Immigrant Stories for NSA

Immigrant Stories for North Star Alliance

Curated by NSA Immigrant Stories Working Group:

Chenda Hing, Dipakshi Sarma, Isabella Irtifa, Terrie Thompson

PROJECT BRIEF AND PURPOSE:

Right-wing media is adept at pushing narratives of immigrants that portray them as the root of all problems in U.S. society. In many ways, immigrants are used as distractions from unfulfilled promises by governments on issues such as unemployment, inflation, and lack of social welfare. This working group identified the need to humanize immigrant stories in a climate which reduces our communities into numbers and caricatures.

Our aim with this project is two-fold. First, we prioritize the value of human stories and stories of leadership and resilience to mobilize folks who visit the NSA website. Second, we intend to utilize these stories as not only counter-narratives but also as regenerative stories that center immigrant joy, immigrant resilience, and immigrant dreams. Our communities deserve to be highlighted from a lens of abundance.

First, we identified five common narratives on immigration that we wished to counter. Then, we discussed regenerative narratives to feature based on the above misconceptions:

After identifying these counter-narratives, we analyzed the Immigrant Stories Collection of over 375 stories representing more than 50 communities to curate a list of stories. Here we showcase The Immigrant Stories Collection, housed at University of Minnesota’s Immigration History Research Center, to highlight the diverse groups of immigrants in these stories, attempting to challenge who is commonly seen as an immigrant. We also chose stories that show what detention and deportation look like and their generational impact.

Deportations are helping the U.S. society” → “Deportations are inducing fear and instability in communities. Families belong together”

“Immigrants are taking our jobs” → “The current system has induced an oversaturated job market which renders many of us without a stable job and equitable pay. Immigrants are the backbone of our economy; they bring in innovation and dedication that keeps the market afloat. They also often take up severely underpaid jobs in essential fields like agriculture and manufacturing.”

“Immigrants are ruining our economy!” → “Immigrants are diversifying our economy and making it more robust. We need immigrants in our economy, immigrants create our economy, culture, and society”

“Crime rates are increasing because of immigrants” → “Immigrants are pushed into situations where they can be convicted and targeted by law enforcement. The law is written to criminalize immigrants”

“We are losing American-ness! Immigrants are taking over” → “We are all immigrants. We are already here, the border crossed us. The US that the right wing wants is barren, almost apocalyptic.”

After identifying these counter-narratives, we analyzed the Immigrant Stories Collection of over 375 stories representing more than 50 communities to curate a list of stories. Here we showcase The Immigrant Stories Collection, housed at University of Minnesota’s Immigration History Research Center, to highlight the diverse groups of immigrants in these stories, attempting to challenge who is commonly seen as an immigrant. We also chose stories that show what detention and deportation look like and their generational impact.

  • Deportations are helping the U.S. society” → “Deportations are inducing fear and instability in communities. Families belong together”

News coverage

IHRC Stories to Highlight

  • Madeleine Odutayo — As a child, Madeleine’s father was deported, forcing her mother to raise three children by herself while attending nursing school. This put an enormous strain on her family and on Madeleine’s experience growing up. Deportations can be a very traumatic experience, as they displace families and impact their support systems.

Gustavo Hernandez– Gustavo talks about his father’s wrongful arrest by ICE. They arrested his father in suspicion that he was someone else, and even though he was eventually released, the impact that it had on Gustavo and his family while his father was detained was heartbreaking. Even if his father didn’t have proper documentation or if he really was the man that ICE was looking for, deportations tear families apart. They crush livelihood and traumatize children of detained people forever.

  • “Immigrants are taking our jobs” → “The current system has induced an oversaturated job market which renders many of us without a stable job and equitable pay. Immigrants are the backbone of our economy; they bring in innovation and dedication that keeps the market afloat. They also often take up severely underpaid jobs in essential fields like agriculture and manufacturing.

News coverage

Immigrants are not hurting US-born workers: Six facts to set the record straight by Daniel Costa and Heidi Shierholz

IHRC Stories to Highlight

  • Banlang Phommasouvanh — Banlang grew up in Laos, and would often tutor her younger siblings. From a young age, she valued education and loved sharing her knowledge with others. When she immigrated to the US, she became a Minneapolis Public Schools teacher who helps youth and families from Laos understand the American education system. Banlang’s educational background and experiences as an immigrant bring essential qualifications to her job as an educator.
    • Keywords: Education; Empowering Youth and Families
  • Vincenza Pusateri– Discusses the kinds of jobs that immigrants often need to take on in order to support themselves and their families: “Many worked on railroads, in mines, stone quarries and factories, as well as food-related businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants and produce markets”. Vicenza was also an amazing seamstress, something that would add creativity and nuance to the American job market.
    • Keywords: Italian-American Identity; Assimilation
  • Jose-Angel Lombera– Jose endured an incredibly traumatic journey to the United States across the border in search of better opportunities. His adaptation to the US has not been easy, but “eventually he came to the conclusion that school wasn’t for him, so he started to work in construction and after a few years of putting in work, he became his own boss.” This shows that he was not taking anyone’s job, in fact, he created his own business and created job opportunities for others who want to be a part of his business.
    • Keywords: Job creation; Cultural Adjustment; Business Owner

Other Stories to Consider Later:

  • Georgette Tadros — Georgette was originally from Egypt, and wanted to learn how to speak French. To pursue her dream, she moved to Paris and completed a PhD. She later immigrated to the US, and worked as a trilingual translator for immigration ports (as she spoke Arabic, French and English). Georgette’s background as an immigrant gave her strong qualifications for her work as a translator, and helped ease the immigration process for many others.

