Freshman wins essay award for spotlighting student activist’s free speech against deportation
- La Voz Latina
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
By: Isaiah Shiau
COLLEGE PARK—Erin Nicholson, a freshman psychology major from Baltimore, received the José Emilio Pacheco Essay Award at the Spanish and Portuguese Program awards on May 7 for her essay on free speech against deportation.
Nicholson has been speaking Spanish since she was in middle school and spoke in an interview later about how during her junior year of high school, she studied abroad in Costa Rica for a semester.
“Being immersed in that culture definitely pushed me to want to continue Spanish in college,” Nicholson said. “I really liked getting to be immersed with people and native speakers.”
Nicholson emphasized the value of having a relationship with a host family and getting to learn about family life, leading her to want to take Spanish into a professional environment.
“I’m interested to learn more, but I’m definitely excited to see some opportunities of research or any intersections with psychology,” Nicholson said when speaking on the application of Spanish with her future career.
Nicholson hopes to pick up Spanish as a minor study in the future. During her first year at UMD, Nicholson enrolled in Spanish 301, Advanced Grammar and Composition I, in which she began working on an essay titled La deportation de Activistas Estudiantes en los Estados Unidos el Racia.
Nicholson recognized how the restrictions of speech were putting students at risk of deportation and wanted to address it in her essay
“Hearing about all the deportations of activists and student activists, that was something that I found really alarming,” Nicholson said. “Their speech and what they were saying was causing them to be expelled from school, and because their student status was taken away, it was more likely for ICE to deport them.”
Ana Patrica Rodríguez, associate professor of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese also commended Nicholson’s ability to address such a prevalent issue.
“We need to get our heads out of the sand. We are living in a moment of crisis in terms of First Amendment, of, repression, of acts against LGBTQ communities, Latino communities,” Rodríguez said.
She praised Nicholson for her critical thinking, timeliness, accuracy and ability to contextualize the freedom of speech. The associate professor also encouraged the audience to step up as a community of languages in response to the essay’s encouragement.
“Advocating and protesting and making sure the university is supporting all of the students and all their beliefs is super important,” Nicholson said when asked how students on campus can support students targeted by ICE.