Exhibit by Tucson’s Refugee and Immigrant Youth in the US Senate

 
 
          
 
 
Tucson, AZ – The exhibit “Home? Teen Refugees & Immigrants Explore Their Tucson” will travel to D.C. for exhibition in the Russell Rotunda of the Senate building the week of June 2-6, 2008. The exhibition includes photographs and writing by 46 Catalina Magnet High School refugee and immigrant students from Afghanistan, Ghana, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mexico, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Sudan. Through writing and photography, the students documented their experiences in the countries they came from and their current lives in Tucson.
 
The students will be available to share their stories and experiences at a reception in the Russell Building Rotunda of the Senate on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, 5-7pm.
 
This exhibit is part of the Finding Voice Project, which is an innovative literacy and visual arts project dedicated to helping refugee and immigrant youth in LEARN Center ESL classes at Catalina Magnet High School. The students develop their literacy skills by researching, photographing, writing, and speaking out about critical social issues in their lives and communities. Julie Kasper, Catalina Magnet High School ESL/English teacher, and Josh Schachter, Tucson-based educator and photographer, co-facilitate the project.
 
Julie Kasper and Josh Schachter explain: “The process of working collaboratively on this project has been one full of learning, on many levels.  We were given an opportunity to question our own roles as Tucson residents and educators working with refugee and immigrant youth.  The youth challenged our assumptions and ways of seeing and interpreting Tucson and the world. We learned about the countries and cultures the students came from, as well as their dreams and aspirations.”
 
Six students from Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Mexico will make the trip to DC, along with Julie Kasper, Josh Schachter, and Tucson Vice-Mayor Nina Trasoff. The students plan to hold a Congressional briefing on Tuesday June 3rd from 3-4 pm in Longworth 1334 and meet with the Arizona Congressional Delegation and other DC staff and NGOs to discuss their experiences and concerns about immigration and refugee issues.
 
While in DC, the Finding Voice Project will release a 120-page full-color publication featuring photographs and writing from the exhibit: “Home? Teen Refugees and Immigrants Explore Their Tucson.”
 
As a continuation and expansion of the Finding Voice Project, this semester’s students examined their personal experiences with war and immigration through writing and photography. Their photographs and writing are currently featured in 22 bus stop shelters throughout Tucson and will be up until April 2009.
 
For more information about the Finding Voice Project, visit www.findingvoiceproject.org.
 
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