Mazariegos to study, work and plan a stable future. Now, that path has become more uncertain as both the state and federal governments clamp down on immigrants.
On June 5, Texas repealed the Texas Dream Act, a law that since 2001 had allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates and to have access scholarships and loans.
byIsabel Neumann
A new public-art initiative aims to beautify Austin while providing employment for the city’s growing unhoused population.
“The goal is to turn the library garage site into a city-funded program for unhoused people,” said Tiffany Kowalski, director of project and artist management for Raasin in the Sun.
byNoemi Castanon
Govalle Elementary School opened its doors to East Austin families in 1931. Now, after 94 years of educating generations of East Austin families and serving as the center of their neighborhood, the school could be closed if its accountability rating does not change by the next academic school year.
The families that have called Govalle home for generations have weathered two threats of closure or major changes in the past decade. This fall, the Austin Independent School District proposed transforming Govalle from a neighborhood school into a Montessori-styled elementary that could draw students from throughout the school district. But community opposition to the plan helped to persuade officials to remove Govalle from a plan to close 10 schools and alter others.
byRachel N. Madison
or the past two months, the University of Texas’ newly formed Graduate Workers Union has been advocating for better treatment, pay and rights of graduate student employees. And now it is joining other student groups in opposing a deal with the Trump administration that would transform the university’s governance structure.
“A union is a commitment by workers at a workplace to stand together with each other to be treated the way they deserve to be treated in terms of compensation and working conditions,” said Sociology Ph.D. student and union member Noah DiAntonio.