We are grieving this week as we think about how immigrants are already impacted by restrictive and punitive US policies and by militarized borders throughout the world. We grieve for those excluded, deported, incarcerated, divided from families, forced to travel deadly routes to seek asylum or flee climate catastrophes. We grieve for those living indefinitely in refugee camps around the world and for those living in shelters or in the shadows here in the United States – a nation that simultaneously beckons and betrays. We shudder to imagine how much worse it could all get.

But the IHRC is committed, in times of crisis more than ever, to transforming understandings of immigration in the past and present, and we look forward to hearing from you how we could do that work better. It is hard to know what the coming months will bring, but it is my hope that we may all find refuge in community, and that we may build networks of mutual support that have the power to keep us safe and to change the world around us.

In solidarity,

Llana Barber

IHRC Assistant Director Michele Waslin and her co-author, Dr. Carol Cleaveland of George Mason University, will discuss their book, Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum, at two separate Minneapolis events. Through eyewitness accounts of closed-court proceedings and powerful testimony from women who have sought asylum in the United States because of severe assaults and death threats by intimate partners and/or gang members, Private Violence examines how immigration laws and policies shape the lives of Latin American women who seek safety in the United States. The authors describe the women’s histories prior to crossing the border, and the legal strategies they use to convince Immigration Judges that rape and other forms of “private violence” should merit asylum – despite laws built on Cold War era assumptions that persecution occurs in the public sphere by state actors.

Books will be available for sale and signing at each event.

We have applied for CLE credits for both events.

Monday, November 18th, 2024

Discussion 3:00-4:00pm

Reception and book signing 4:00-5:00pm

Elmer Andersen Library, Room 120

222 21st Ave. S.

Minneapolis, MN 55455

Carol Cleaveland and Michele Waslin will discuss their book. The Honorable Susan Conley de Castro will provide the perspective of a former immigration judge. Mackenzie Heinrichs of the Binger Center for New Americans will moderate.

This event will be co-sponsored by the Binger Center for New Americans. The panel presentation will be followed by a reception in the atrium.

Register HERE

Tuesday, November 19th, 2024

Discussion 6:00-7:00pm

Reception and book signing 7:00-8:00pm

Open Book

1011 Washington Ave S.

Minneapolis, MN 55415

This second book release event is sponsored by the IHRC, the Binger Center for New Americans, and The Advocates for Human Rights.

Michele Garnett McKenzie, Deputy Director of The Advocates will moderate a conversation with the authors Carol Cleaveland and Michele Waslin.

Register HERE

On October 30, the IHRC hosted a webinar on Haitian Immigration. The panelists were Regine Jackson of Morehouse College; Felix Jean-Louis of Univ. of CA Irvine; Guerline Jozef of the Haitian Bridge Alliance; Carl Lindskoog of Raritan Valley Community College; Jemima Pierre of the Univ. of British Columbia; and moderator Llana Barber of the IHRC.

The discussion focused on the history of Haitian immigration and the treatment of Haitians by the United States as well as the contemporary experiences of Haitian immigrants. The conversation unpacked the current vitriol against Haitians leading up to the elections.

This webinar was the first event in IHRC's new History of the Present webinar series which will give historical context for a contemporary immigration issue, aimed at both an interdisciplinary scholarly audience and the general public. Stay tuned for future events in this series.

This event was co-sponsored by the Department of History.

Michele enjoyed learning about immigration law, policy, and rhetoric in Finland and drawing comparisons with the U.S. Ellen shares that she particularly enjoyed the daylong workshop hosted by the Institute as part of their “Migration into the Future” multidisciplinary symposium. The archives-centered workshop, with invited community activists, archivists, and researchers, crafted vision for developing community-engaged archives on recent migration to Finland, and was collaborative and generative. And, along with Michele, she also enjoyed the food in Finland - delicious!

The visit was possible thanks to a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Finland. IHRC, IHRCA, and MIF won a Public Diplomacy Grant for our project, Migrant Experiences, Past and Present: A New Finland-U.S. Research and Archival Partnership.

Ellen Engseth explores the cultural research collection at the Finnish Literature Society.

Michele Waslin and Ellen Engseth, along with Jarno Heinilä and Samira Saramo from MIF, met with officials from the US Embassy in Helsinki.

Ellen Engseth gave a keynote address on community archives during the Migration Institute of Finland's 50th Anniversary Symposium.

The IHRC's Graduate Student Group is a community of interdisciplinary student scholars in immigration and migration fields. The IHRC formed the graduate student group two years ago to create a university-wide interdisciplinary graduate student community, connect students with internal and external resources, and provide a space for them to meet and share their work. The group is open to all graduate students in immigration-related studies.

In October, the IHRC organized an interdisciplinary workshop where Ana Joanna Vergara, a PhD candidate in History, presented a dissertation chapter examining how the term emigrado (émigré) was introduced to the Spanish Main (Venezuela) through the influx of exiles from the modern-day Dominican Republic following the Haitian Revolution.

On November 19, co-authors Dr. Carol Cleaveland of George Mason University and Dr. Michele Waslin of the IHRC will meet the graduate student group for an informal conversation about their new book, Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum.

Also in November, Roma Lucarelli, a PhD student in English, will workshop a research project that traces the transmission of the cooperative mechanisms constructed in Elias Lönnrot’s Kalevala: The Epic of the Finnish People throughout temporal and spatial shifts.

In addition to the workshops, the IHRC is organizing a Writing Group that will bring together graduate students for weekly in-person or virtual writing sessions.  

Those interested in joining or learning more about the group can contact Ibrahim Hirsi at hirsi004@umn.edu.  

The Liberal Arts Engagement Hub is taking on CLA's Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop (ICW) Award program! The newly envisioned ICW centers University-community collaboration. It is intended to spur new collaborations, between and across disciplines, among scholars in CLA and beyond and their community partners. This award provides support to bring together faculty, staff, postdoctoral researchers, students, and community collaborators from a variety of fields to intensively study a topic or question and/or conduct a major research project. A CLA faculty or P&A staff member must serve as the Workshop lead/Principal Investigator. One 2-3 year project will be awarded up to $75,000 each competition cycle, which will be held every other year. Grant applications are due by December 1, 2024, for projects beginning in summer the following year. 

Visit z.um.edu/icw2024 to view the Call for Proposals document. Contact Hub Program Manager Amanda Steepleton at stee0260@umn.edu for additional information. 

The places in your life tell stories: your stories. Explore how to use place-based storytelling techniques and StoryMaps software to tell YOUR story! This hybrid workshop led by Shana Crosson and Hawona Sullivan Janzen is the first in The Hub's Collaborative Learning for Change series. As always, Hub workshops are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served to in-person attendees. 

Register HERE.

IHRC Assistant Director Michele Waslin is quoted in this article, #MeToo, Except for Migrants Fleeing Gender-Based Violence, in Law360. The author explores the struggles that women face when they apply for asylum in the US. Waslin and her co-author, Carol Cleaveland, also penned "There Can Be No Debate Over Asylum" and "Why Women Will be Hardest Hit by President Biden's Executive Order" in Ms. Magazine.