A small town in the heart of America’s Bible Belt grapples with rapidly changing demographics. Longtime African-American and white residents work to build a sense of community with a growing Latino population and with hundreds of new Muslim refugees from Somalia. Continue Reading
The most difficult issue in exploring any new issue is deciding the best place to start. Below you will find a brief bibliography of resources to help get you started. Included among them are both scholarly and more popular treatments, from a wide range of sources. Continue Reading
In May of 2017 Dr. Tanya Hartman, student Assistant Daisy Crane, and KASC ethnographic research coordinator Marwa Ghazali conducted a two-day workshop at Wichita East High School. The workshop sought to cultivate a safe space that encourages migrant students to share their stories, while also giving them strategies to make that process easier. These methods included having students tell the stories behind material objects that they possess, encouraging them to describe what they miss most from the countries they have left behind, sharing the rituals that define their cultures.
The Ashland Public Library will host a presentation by Marwa Ghazali, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Kansas who wrote her master’s thesis on the Bantu Somali of Kansas City. The presentation will take place at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 28th.
A small town in the heart of America’s Bible Belt grapples with rapidly changing demographics. Longtime African-American and white residents work to build a sense of community with a growing Latino population and with hundreds of new Muslim refugees from Somalia. Continue Reading
As part of the new series “Framing the Dialogue” sponsored by The Commons, this gathering will be a conversation about migration issues across disciplines. Continue Reading
Elizabeth MacGonagle and Marwa Ghazali respond to the failed plot to bomb a Somali-American community in Garden City, Kansas. Their editorial in the Huffington Post suggests that Garden City has a lot to teach the rest of America about community building.
Author, broadcaster, and journalist Aminatta Forna will discuss recent work on a “reverse Roots” project that stems from her childhood in West Africa. Continue Reading
Donnelly College will host “African Refugee Stories –and Silence –in Kansas,” a presentation by Marwa Ghazali, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Kansas who wrote her master’s thesis on the Bantu Somali of Kansas City. The presentation will take place 10:40-11:40 a.m. on Thursday, November 3rd.
In conjunction with our NEH project on Migration Stories, three participants from our recent Storylab workshop will be sharing their stories publicly at the Free State Story Slam this Friday evening! This month’s theme “Crossing the Line” dovetails perfectly with sharing stories about migration. We invite you to join us as we celebrate the sharing of stories.
Free State Story Slam
Friday, October 14, 2016
7:00-9:00 PM
Lawrence Arts Center
940 New Hampshire St
Lawrence, KS 66044
An all-day workshop entitled, “I Wish I Could Tell You: Finding Your Story and Forging the Connection”, featuring Lawrence Storylab founder and nationally recognized storyteller Bob Tryanski, was held on September 24 at the Hall Center for the Humanities. The workshop challenged participants to mine their personal histories and professional experiences to discover how stories can connect with universal themes of adversity, resilience, and hope. Participants learned to structure and shape compelling personal narratives for presentation in a variety of formats and venues including live performance, recorded audio/video, and trans media storytelling. Some participants went on to perform at the October 2016 edition of the Free State Story Slam.
Make sure to go see Tanya Hartman’s exhibition When a Stranger Sojourns in Your Land at Studios Inc in Kansas City. The exhibition runs through October 14th.
She describes the work as “an installation of glazed, earthenware letters (with gold leaf) that spell a phrase from the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament that admonishes human beings to be welcoming to refugees and to the dispossessed.”
There will be a free film screening and discussion of the film Welcome to Shelbyville on Monday, September 19th at 7 pm at the Lawrence Public Library. Dicsussants will include Jennifer Ng (Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies), Cecilia Menjivar (Foundation Distinguished Professor of Sociology) and Alex Vilagram (Junior in Political Science).
Welcome to Shelbyville depicts a small town in the heart of America’s Bible Belt as it grapples with rapidly changing demographics in this hour-long documentary. Longtime African American and white residents are challenged with how best to integrate with a growing Latino population and the more recent arrival of hundreds of Muslim Somali refugees.
Sponsored by the Kansas African Studies Center, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Langston Hughes Center, Department of African & African American Studies, and the Lawrence Public Library.
Tune in to #HighlightsonHealth on KPRT 1590 AM from 12:30-1:00 p.m tomorrow (Thursday, July 14) to hear Bob Tryanski and Tanya Hartman discuss their portions of the Migration Stories project! Thanks to Rodgers Health for having them!
The public forum drew a large audience with discussions of immigration that provided a firm foundation for the project.
KU’s Migration Stories featured on KCUR’s Central Standard to raise public awareness of the upcoming forum at the Unity Temple on the Plaza.
On May 9, 2016 a public forum will be held simultaneously at the Unity Temple on the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri and Garden City, Kansas.