By Maristela Romero
The Year of Immigration took off in full swing this month with a documentary screening of “Climate Refugees” and an Immigration Book Club discussion of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s “The Refugees” on Wednesday, Oct. 10.
A mini exhibition was also held at Hornbake Library in September as a preview of what students should expect to see from the Year of Immigration. The exhibit showcased a few items from the university’s labor history collection, sharing different immigration experiences throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“…As you already know, you can’t talk about the history of the United States without talking about immigration,” said Ashleigh Coren, a special collections librarian. “They go hand-in-hand.”
Additional exhibits that tell different immigration stories will be displayed throughout the coming year, according to the Year of Immigration website. Coren said the university plans to showcase their collection from past international student groups on campus.
The Year of Immigration is a year-long initiative filled with interactive events and seminars to engage members of the campus and local community in a conversation addressing immigration, global migration, refugees and other related issues. The university considers it an “academic theme” with the vision of educating individuals about immigration—a contentious topic relevant to the diverse population of the community on a local and statewide level.
The theme’s purpose is to accomplish community awareness through organized activities that focus on three motifs: conversation, community and culture.
The Year of Immigration is the “brainchild” of Vice President for International Affairs Ross Lewin, College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill and the Center for Global Migration Studies, according to Linda Aldoory, the ARHU associate dean for research and programming.
“I think it was born out of the election of President Trump and some of the executive orders that ensued right after his inauguration because we really found there were 350 people affected by the first travel ban, and there were six people stuck in countries,” Lewin said. “So it raised my level of consciousness about our international community and what an asset the international members of our community really are.”
Lewin emphasized that the aim of the initiative is to celebrate diversity among students, faculty, staff and locals alike, many of whom are immigrants and make up a large portion of the community at the University of Maryland and Prince George’s County.
“I think it’s an exciting project,” Q-mars Haeri, an Iranian graduate student said. “I think it’s very important for us to hear all the immigrants’ stories for everybody on campus.”
Many academic departments have begun featuring their own events that complement the theme, including the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which has a partnership with the community garden “Field of Greens,” a project that offers plots to Prince George’s county refugee families to grow vegetables, Lewin said.
The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the Robert H. Smith School of Business also plan to involve their students in immigration-themed events that cater to their students’ interests.
The College of Arts and Humanities will have Pulitzer-Prize winning author Viet Than Nguyen for a guest lecture called “Refugees, Immigrants, Americans: Changing Our Stories” on Oct. 23.
According to the Year of Immigration website, the theme follows the university’s “mission to ‘do good’ by transforming idealism into impact.”
“It’s really a grassroots initiative,” Lewin said. “Certainly an idea, but it’s really taken off and it’s now being driven by faculty, students and staff.”
Lewin said the Year of Immigration theme will also encourage local community engagement through events like a Translate-a-Thon and a human library.
“The idea is that everyone is a book, but you can’t judge a book by its cover,” Lewin said of the human library. “So you’re a book, I’m a book and you have a story to tell…it’s just a human connection.”
While the Year of Immigration calendar is still a work in progress, parties involved in planning-related conferences and workshops are open to suggestions, which can be submitted at yearofimmigration.umd.edu.
Stories Beneath the Shell 