These three text stories and one radio piece represent varying attempted solutions involving immigration. The first two stories, “ICE Came for a Tennessee Town’s Immigrants. The Town Fought Back” and “In A State That Voted For Trump, The Teachers Rallied When ICE Raided A Rural Nebraska Town,” both address (native-born) community responses to ICE raids in small towns in conservative states. The positive response of many members of the community to help the undocumented witnesses being rounded up does give me hope, especially in rural areas of conservative states. However, these solutions have multifaceted issues: they are temporary and they are reactionary. These solutions are not viable in the long term, nor do they address the root issues, which is a really common trend in a lot of humanitarian aid-type situations. 

 The second two pieces in the collection both focus on Haitian immigrants and their roles in their new communities. The written piece “Inside the Effort to Bring Haitian Religious Leaders to the Forefront of Social Activism” discusses how prominent immigrants can help guide their communities in new locations. Having strong community leaders can help the Haitian community advocate for their rights and assimilate into their new home. The radio piece, “The Foreigner,” also discusses Haitian religious life. In 2016 a lot of Haitian immigrants went to Chile, and in a small town, they found a home. A religious leader in the community organized to make the town welcoming. And this contrasts greatly to the experiences Haitians faced in other parts of Chile. 

 Again similarly with the first two stories, I feel like all of the ‘solutions’ are coming from non official parties. Which is difficult, because again I don’t think it necessarily addresses the root causes of the issues. With the second two pieces, I do believe religion can play such an important role in helping immigrants get acclimated to their new homes, which as we have discussed in class, is very important. 

 In terms of context of reception, for the first two pieces, it seems to be difficult to get people to act before something bad happens. The solutions presented, while effective on a case by case basis, may be hard to implement in similar rural American communities. It took seeing ICE arrest undocumented immigrants for the community to react, versus reaching out earlier. Stories like those in Nebraska and Tennessee could serve as lessons to be shared in other communities with undocumented populations. People are apathetic sometimes until it is right in front of them.

 The second two pieces, in terms of context of reception, have a more viable solution of having strong community leaders lead the charge on integration. This is successful in forming long-lasting stability, by forming human connections and an interwoven community. Especially with religious populations of immigrants, that aspect would be particularly helpful.

EXTRA CREDIT: I shared my collection with my boyfriend. He agreed with me about the concerns over reactive solutions versus proactive solutions that address root causes. My boyfriend is also very into politics and keeps up with the news like I do, including more in depth solutions pieces. He was equally frustrated with how the small towns had voted for someone like Donald Trump that created the situation in which their solution was even necessary. He likes to share those stories with his Trump-voting family, but refrained. 

I was not surprised by his response, all though he provided his own policy ideas. It was pretty close to my response, but he doesn’t know as much about Haitian refugees/religious leaders in communities as me so was not able to really comment on that. The Latin American refugees crisis is more of a focus for most Americans that Caribbean islands.

I really liked this assignment because it allowed me to choose topics and themes that most interested me. And it feels good to have this toward the end of the course to address solutions, not just the problems. That’s a good way to fully teach a course on immigration by not just talking about the numbers and the problems, but also efforts to change.