Vassar College Refugee Solidarity

Tomorrow (Friday, Dec 3) VRS is having a bake sale in the college center from 11-3! All proceeds will go towards Grannies Respond and to fulfill supply requests from the Islamic Center of the Capital District. Stop by for delicious, homemade baked goods and to learn about our upcoming donation drive.

New Paltz for Refugees is raising money to support an Afghan family through the resettlement process. Click on the link below to donate!!

Donate Resettling an Afghan refugee family in the US requires funding (more than you might think!). The federal government strongly recommends that all NGO resettlement groups, like New Paltz for...

For this week's we'd like to invite you to think critically about Biden's recent decision to reverse a Trump-era cap on refugee admittance to the US. After months of indecision, internal debate, and criticism from advocacy groups, Biden finally decided to raise the cap on refugee admissions for 2021 from 15,000 to 62,500. Though this decision should be celebrated, Biden's reluctance to act quickly has had severe impacts for refugees going through the resettlement process, where every delay and unexpectedly canceled flight has real-world consequences. A recent NYtimes article that discussed Biden's internal decision-making process focused on his "obsession with details" which leads him to make informed decisions- after weeks of debate and second guessing. If you were in Biden's position, how would you balance wanting to make an informed decision with the need to act quickly and decisively?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22422368/biden-refugee-cap-resettlement

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/politics/joe-biden-policy-decisions.html?searchResultPosition=4

Biden finally raised the refugee cap. Now comes the hard part. The US might not come close to resettling 62,500 refugees in 2021.

For this week’s check out The Zinn Education Project (https://www.zinnedproject.org ). Based on the lens explored by Howard Zinn of “a people’s history”, they collect teaching materials, lessons, and articles for middle and high school students and their educators. Also resources are free to access and are critical part of our work to further understand current events. We cannot fully understand our current immigration policies and crises until we also understand past policies from the perspective of the people. Take a look at this teaching resource (https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/deportations-mexican-americans-great-depression/) spotlighted by the project about deportations of Mexican immigrants during the Great Depression. This resource, and many other on the project’s website, provide critical historical information we need to continuing our studies about forced migration in today’s climate.

Deportations on Trial: Mexican Americans During the Great Depression | Zinn Education Project Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. In this role play students analyze who is to blame for the illegal, mass deportations of Mexican Americans and immigrants during the Great Depression.

This we are drawing attention to the important role that art can play in understanding and representing stories of migration. This New York Times opinion piece on public art in El Paso, TX, explores the history of murals in the city which illustrate stories of migration, the borderlands, and community identity.

Learn more about how the New York Times suggests using this article as a teaching tool here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/learning/lesson-of-the-day-art-without-borders.html.

You can also read about “Bearing Witness: Stories of Migration Through Art,” a community event hosted by Vassar’s Selective Bibliography of Forced Migration this past December here: https://forcedmigrationbib.vassarspaces.net/bib-events/

Opinion | Art Without Borders For the muralists of El Paso, immigration isn’t a “crisis.” It’s life.

For this week’s , I turn to focus on Denmark. A few weeks ago, the World Happiness Index named Denmark the second happiest place in the world, and the country, year after year, consistently ranks at the top of this index. Meanwhile, Danish lawyer Niels-Erik Hansen describes the country as “the worst place in Europe” when discussing its policies towards migrants and refugees. As today’s Al-Jazeera article discusses, Denmark’s policy of revoking residence permits for Syrian refugees is alarming and shows little indication of ceasing.

Danish plan to repatriate Syrian refugees sparks controversy Legal experts and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) among those concerned by Denmark’s decision.

For this , we are highlighting the heartbreaking stories of young migrants featured in the New York Times article below.

‘Mommy, I Have Bad News’: For Young Migrants, Mexico Can Be the End of the Road Thousands of young migrants, most from Central America, are making their way to the border, many hoping to meet parents in the United States. But for those caught in Mexico, there is only near-certain deportation.

Language is present in any discussions of migration, from anti-immigrant rhetoric to literal differences in language that complicate application processes. For today’s I want to turn to France, where an altered form of French has emerged from the country's immigrant population as both a language of social protest and also integration. “Verlans,” as the linked NYT article details, is the literal inversion of words (the reverse = l’envers → verlans), and has been emerging and spreading since the 1960s and 70s (with the first documented appearance dating back to the late 19th century). A literal manipulation of French, Verlans has grown largely in response to France’s historical and current marginalization of immigrant communities. Predominantly African and North African Arab immigrants have a long history of migration to France, initially as an essential labor force during France’s post-WWII industrialization that was confined to the impoverished outskirts or “slums” of cities. Generations later, their descendants are still largely ostracized by this physical separation as well as by the racism and Islamophobia articulated within secularism. Verlans, then, exists as a “language of alienation,” “‘a metaphor for opposition,’” and paradoxically a “means of integration,”; having more recently acquired an element “‘of political correctness expressing solidarity with and awareness of the immigrant community at a time of anti-immigrant politics.’''

Read more here:

Backward Runs French. Reels the Mind. (Published 2002) Article on popular slang called Verlan in which standard French spellings or syllables are reversed or recombined, or both; photo (M)

For this week’s I’m going to share a little about a complicated yet common aspect of migration: the separation of family members. Inspired by this article (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/01/my-brothers-keeper) by Vassar alumna Ada Ferrer, I began to think about how the consequences of choosing or being forced to migrate can create lasting consequences even for those who did not make the journey themselves. Ferrer writes about the strained dynamics of the relationships among her family members as some of them remained in Cuba when others left for the United States after Castro’s military victory over Batista. Though the United States visa application system prioritizes relatives and spouses of individuals already residing within the country, there are many reasons—beyond questions of access to authorized or unauthorized migration channels in the U.S. context—that certain family members might not migrate. In Cuba, as Ferrer describes, “some teenagers stayed behind when their parents fled, committed to a cause that their families rejected.” Ultimately, any story of migration that aims to be complete cannot overlook the consequences for those who are left behind.

My Brother’s Keeper Early in the Cuban Revolution, my mother made a consequential decision.

For today's I want to share a paper about participatory projects in refugee camps. Dr. Al-Nammari led a camp improvement initiative in Talbiyeh Camp, Jordan. She explores the complex power dynamics present in such an environment where community members, local elites and other NGOs all have competing agendas. I thought it was a fascinating read that demonstrates the strengths and challenges of grassroots participation. Here is the link:

Participatory urban upgrading and power: Lessons learnt from a pilot project in Jordan The objective of this paper is to investigate one aspect of the challenges of participatory planning and development in the Jordanian context focussin…

This , check out this article which explores the Biden administration’s recent decision to drop the term “illegal alien” from US immigration lingo. To define someone as “illegal” is to dehumanize them and to weaponize political categories against anyone hoping to cross borders. To remove this term from use a huge step towards redefining what migration is but by now means the last. Consider this question posed by the article as we continue to re define migration: which language and policy changes should come next?

“Illegal alien” no more: The Biden administration drops the label Tell us which language and policy changes should come next.