  • “Immigrants are ruining our economy!” → “Immigrants are diversifying our economy and making it more robust. We need immigrants in our economy, immigrants create our economy, culture, and society”

News Coverage

IHRC Stories

  • Ederick Lokpez — Ederick is an entrepreneur from Venezuela. He is a community advocate who targets disparities in a variety of systems, like education and healthcare. In order to do this, he founded a company called Raíces Media that provides a variety of resources such as informational magazines, job fairs and career expos, and outreach programs from companies to minority communities. Ederick helps minorities navigate U.S. systems, which supports our economy.
    • Keywords: Entrepreneur; Venezuela; Community Advocate; Supporting Economy
  • Louis Fiore — In the 1880s, Louis Fiore’s family immigrated from Italy to New York. Many immigrants in his community became masons, and he faced pressure to conform to that career path. Instead, he pursued his dream of being a furniture artist, and started his own business. Today, his family accredits him for their career successes.
    • Keywords: Artist; Business Owner; Intergenerational Career Success
  • Muhammad Na’im Khalid– came to the United States to pursue studies at the University of Minnesota, and got his undergraduate in economics. This shows a drive to receive a higher education and to pursue occupational opportunities that will actually benefit our economy.
    • Keywords: Higher Education; Forwarding Opportunities

  • “Crime rates are increasing because of immigrants” → “Immigrants are pushed into situations where they can be convicted and targeted by law enforcement. The law is written to criminalize immigrants”

News Coverage

IHRC Stories to Highlight

  • Gustavo Hernandez — Gustavo’s daughter tells the story of her family’s displacement after her father was wrongly accused of a crime and detained by ICE. The narrator was in elementary school and remembers the struggles the family faced as the father moved through the criminal justice system before being deported and eventually brought back to the United States.
    • Keywords: ICE Detention; Displacement; Traumatic Police Encounter
  • Saengmany Ratsabout– Many immigrants, like Saengmany, immigrate to the United States to escape crime, violence and war, not to conduct those things on US soil. Saengmany’s story says “We had escaped the aftermath of the civil war, one that the US Central Intelligence Agency covertly intervened as part of their fight against the spread of communism.” Interestingly enough, many immigrants are forced to escape wars in their home countries and come to the United States because of US motivations for war.
    • Keywords: Migrating for Safety; US Intervention; War
  • Nasser Mussa– “Being black is not a crime, being an immigrant is not a crime, being a Muslim is not a crime. But these identities are misunderstood and misinterpreted, and I am trapped in these identities forever.” He discusses the systems that constantly place minorities in prisons, and how underlying or even outright biases about race and religion are often seen as valid reasons for imprisonment.
    • Keywords: Identity; Stereotypes; Dismantling Bias

Other Stories to Consider Later:

  • Manichan Xiong– She recounts a time during the Secret War in Laos and how her family came across a US aircraft that had crashed, and the American soldier that survived was hiding because “he was afraid that we were communists and would kill him”. Manichan’s story describes how her and her family fed him, gave him water, medicinal treatment, and eventually helped him get rescued. Because of helping this soldier, the communists came to their village and killed her grandfather. Her and her family showed hospitality and care to someone who represented a country that sought to kill them for their own political and economic interests. Not the other way around.
  • Bryan Ogun– he left Nigeria because the crime rate was high, and sought safety and economic security in the United States. He had to sacrifice so much to be here, and reflects on how many people and things he valued that he had to leave in Nigeria in order to search for a better life.

  • “We are losing American-ness! Immigrants are taking over” → “We are all immigrants. We are already here, the border crossed us. The US that the right wing wants is barren, almost apocalyptic.”

IHRC Stories to Highlight

  • William Nyang’un – If “American-ness” centers the importance of family as a structure and the prosperity of children, then William’s story displays exactly that. He discusses his close connections with his hard-working mother as well as caring for his many siblings alongside help from his community before he was able to move to the United States. The reunion of his family together in the US shows the struggle for familial unity and togetherness as central to his experience as an immigrant, and that is central to American values.
    • Keywords: Familial Connections; Re-uniting Family
  • Elias Lenz– Talks about his identity journey as a white Jewish person in America and how he never had to think about his own race or ethnicity until he learned about his grandfather who was Afro-Cuban. This shows that even those who are considered white and privileged in American society can have non-American ancestors that shape their experiences and identities. If the white supremecist narrative is that American identity is conflated with whiteness, then this story just proves that race is a construct, and that history shows that we are all immigrants somewhere in our family lineage.
    • Keywords: Identity; We Are All Immigrants
  • Lina Ibarra– Lina discusses her emotional struggles with growing up as an immigrant, but she persevered and worked hard in order to make a better life for herself, her children, and her future family members. Being hard-working is something that Americans value, and Lina is an amazing example of how perseverance through struggles can help pave the way for the children of the future.
    • Keywords: Emotional Struggles; Perseverance

Other Stories to Consider Later:

  • David Lenzi — In this story, the narrator is a child of a Canadian immigrant. He talks about how distinctions shouldn’t be made between the U.S. Citizens and immigrants, as they are both American.
  • Michaela Sanchez — When Michaela was four years old, her family immigrated from Lima, Peru to Salt Lake City. They had to learn to adjust to a new culture, which was a very difficult experience. Eventually, her family found community, and embraced their identity as both American and Peruvian. Immigrant experiences add to American culture, and foster community connection.

Click this link to find UMN’s Immigrant Stories Collection:

Immigrant Narrative Archive

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