About Rooted

Who we are

We are a collective led by immigrant students and alumni from The University of Texas at Austin. Having been a part of the UT Austin community, we have all seen first-hand the challenges that undocumented students face under systemic barriers and a lack of institutional support. We bring our unique experiences and knowledge together to mobilize toward building a foundation of support for future undocumeneted students.

Our History

Fall 2019
A group of UT students, alumni, and staff of mixed status came together in an effort to better understand and address the inequities in both opportunity and resources for undocumented students at The University of Texas at Austin.
Spring 2020
As our group continued to meet and evolve our understanding of the unique needs of this student population, it became increasingly clear that there were many contributing factors towards these needs being largely unmet – one of the main factors being a lack of awareness and understanding of the undocumented student experience.
Summer 2020
We began connecting with undocumented student support centers throughout the country to better understand what makes a successful center. Representatives from our team met with Dr. Moore, the former UT Austin Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement, to begin discussions regarding the hiring of staff to support immigrant students on campus.
Fall 2020
We continued to build strong relationships with student organizations, university departments, university-sponsored programs, and other student support centers, who have joined our effort to better understand and advocate for undocumented student voices.
Spring 2021
We utilized seed funding from the Vice Provost for Diversity to create a survey to document the need of immigrant students and alumni at UT, as well as begin to form the concept for this website. We were able to present the need for this initiative to Dr. Smith, the UT Austin Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement.
Summer 2021
We finalized the concept of Rooted as we worked to build this website to serve as outreach for the initiative to create a center. We have also re-initiated a staff and faculty taskforce to support undocumented students and launched our survey to better understand the needs of students.
Moving forward
In the next year…we will create a report that includes the survey data we have collected as well as personal testimonies to advocate for the creation of a student support center. We plan to present our work to top leadership at UT Austin and push for a physical location and funding for staff in the 2022-2024 school years.