The Monarch Cohort was founded by a group of highly motivated undergraduates who wanted to reclaim the narrative produced by research on undocumented young people. With support from Institute for Research and Labour Employment (IRLE), this program has extended to support a new cohort each year of undocumented students looking to gain research experience and create institutional change and/or public awareness on issues pertaining to undocumented migrants. Past cohorts have created reports to advocate for institutional change at UC Berkeley, published blog posts and begun independent research projects.
The 2021 cohort will write two blog posts that they hope to turn into podcasts or short informational videos with the goal of raising public awareness. Using data provided from UC Berkeley’s Undocumented Student Program (USP), URC 2021 reports, and other public data sources such as Pew Research Center, one group will write about the challenges and strategies undocumented students face on campus. The second group will use data from school districts to understand the experience of Latinx indigenous migrant youth in U.S. schools, and how these schools respond to the needs of these students.