Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 | 4:30 PM – 6 PM EST
Format: In-Person Only
Location: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016
Immigrants have long faced structural challenges when accessing and thriving within educational systems and academic spaces. These include linguistic barriers, precarious legal status, limited access to financial aid, cultural exclusion, and the emotional toll of navigating institutions not designed for their realities.
Under the current political climate, many of these challenges have intensified due to shifts in immigration policies, tightening of visa regulations, and increasing social and economic precarity for immigrant communities.
In this conversation, we will discuss both the historic and structural dimensions of these barriers and the new challenges emerging today. Bringing together scholars, students, and advocates, we will explore how immigrant communities continue to transform academic spaces, and what possibilities for solidarity, policy change, and institutional transformation might shape the future of higher education.
Speakers
Sunisa Nuonsy
CUNY Peer Leaders Facilitator, Futures Initiative
CUNY PhD Student
Sunisa Nuonsy is a “refugee baby” and educator of Lao descent with more than 10 years of experience teaching in NYC public schools, focusing on multilingual and immigrant-origin students. Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, she considers herself part of the 1.5 generation of immigrants to the U.S. Her lived experiences as a racialized and minoritized immigrant and multilingual learner permeate her personal and professional work; she is currently a doctoral candidate, pursuing a PhD in Urban Education at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her research seeks to visibilize and affirm the language and literacy practices of racialized multilingual immigrant communities. She is also a Futures Initiative Fellow working as the CUNY Peer Leaders Facilitator, a Project Researcher with CUNY Initiative on Immigration and Education (CUNY-IIE), and the Founder of LAOboratory, a collective and alternative educational space that centers and affirms Lao diaspora women’s experiences. Sunisa holds a BA in English from California State University, Sacramento, and an MS in TESOL from Long Island University-Brooklyn. Sunisa enjoys plants, pickleball, naps, restaurants, beaches, and fitness in her free time.
Lesly Ramirez Melchor
Baruch College Alumna
CUNY Peer Leaders Alumna
Lesly Ramirez Melchor recently graduated from Baruch College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a double minor in English and Latino Studies. As a first-generation college graduate, her academic and leadership journey has centered around advocacy, immigrant justice, and storytelling. Through programs like CUNY Peer Leaders and SEO Scholars, she has worked on initiatives supporting immigrant rights and youth mentorship.
She is passionate about using writing, visual art, and community work to challenge injustice, amplify marginalized voices, and foster meaningful change. Lesly is always looking to grow through roles that combine research, cultural work, and advocacy.
Cynthia Carvajal, PhD
Director of Undocumented and Immigrant Student Programs, CUNY
Dr. Cynthia Carvajal is the CUNY Director of Undocumented & Immigrant Student Programs, City University of New York. She is a scholar and practitioner at the intersection of immigration and education. Originally from Zapopan, Mexico she immigrated to East Los Angeles, CA at the age of five. Her personal and professional goals are grounded in her experience as a formerly undocumented immigrant, student, and community member for twelve years of her life. She previously served as the inaugural director for two immigration focused spaces: John Jay’s Immigrant Student Success Center and the CUNY-Initiative on Immigration and Education. In her current role she oversees immigrant student initiatives across 25 CUNY campuses.
Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana, PhD
Assistant Professor, Baruch College
Dr. Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana is a cultural worker, muralist, and interdisciplinary qualitative Latinx public scholar specializing in contemporary migration processes. Her current research project examines childhood arrival migrants to the United States. As a social justice storyteller, she works across various mediums including digital storytelling and muralism, centering narratives that challenge dominant frameworks around migration and belonging.
De La Cruz Santana is the creator of Painting the Humanizing Deportation Archive, through which she has led the creation of murals depicting immigrant stories at the U.S.–Mexico border, in New York City, and across California. Her academic approach is grounded in Indigenous and feminist pedagogies and methodologies, emphasizing accessible and reciprocal knowledge-making that responds to community needs.
Her research focuses on digital storytelling, testimonial literature, diaspora studies, and 20th- and 21st-century Mexican, Mexican-American, and Chicano/a literature and culture.
