Appeal Tribune Wednesday, December 13, 2017 3A
Students rally for Dream Act at Oregon Capitol
LAUREN HERNANDEZ
SALEM STATESMAN JOURNAL
USA TODAY NETWORK
More than a hundred Salem-Keizer
high school students rallied Dec. 6 at the
Oregon State Capitol and demanded Con-
gress pass a Dream Act by the end of the
year.
Students stood on the Capitol steps
and shouted "What do we want?" "Dream
Act!" "When do we want it?" "Now." "If we
don't get it?" "Shut it down."
The rally was part of a nationwide ef-
fort organized by United We Dream, a
national immigrant youth-led organiza-
tion working to support undocumented
immigrants.
The rally comes more than three
months after President Donald Trump
announced he would phase out former
President Barack Obama's Deferred Ac-
tion for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
The program allows roughly 11,280 Ore-
gon recipients to live, study and work in
the United States, or serve in the mili-
tary, without fear of being deported.
The Trump administration is giving
Congress six months to determine a leg-
islative fix for the program, which U.S.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions called an
"unconstitutional exercise of authority
by the executive branch."
That time frame is dwindling as the
March 5 deadline approaches, which has
some undocumented Oregonians wor-
ried about their future in the United
States.
DACA recipients said these rallies
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and assisted by their friends and family.
“I’ve not seen a family who, amidst
such a sudden and devastating loss, has
been able to turn it into loving and caring
and serving so quickly and so profound-
ly,” said the church’s pastor, Leah Stolte-
Doerfler.
At the meal, from her place inside a
framed picture, Elizabeth looked into the
crowd, flashing her beautiful dark eyes
and winning smile for more than just her
photographer, it seemed. She would’ve
loved attending, said her dad. After all,
together they’d made a pact to “give
back” just weeks before her death.
Salem-Keizer students rally at the State Capitol in support of the Dream Act.
LAUREN HERNANDEZ/STATESMAN JOURNAL
are part of a last-ditch effort to sway
members of Congress toward reinstat-
ing a Dream Act, which they hope would
provide a path to citizenship. Their hope
is for Congress to pass the act by the end
of December.
"The sense of urgency is very real for
any DACA recipients, as some are fall-
ing off this program on a daily basis,"
said Oregon DACA Coalition representa-
tive Leonardo Reyes. "That reinforces
the sense of needing to take action and
reaching a solution as soon as possible."
Students standing on the Capitol steps
pulled out their cellphones and called
Oregon's Republican U.S. Rep. Greg
Walden's office in Washington, D.C., in
hope of personally demanding that a
Dream Act be enacted by the end of the
year.
Organizers focused their efforts on
Walden because they said he has yet to
publicly support passing a Dream Act
that provides a path to citizenship.
A number of Oregon Democrats have
publicly criticized the decision to re-
scind the program, including: U.S. Sens.
Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, U.S. Rep.
Kurt Schrader, Oregon House Speaker
Tina Kotek, Attorney General Ellen Ro-
senblum, Gov. Kate Brown, House Ma-
jority Leader Jennifer Williamson, state
Reps. Diego Hernandez and Teresa Alon-
so Leon, and Senate President Peter
my right-hand girl, my co-pilot, my sis-
ter and my friend. Now she is my guard-
ian angel,” Campbell said.
The Hoke girls attended Victor Point
School and, from her earliest years, Eliz-
abeth “didn’t have a clique,” said her
dad. “She would talk to anyone.”
She loved to read, dance, sing and
draw. In high school, she discovered a
love for science, especially genetics and
the human body. She worked with plants
on the farm, showed sheep for FFA, stud-
ied Spanish and graduated valedictorian
last June. She was also a member of St.
Paul’s Catholic Church.
“She was shy, sweet and wickedly
smart,” said Silverton High science
teacher Alison Stolfus. “She grew from a
shy young girl to a vibrant and confident
young woman.”
on Sept. 29.
The lessons father and daughter
learned in Southeast Asia might’ve re-
mained private too, if it weren’t for the
tragedy that broke the Hokes’ life open
to their community.
