Green Card Stories
For my first Campus Engagement activity I went to Rollins College to see a Panel discussion on immigration. The main speaker, Saundra Amrhein, is a journalist in Tampa, Florida. She was there to discuss her recent book, Green Card Stories, which tells stories of many different people from all different countries and their struggles to immigrate to America.
The first two speakers were Dr. Claire Strom and Dr. Julian Chambliss. They gave us a brief background history on different events regarding immigration. One main thing that they spoke about I found to be very interesting. On March 25, 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire from a match or cigarette in a scrap bin. The factory workers, mainly young immigrant women from Italy, were trapped in the building because their employers chained the doors shut to prevent theft or breaks. Many women died from smoke inhalation and some even jumped to their deaths. A total of 146 people died during the fire, the 4th highest death rate in an industrial accident in United States history. Because of this incident, many safety standards were put in place to make sure something like this wouldn’t happen again. This story made a huge impact to me because although this horrible thing happened, something positive came from it. Even to this day there are bad things happening everywhere, but it gives me hope we will learn from our mistakes.
The second set of speakers was Dr. Julia Maskivker and Shanti Chandeesingh. Unfortunately, this is where I believe the evening took a negative turn. They spoke about immigration laws and the legal issues many immigrants suffer from. Understandably she was speaking from a sympathetic standpoint, being at this sort of panel it only makes sense, but I felt the information was very biased. Not only did the woman make controversial statements, but there was no sort of rebuttal offered. I feel like we are owed the facts when attending a panel put on by a university, and I do not feel like I got that from this particular speaker. In one part of her speech she said that us, as privileged Americans, should want to reach out and help those not as privileged. In my opinion we should try to help whenever possible, but I do not think that we should help because we are privileged Americans, I think that sounds very condescending and presumptuous on our parts to think they would even want our help.
The final speaker and author of the book did a quick summary of what her book was about. After her summary she then told us stories of 12 different people in the book. Some of the stories were very touching, while others lacked any real depth. I hate to be so negative about the speaker, but it was really very boring. She concluded with a quick round of questions.
I was hoping to come away from the speaker with knowledge I did not have before and unfortunately I was left wanting more. I did thoroughly enjoy the first pair to present, and would go to something put on by them again. However; I feel like I have read Green Card stories without actually ever reading it. I am glad that I attended though, I enjoyed hearing different perspectives even if they did raise a red flag or two.
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