Global Indy is putting on two Community Conversations at the Big Car Service Center  in April about newcomers to Indianapolis. But there will many, many opportunities to talk about refugees and immigrants before and after these community conversations. Take a look.

April 18th will be Voices from Burma. You’ll be able to hear the stories of how Chin refugees driven from their homes in Burma have found new homes in Indianapolis. Taste their food, hear their music, see their artwork, and more. Be prepared to learn about problems they continue to face, and how they want to add to Hoosier life.

April 25th will be Promoting Progress: Resolutions via Rapid Case Study. SPEA Scholars have asked the Immigrant Welcome center to identify the three greatest problems facing newcomers to Central Indiana. The Scholars have assembled information about these problems … but community members who attend the event will be responsible for coming up new ideas.

see the routes refugees took from Burma to Indy

About those refugees …

To warm up for these Conversations, several people had a change to get to know a refugee who has resettled in Indy. On April 4^th Exodus hosted a talk by Neminoo Sakuthay, who is now a resettlement caseworker for Exodus.
Info from Neminoo about refugees from Burma
But only a small part of the immigration experience for Indianapolis is refugees. And only part concerns immigrants today. We have many upcoming opportunities to discuss different aspects of the waves of newcomers to Indy and the US that have shaped our lives for decades.

Immigrants (both refugees and others) have been an essential part of our city.

This goes back to the ethnic German beginnings of Indianapolis. On April 11^th you can hear a talk about the Indianapolis Männerchor, one of the oldest continuously performing choral groups in the United States. (The next performance of the German-language men’s choir is April 28th.) Decades ago post-WWII refugees and other members of Indy’s Jewish community formed a close symbiotic bond with African Americans on the Southside. You can hear from anthropologist Sue Hyatt how she and her students uncovered this forgotten story of the city’s past on April 25th.  (While you are at the Indiana History Center, make sure to see the exhibit about refugees, You are There 1950 — Making a Jewish Home.)

Making sense of immigrants and other newcomers can be a source of confusion (and may not bring out our best).

May is Asian Pacific Heritage Month, but because not many students are around campus in May, IUPUI is organizing several discussions of Asian immigration to Indiana and the US. Popular culture has not always treated Asians well. This will be apparent when IUPUI screens the documentary Hollywood Chinese on April 11^th. But it was also clear recently, with the eruption of excitement and confusion over the Taiwanese-American Knick Jeremy Lin. What “Linsanity” reveals about Asian-American stereotypes today will be the topic of a discussion at IUPUI on April 24^th. As you wil lhave a chance to learn from IU prof Ellen Wu on April 15^th, this is all part of a long pattern of Asians becoming seen as a “model minority” in the US.

Immigration to America sparks some of our most creative work.

One of the most successful American writers of this century has been Jhumpa Lahiri, the Bengali-American novelist whose books illuminate the difficulties of newcomers embracing American culture while preserving the cultural values of their homeland. We’ll have two chances to talk with Lahiri in April . On April 14^th she’ll chat about what it means to be a writer at Butler’s new Efroymson Center for Creative Writing. She’ll give a talk as part Butler’s Delbrook Visiting Writers series April 16^th. Of course not all great works of immigration-inspired creativty consist of Pulitzer Prize winning novels. You’ll see that at Campecine, the festival of films produced by Indianapolis kids on April 16^th. (Don’t miss it!)

Immigration is an important part of US foreign policy.

Since we have a growing population of newcomers here in Central Indiana, it could give us some influence in foreign policy. This will be a theme explored by Provocate’s John Clark when he discusses Indiana-Mexican relations with the Mid North Shepherds Center on April 25^th. Mexico is perhaps the most important country for Indiana, because of trade, continent-wide manufacturing linkages and movements of people. It may make us vulnerable to developments in Mexico, but if we are clever and imaginative we Hoosiers can work with Mexicans to

Looking at our city through the eyes of newcomers can help us think creatively about how to solve problems.

The Immigrant Welcome Center (partnering with the Global Indy event April 25^th) is putting on several events for their newcomer clinets … but these are topics that concern all residents of Indy, no matter what their citizenship status. April 10^th will help parents how to choose the right schools for their children; April 24^th will be a discussion with Public Safety Director Frank Straub; April 26^th will be a workshop about microfinance opportunities with a representative of Grameen Bank Indianapolis. If we think about how to make the processes of educational choice, interacting with law enforcement, and small business formation smoother for immigrants, chances are that these processes will be smoother for everyone.

Part of what disturbs Hoosiers is the fear that immigrants will try to impose new values on Americans, even force us to be like them instead of like us.

Perhaps the most unnerving fear about immigration for many Americans is that our institutions will be subverted or colonized by newcomers. The imposition of Islamic Shari’a law on Americans symbolizes this fear most starkly. That’s why the clear-eyed discussion of this topic on June 14^th is particularly important. But seeing Islam only as a source of threat and fear could obscure how much beauty has come from the Muslim world. In November the Indianapolis Museum of Art will open a major exhibition, Beauty & Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture. in the meantime IMA is helping get us up to speed with a preview screening of the PBS film Islamic Art — Mirror of the Invisible World on May 18th. But just saying that the religion of Muslim immigrants is not a threat and can be a source of new creativity and beauty misses the opportunity we have for newcomers to the US to help all of us be better Americans. Newcomers to Indiana can help all of use be better Hoosiers. There will be no better chance to experience than April 21st, when the remarkable group OBAT Helpers invites all of us to learn about their work with Bihari refugees (Pakistanis stranded in Bangladesh) with an evening of joyful South Asian music. OBAT is the only group in the world that is helping the Biharis; today it is using what it has learned in refugee camps in Bangladesh — education, microfinance and small businesses — to help people in Indy. OBAT sets an example that we should all aspire to live up to, and it wouldn’t have happened without an openness to immigration and welcoming newcomers’ cultures.