Day One – A personal look at barriers and borders

We started the day off with some wonderfully awkward icebreaker activities. Faith encouraged us to greet new friends as if they were our long lost relative, then another new friend as if we really didn’t want to be here, then another as if they were telling us we had just won a million dollars. We then moved into our learning circles – small groups which whom we will spend time throughout the week processing, discussing, and reflecting.

Next, we heard from Kim Anderson. After a short introduction from her about Casa Guadalupana, the immigrant resource center which she founded and runs, we got into groups and did an empathy-building exercise around immigration. Kim gave each group a foreign board game with instructions in a language we couldn’t read. Our task was to try to figure out how to play the game while one of our group members took notes on the group process. Upon reflection on the activity in a large group, we found that each group, even though we had different games and different languages, faced similar struggles and dealt with them similarly. We all tried to relate parts of the game to other games we had played before. We all expressed feeling frustrated and that it was unfair. We didn’t even know where to begin with these children’s board games, all because of a language barrier. It helped us feel a miniscule portion of what groups of immigrants may experience when trying to come to the US.

Lunch on Monday was delicious Mexican food with a salad made of organic lettuce from our community garden.

After lunch we heard from a panel of young people. Two of them were recent immigrants from Iraq and one was the son of two Hmong immigrants. All three openly shared stories of either their immigration or the immigrations of their parents. The POWER Summit audience was struck by their struggles, from language to culture to education, and inspired by their energy and hope. Instead of being bitter after so many setbacks, the three of them work in different ways on behalf of immigrants. They were gracious and happy to answer our questions about their what they miss most of home and what their greatest hopes for their futures and the futures of other immigrants. Some spoke of missing friends and family and their hometowns. All were hopeful that immigrants will soon have an easier time, both in the immigration process itself and in terms of the cultural challenges that often face immigrants.

The rest of Monday was spent doing creative expression. Half of us spent time with Jessica Lopez Lyman and Steven Tacheny working on writing while the other half learned from Gustavo Lira, a local muralist, and began designing our own mural. Both groups will present their final creative expression projects during Thursday afternoon’s Celebration of Gratitude.