By Wayne Jurgeleit | Observer Contributor
Francisco Ramos, Director of Community Organizing at NewVue Communities, speaks at the ALANA panel.
On Monday, November 9, The ALANA Club of MWCC hosted a panel discussion called “They Take Our Jobs and Other Myths About Immigration.” Facilitated by club president and MWCC student Ixtel Thibault-Muñoz with a guest Zoom appearance by famed author, historian and Dr. Aviva Chomsky, the event featured a diverse group of speakers answering questions about their immigration experience. The club organized the panel in direct response to the increase in incendiary rhetoric on the topic of immigration and aimed to host a more humane, informational and enlightening conversation around panelists sharing stories and thoughts on their personal experience.
“It is really a tense time for those of us who care about the rights of immigrants in the United States,” said Chomsky, describing the recent political discourse as two parties trying to “outdo each other in their desire to demonize and criminalize immigrants.”
A professor of history and the coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State University, she has been active in the Latin American solidarity and immigrants’ rights movements for more than 30 years. “I hope that this can inspire [us] to remember and to work toward changing the structures and institutions that have brought so much harm,” she said of the event.
The panelists, who included representatives from Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam and one born here but with parents from Kenya and Cote D’Ivoire. Their families were not merely hoping for better economic conditions in America, but were often fleeing war, persecution and other life-threatening circumstances.
Ăn Bahn, who fled Vietnam in 1980 at age 4, “left because my Dad was in a concentration camp, from the Vietnam war. So violence, yeah.”
Soudi Tahmassebipour, a lawyer who worked for 20 years as a public defender and since dedicated her career to empowering and advocating for those historically marginalized, left Iran for an unknown future in 1977 because her parents, she said “anticipated a revolution” and wanted to “give their children a chance to survive.”
Susana Lyons-Barrios, now a long-time ESOL instructor and public school teacher, had to escape the violence in Colombia from a 50 year conflict where 80% of the deaths were civilian.
After often unimaginably arduous journeys just to get here, they described the difficulty assimilating and establishing a new home. Bahn talked about not feeling a strong sense of cultural connection with the country from which her family came. “We never talked about Vietnam.”
In regards to developing his cultural identity, Edwin Encarnaciòn, who emigrated from the Dominican Republic at 16, graduated from MWCC with highest honors, became a successful hi-tech engineer and has been an adjunct professor in Computer Information Systems at the Mount since 2010, described feeling “not quite from here but …no longer from your home country, so you’re kind of in between.”
Other challenges, from being labelled in school only because of English unfamiliarity to not being able to obtain a driver’s license, even with legal status children to drive around, were discussed. The fact that most undocumented immigrants avoid government programs that would draw attention to themselves despite working and paying taxes was noted.
Francisco Ramos, who emigrated from Mexico in 1983 and is the Director of Community Organizing at NewVue Communities, a social services non-profit in Fitchburg, makes another point succinctly, “I think we have the responsibility to learn the struggles, to learn the reasons they migrated here.”
All the panelists, despite the difficulties they endured and the current rhetoric on immigration, are remarkable examples of how to strengthen communities, by celebrating differences, getting involved and emphasizing hope and kindness. Luisa Fernandez started her life from scratch in 2015 after absconding from the dictatorship in Venezuela. Undaunted, she tried to keep an optimistic attitude, and said to herself “give me a work permit and you will see what I am capable of!” She became active in Fitchburg Schools, first as a volunteer. She was recently named among the Worcester Business Journal 2024 40 under 40 for her efforts to promote cultural diversity and community engagement.
Contrary to the fearful and deceitful language our politicians have been using, such as referring to “shit-hole countries” as well as “an invasion of our country” and harmful stereotypes like “they’re eating the pets,” the panel discussion stressed the possibility of a new conception, or as Chomsky put it, “To understand what’s happening today, we will challenge that narrative and emphasize our entwined common histories.”
Tahmassebipour, the human-rights lawyer who has supervised hundreds of attorneys and presented diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging events all over the world, implored, “We have an obligation to stop listening to the rhetoric and think for ourselves. Have and go to events like this. Seek out people who are different from you. When there is diversity in the room, the room is smarter.”
Ramos, perhaps speaking for the room, added, “The hope that we have is that young people like you can create a different vision for this country based on the values that the country was founded on.”
The ALANA Club, founded in 2016, states in its charter, “The purpose of this club shall be to form a group of MWCC students who work together to foster exchange between students and to raise awareness through programs and activities for the college community.” ALANA typically means African-American, Latina/o, Asian, Native American and Allies, but has come to denote all of those who think it important to celebrate diversity. They usually meet monthly on the first Wednesday in the Murphy room (S105). Their next endeavor is planning an ALANA trip/multicultural event to New York City or Boston in the Spring.
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