Students Without Borders

Vanessa Villegas 22, English/Spanish major, focus on Chicano studies.

What is Students Without Borders?
Its an international club that promotes equality as well as mutual respect and understanding among different cultures. Were open to all students, its not just for international students. We want to bring international students together to have a better understanding of their cultures including their traditions and the obstacles they may face being international students. We want students to create a network to e able to address these issues together.

Why should students join your club?
We think its important to bring together different cultures. People can represent their own cultures but we represent all the culture together. Its important to understand other cultures too, bringing these people together we can learn about different issues that go on in their country and how we could deal with them as a group. Its also important to understand how the US is influenced by all these cultures.

How do you join?
We meet in the Art Building in room 106 at 1pm. The meetings are every other Thursday. The other one will be held the week after Thanksgiving break. Students can also email us.

What does Students Without Borders do at the meetings?
We try to discuss different issues like homesickness, language barriers and culture shock. We also try to bring up the issue of AB-540 students, and how we can help. We also play games that help us get to know each other and our different cultures.

Will the clubs be having any events?
We will be participating in the Feminist Collective’s “Coming Out” event that will be happening real soon. We not only support equality and respect for different cultures but for gender as well.

Are there any events in the planning?
We are talking about having an event where e can hand out information for AB-540 students. AB-540 students often fear deportation if they go to any student services asking for help, we want to be able to let them know where they can go and give them information on what to do, in terms of transferring, scholarships and things of that nature.

How did the club form?
Me and two other girls, Sara and Fatima who are from Pakistan and Afghanistan, decided we should start a club to create a space where we can support each other. Both these women had trouble getting any help or information from the international students counselor. One of them had a lot of trouble because when she first moved here she didn’t speak English at all and was very introverted because of it. A few months later she is so outgoing and speaks English perfectly. These are the conditions that started the club.

Do you have any last words?
We, more than anything, we want to be a part of the movement that is trying to eliminate social injustices, on campus and in society. We want to be able to spread that amongst other students through mutual cooperation.