His mother, holding on to his trembling hand, prayed two rounds of rosaries for luck before the coyotes came.

Ernesto Rocha – now a third-year Chicana and Chicano studies and political science student – remembers waiting behind a large rock for hours until the men came to lead the family on a dangerous two-day march away from Mexico.

That was just a little over 12 years ago, when Rocha’s mother made the decision to move the family to the United States.

He remembers his mother saying, “Look, mijo, that’s what we have to do, we’re going to have to cross that.”

They stood on his aunt’s balcony in Tijuana, and she pointed at the border.

Rocha remembers feeling like he was peering down on a battlefield.

“And that’s when I started getting really, really scared,” Rocha said. “It took us two days and two nights, and the nights were horrible. ... It was this constant ‘let’s go, let’s go, we can’t stop’. I was just so confused, what are we doing? Jesus.”

But Rocha knew that things were supposed to be better in the United States.

His mother – a single mother who raised six kids after her husband died of leukemia – hoped there would be more opportunities for the family here.

“My mom is the most powerful, strong woman I know. ... Six kids ... and she did it with her head up high. She never moped around, she just got up and did things,” Rocha said.

Rocha would try to mimic his mother’s strength as he grew older and struggled to get a college education in the U.S.

Undocumented immigrants are unable to receive financial aid to help pay their college fees.

According to a recent University of California report, there were about 90 undocumented students in 2006.

“I don’t have enough money to pay for it,” he said. “But you know, you just try to make it work.”

Rocha knew there would be compromises, but he wouldn’t know to what extent until he made the decision to attend his dream school, UCLA, instead of California State University, Long Beach, which was “right in (his) backyard.”

“Just because of the fact that I didn’t have money,” Rocha said. “I felt that that was unfair for me not to give it a chance.”

This winter quarter, Rocha, who works at a law office, ran out of funds to pay his student fees.

He knew he wanted to stay in school, but the economic burden made it seem almost impossible, until he thought of an unconventional idea.

“I have all the resources that I could possible want – Internet, Facebook, cell phones – and you have everything you could use, and you’re not utilizing it?

“My mom raised six kids by herself, and I can’t possibly raise $2,000 to stay in school?”

For the next two weeks, Rocha sent out text messages and e-mails and he walked around campus soliciting help.

“Look, I’m broke, but I have a desire to stay in school. Please help me. I will be walking around school with a bucket,” Rocha said he remembered saying.

He managed to raise enough money to pay his fees before the deadline.

“Not asking for charity but asking for support. ... I think people understood that.”

Being undocumented touched almost every aspect of Rocha’s college career.

“I made it my point that if this was going to affect me, then I would need to know everything about it in order for me to help others and myself.”

Rocha joined Ideas UCLA, a student group for undocumented students at UCLA, where he has worked to bring attention to the challenges facing undocumented students, in part by building support for the California Dream Act, a measure that would allow undocumented students to receive financial aid.

“Our reality is that we are undocumented until something happens,” Rocha said.

“Our reality is that everyday, this will affect us until something is changed. So until that happens, there is no reason for me to stop.”