A place in this world
A beautiful soul
Anthony and Kristan’s oldest child,
Elizabeth, was born Sept. 12, 1999. Her
dad’s family hails from Montana; her
mother’s – the Philippi clan – from Stay-
ton, where her grandfather ran an auto
dealership. The couple met in eighth
grade, dated in high school and married
after college.
Anthony studied history and plants at
Oregon State University, becoming a
nurseryman. Kristan majored in ac-
counting at Western Oregon University
and took a job with BrucePac Meat Prod-
uct Designers, where she is now the
chief financial officer.
Together, the couple also founded
their own business, Sunflower Farms, in
the Cascade foothills. Kristan said she
remembers those early days, working at
the farm’s new retail store while Eliza-
beth, just a baby, twirled and jumped in a
bouncy seat nearby.
From the time she was tiny, their
daughter could listen to a song on the ra-
dio once and easily recall it. One time,
when Elizabeth was 1, Kristan thought
she recognized what her daughter was
singing in the back seat.
“It remember thinking, ‘Is she sing-
ing Kenny Chesney?’ she said. “I turned
up the radio, and sure enough, she was!”
Soon enough, Elizabeth was joined by
a sister, Abbie, now a 16-year-old junior
at Silverton High.
As the girls got older, the Hokes, em-
ployed a series of babysitters, each care-
fully chosen to build up the girls. Teach-
ers, dance instructors, babysitters – all
contributed to their growth over the
years, Kristan said.
One of them, Megan Campbell, is now
an adviser on Elizabeth’s memorial trust.
“For nearly 10 years, Elizabeth was
Elizabeth’s first big trip with her dad
came when she was only 6. He brought
her along to New York City, where she
tolerated the red-eye flight and whirl-
wind sight-seeing beautifully, he re-
called.
That was the beginning of many ad-
ventures. Anthony and Kristan worked
hard, and they liked to play hard with
their family too. Along with the more
common destination of Disneyland, Eliz-
abeth also visited Spain, Italy and Mex-
ico.
In 2014, Anthony quit the consulting
side of his nursery business, cutting
back on business trips. Knowing what he
does now, that was “the best decision of
my life,” he said.
Almost immediately, he and Elizabeth
– travel enthusiasts by now – began plan-
ning a high school graduation trip. They
finally settled on Southeast Asia, be-
cause they were seeking a grand adven-
ture, and neither spoke the languages
there.
In Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand,
they sought to disconnect from the
stresses of daily life. For a month, they
started each morning by locking their
cell phones in their hotel room to avoid
spending precious moments messaging
or using social media.
“Be here now,” was their motto; it’s
now reflected in a collection of hand-
made signs on sale at Sunflower Farms’
retail store 12595 Sunnyview Road. All
proceeds from their sales go to the trust.
Neither Anthony nor Kristan had
used Facebook before this fall. They
didn’t need to live in the public eye, nor
did they want to. Thus, much of the com-
munity was surprised by the breadth of
their adventures at Elizabeth’s celebra-
tion of life service at the Oregon Garden
Changed forever
Promising each other to “live grate-
fully” and “give back more,” Anthony
and Elizabeth flew home to Oregon at
summer’s end.
The 17-year-old was signed up to at-
tend her mother’s alma mater and study
biology. She wanted to help kids with
medical problems and was excited to
live in Monmouth.
“But she loved Silverton, and she was
already talking about how she was going
to come back and work here when she
graduated,” Anthony said.
On Sept. 12, she turned 18 and got
ready for classes to begin. Her new col-
lege town was her destination when she
left her parents’ company in her Volvo on
the evening of Friday, Sept. 22.
At 7:50 p.m., Polk County deputies re-
sponded to a collision between Eliza-
beth’s Volvo and an Acura driven by a 24-
year-old Dallas resident, north of Mon-
mouth. Police later determined that the
other driver had been speeding. Both
drivers died instantly.
Words will never describe the shock
the Hokes felt. They rushed to the crash
scene, where the night was dark but lit
by scores of emergency vehicle lights. It
was surreal. How could their sweet, vi-
brant girl – just 10 days past her 18th
birthday – be gone?
Suddenly a father, mother and sister
found themselves thrust into mourning,
wondering how to take their next
breaths.
