Undocumented UC San Diego student waves Mexican flag at graduation, unfurls controversy
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UCSD's Thurgood Marshall School held its commencement Sunday morning on the Rimac Field on campus. Indira Esparza is a CASP graduate. CASP stands for Chancellor's Associates Scholars Program. Photo by John Gastaldo/U-T San Diego — John Gastaldo
University graduates routinely show great emotion (spontaneous and sometimes scripted) as they stand in front of crowds to mark momentous occasions. Onlookers clap and cheer, hoot and holler, and then wait to see what the next student (or student body) will do.
But one UC San Diego student's Mexican flag-waving exuberance has sparked a conversation that's transcended her brief moment Sunday.
Indira Esparza, a 22-year-old undocumented student who moved to the U.S. when she was 2, proudly unfurled the green, white and red flag of Mexico as she walked across the stage.
Lyndsay Winkley, a reporter with The San Diego Union-Tribune, covered the graduation while U-T photographer John Gastaldo captured images. As colleges often do with media outlets at this time of year, UCSD had suggested we focus on Esparza for several reasons.
As Winkley wrote, she overcame financial insecurity, anxiety over losing family members to deportation and judgment from others because of her Mexican citizenship. She helped establish the Undocumented Student Services Center at the university so students like her could talk about their struggles. She wants to become an educator. And she refuses to waste any time beginning a master's program at UCSD; she started two days after the ceremony.
Winkley made the flag unfurling the lead of her story, which ran underneath Gastaldo's image and with photos of other students.
Reaction to Esparza's demonstration was immediate -- and visceral. Read on then take our poll at the bottom of this post.
Winkley received nine emails and two phone calls about the story, well above her norm. When one reader called Esparza's action "a slap in the face to the United States," Winkley replied: "I don’t think Indira meant any disrespect toward America/Americans nor was she trying to express ungratefulness by unfurling the flag of Mexico during her graduation. I think she is proud of her Mexican and her American heritages. While she plans to use her own experiences as an undocumented student to help others with similar struggles, I don’t think that precludes her from being supportive of students from all walks of life in their pursuits of higher education. Thanks for your email."
Discussion continued with dozens of posts in the story's comment section.
The first comment on the story was "U.S. Immigration System Isn’t Broken – Laws Are Simply Not Being Enforced." It got eight likes.
The second? "Rude. I can't imagine living illegally in another country, and waving an American flag in people's faces. Rude." Twelve likes.
Next? "What a slap in the face of her hosts; the citizens of these United States of America." Twelve more likes.
Reader outreach editor Andrew Kleske received about 15 letters to the editor on the subject this week and shared some on Facebook, where hundreds of likes and 125 shares pushed his post into the most popular on utsandiego.com. Kleske said most of the letters expressed the sentiment that she should have appeared more grateful to this country than the one her parents left. The 15 letters received make this one of the top 10 issues readers have weighed in on this week. The letters were pointed and included these:
San Diego's Harry C. Clifford wrote: "What I see is a lawbreaker who took advantage of resources and services originally intended for U.S. citizens and legal residents to obtain something she is not morally entitled to, and whose career ambition now appears to be to assist more like-minded lawbreakers. Worse yet, she insults us by wrapping herself with the flag of the nation that her parents supposedly fled, instead of the flag of the great nation that embraced her and made her education possible."
Carlsbad's Deborah Bush wrote: "Kudos to Indira Esparza for her commitment to helping others struggling with the challenges she faced. It’s a shame she didn’t proudly unfurl the flag of the United States, which afforded her this opportunity."
On Facebook, comments piled up quickly.
Victor Dominguez wrote: "So is everyone pissed because a undocumented student graduated from UCSD and is now more educated than most of us ? Because if you are mad over her walking on stage with the Mexican flag please wake up. We live in the land of opportunity. Graduates wave flags during graduations all the time and nobody bats an eye."
His comment had 300 likes and 75 replies in about five hours.
Tien Thi Thanh Nguyen wrote: "I feel she should be more proud to wave the flag of the country who gave her this opportunity."
Her comment had 220 likes and 37 replies, also in about five hours.
What do you think of the flag waving? Please weigh in below or on Twitter.
(poll at the source link)
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/...an-flag-gradu/
