Immigrant Students Reflect During Anniversary of 2016 Election
The day after the 2016 elections, Professor and Director of the English as a Second Language department (ESL) Susan Bosher created an activity for her students that would empower them to tell their stories as immigrants and refugees using their own voices. With a President-elect for the United States that had expressed nothing but disdain for immigrants and refugees, the fear many students felt became heightened by the election results. Samiha Kassim (Respiratory Care Major, ‘20) described the 2016 election as “the scariest election that [she’s] ever experienced”.
With many of her students coming from immigrant backgrounds, Bosher planned an activity for them to create a digital story about their journey to the United States so that “students could have the option to tell their own story personally.” Fast forward two years later, on Election Day 2018, students who had created their digital stories for the first time two years ago presented them to a captivated audience who came together in the library for a new community event: Digital Storytelling and the Immigrant/Refugee Experience.
The four St. Kate’s students who shared their stories last week came from various countries, and their experience adjusting to the United States was unique to each of them. What was constant in all of their stories, however, was the isolating experience of coming to a new country
Chi Yang (Pre-Nursing Major ‘20) expressed that, “You have to let go of everything you have… sacrificing who you are and all the memories you have”. Yusiliana Piloto Perojo (Marketing Management Major ‘21) expressed how emotional the whole experience of arriving to a new country is, and how many people who have not experienced it do not realize what it is like. “When you are an immigrant, your feelings are everything,” she said.
Digital storytelling uses images, videos, voiceovers, and music to convey a story. Each story included photos of the students’ family, and gave an idea of what their home country is like for someone who previously lacked exposure.
Sabrina Krebisa (Public Health Major, ‘21), used her digital storytelling project to think back about her experience as an immigrant individually.“I took time to pause and think about my experience on my own and the people who helped me,” she said.
Research, Instruction, and Outreach Librarian Amy Mars works on developing Digital Humanities projects at St. Kate’s, which uses digital tools and methods to investigate, present and share humanities research in new ways.
“I am really glad the students were willing to share their stories, because they are very personal…It was kind of a counter storytelling because of all the very negative rhetoric about immigrants during election time,” stated Mars.
The students who shared their stories also commented on current events and the midterm elections.When asked what they would want voters to consider about immigration, Kassim asserted: “Consider what is the best for everyone.” Yang echoed the same, asking voters: “How will your vote contribute to everyone?”
Bosher and Mars collaborated on the project together. They have successfully showcased the projects to various audiences. So far, they have presented the digital stories at various conferences including the Minnesota Writing and English (MNWE) Conference, the National Association for Poetry Therapy (NAPT) Conference, and next week at the Minnesota English Learner Education Conference (MELEd).
Currently, they are applying for funding to present the digital stories in 2019 at a conference at the University of Patras in Greece called “Border Crossing Narratives: Learning from the Refugee Experience."
To browse some examples of digital stories about immigration, there is an archive available from the University of Minnesota’s Immigration History Research Center here: http://immigrants.mndigital.org/browse/origin