Just four months earlier, Kristan’s
dad had died. Anthony’s dad died when
he was 10, And the couple had been at the
bedsides of many other dying family
members. But this was a level of pain
they’d never felt before.
“We’ve been together for a long time,
but we knew right away that this was
something beyond our resources,” An-
thony said. “It was very clear that life
had forever changed.”
A new calling
By 8 a.m. the morning after the crash,
friends were at the Hokes’ house, sur-
rounding them with the best consolation
they could offer – tears, hugs, meals,
and, simply, company.
One of them was Carson Lord, Antho-
ny’s friend and fishing partner for the
last 14 years. Both nursery owners, the
Courtney.
After Trump rescinded DACA in Sep-
tember, Walden released a statement
saying he appreciated the president's un-
derstanding that Congress must address
illegal immigration.
Gabriela Garcia, 24, of Hood River, is
one of Walden's 2nd District constitu-
ents.
She was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco,
Mexico and came to the United States
when she was 6 years old. She has been a
DACA recipient for four years.
"It's scary because of the fact deporta-
tion can come at any time," Garcia said. "I
have until next October until I lose DA-
CA status, so I'm fighting for a clean
Dream Act."
Garcia joined the group in calling
Walden's office, just as hundreds of oth-
er students did in November after walk-
ing out of Salem-Keizer schools and ral-
lying on the capitol steps.
Rep. Diego Hernandez, D-Portland,
told the group of students that he and a
number of his colleagues are doing ev-
erything in their power to make undocu-
mented immigrants and DACA recipi-
ents in Oregon feel safe.
DACA recipients and immigrant
youth from Causa Oregon, immigrant
rights organization, Latinos Unidos
Siempre, a youth Latino leadership or-
ganization, and the Oregon DACA Coali-
tion hosted the rally.
Email Lauren Hernandez at leher-
nande@statesmanjournal.com, call 503-
399-6743 or follow on Twitter @Lauren-
PorFavor
men had even traveled together. Antho-
ny quickly shared his vision of creating a
trust to honor Elizabeth and give back to
the community she loved so much.
People wanted to donate – if Anthony
and Kristan hadn’t known the lengths to
which their community would go for
them before, they did now.
They appointed three trustees: Lord,
Eric Jamieson and Patrick Lailey, and
four advisors to oversee the new non-
profit. Instead of serving on the board
themselves, they stepped back, opting to
focus on fundraising, grieving and rais-
ing their daughter, Abbie.
“The outpouring of kindness from
this community in the midst of this trag-
edy was phenomenal,” Lord said. “Our
hope is that the trust can mirror it. We
hope it will become a great asset to our
community, a source to lean on when
help is needed. We want to fill the niches
where needs go unmet.”
Crafted to match Eilzabeth’s talents
and interests, the trust’s 10 scholarships
will be awarded to students with apti-
tudes or interests in music, dance, sci-
ence, the arts, foreign language, and
sports, participation in FFA, accomplish-
ment as a valedictorian, and having
“gratitude for life” or special needs. Pur-
posely, the Hokes haven’t attached the
scholarships to students’ college plans or
skills, but rather their “good choices” or
“passion for life,” Anthony said.
The Salem Foundation is administer-
ing the scholarships for the trust; dona-
tions can be made online at
https://ehoketrust.org.
The trust will also make direct com-
munity grants, such those that funded
the Thanksgiving meal and bought books
for Silverton Middle School and Victor
Point. Donations toward these efforts
can be made at Citizens Bank in Silver-
ton.
“Elizabeth was an incredible kid, hap-
py, bright and generous; we won’t forget
that, and eventually I hope we also re-
member her as the spark that lit a thou-
sand acts of kindness,” Lord said.
Now the Hokes plan to focus on loving
each other, grieving however they need
to, and looking for what brings real joy.
“Things are different now,” Kristan
said. “A lot of things don’t matter any-
more.”
For them, this tragedy has burned
away the joy in just about everything.
Everything, that is, except the joy in giv-
ing to others, especially those who’ve un-
dergone pain themselves.
“There is no wrong way to grieve –
other than not to grieve at all,” Stolte-
Doerfler said. “It is inspiring to watch
the Hokes transform their situation into
a blessing to the community.”
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