• Featured book for August – Spiritual Perspectives on Globalization: Making Sense of Economic and Cultural Upheaval - by Ira Rifkin
  • (From the back cover:) The economic and cultural dynamic of globalization is transforming the world at an unprecedented pace. But what exactly is it? What are it’s origins? What is it’s impact on our spiritual lives?
  • This lucid introduction surveys the religious landscape, explaining in clear and nonjudgmental language the beliefs that motivate spiritual leaders, activists, theologians, academics, and others involved on all sides of the issue. Included are the points-of-view of: Baha’is, Buddhists, Earth-based and tribal religions, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Roman Catholics
  • Unlike many other books on this controversial issue, this easy-to-read introduction won’t tell you what to think; it gives you the information you need to reach your own conclusions.

• Featured DVD for August – The Least of These: Family Detention in America - a documentary film by Clark Lyda and Jesse Lyda
  • (From the back cover) THE LEAST OF THESE takes a penetrating look at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security prison that re-opened in 2006 as a prototype family detention center. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings. As information about troubling conditions at the facility began to leak out, activist attorneys sought to investigate and address the issues. In telling the story of their quest, the film explores the role (and limits) of community and legal activism in bringing about change.
  • The film leads viewers to consider how core American rights and values – protection of children, presumption of innocence, upholding the family structure as the basic unit of civil society, and America as a refuge of last resort – should apply to immigrants, particularly children.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Counterpoint:

FaithAction Executive Director Dr. Mark Sills

By the Rev. Mark Sills

Anti-immigrant feelings are nothing new. In the late-1700s, Benjamin Franklin complained about the influx of Germans, whom he described as dirty, lazy, unwilling to learn English and having a negative influence on our culture.

In the mid-1800s, the “Know-Nothing” movement argued that Irish immigrants were damaging the nation’s culture. Sound familiar? Fortunately for my Ulster-Scot ancestors, the “Know-Nothings” lost. When my family arrived here, most likely by crossing the Canadian border to avoid the Immigrant Tax like millions of other Irish families, they did not face police roundups or fear highway checkpoints.

Instead, they quickly found jobs, put down roots and soon became the backbone of the Carolinas.

In the 1920s, with pressure from the Ku Klux Klan, and with the rise of theories about the racial inferiority of certain ethnic groups, Congress enacted “national origins” quotas that severely restricted the number of immigrants allowed each year into the United States.

The door for Irish immigrants slammed shut in 1925, with an annual quota of 28,567. For those labeled “swarthy” Italians, the annual quota admitted to the United States was only 4,000.

Today our government limits employment-based immigration to a maximum of 140,000 persons each year worldwide.

Those who keep saying that the Mexicans and other Latino immigrants should “just get in line and come here legally to get a job” should understand that our country provides no general immigrant visas for Mexicans. Not one. The average Mexican facing literal starvation at home has no way to get legal permission to enter the United States, except for a family reunification visa.

From 1900 to 1910, America absorbed about 10.4 immigrants for every 1,000 residents. Today, legal immigration is just 3.1 immigrants for every 1,000 residents. Not only are we not being overwhelmed by immigrants, we do not have anywhere near the percentage of immigrants in our population that most other Western societies have.

Let’s quit blaming immigrants for our problems. In a few years, with our aging population and low birth rate, we’ll all be trying to find a way to encourage more immigrants to come to America to do the work that keeps our economy alive.

The writer is executive director, FaithAction International House in Greensboro.
From the Greensboro New and Record

Volunteers Working Hard to Make the Gala a Success

Looking for this session’s movies? You can find them at our Video Sharing Site, Vimeo HERE. Or you can visit the special page we’ve set up here.

The Movies without Borders Project is blessed with an especially dedicated group of volunteers– a fact that most of the students in the class mentioned in their evaluations of their experience. At left, Michelle and her sidekick labor all during the performance at Saturday’s Gala Premiere to get the food ready and keep the food platters filled. The Greensboro Historical Museum generously partners with FaithAction to provide space for our digital storytelling class Gala Premiere.

Volunteers teach the class, and also work one-on-one with the individual students so that every student, no matter what level of technical expertise they have to begin with, can make a movie of the story of their choice.

Board member Ernest Dishner and Movie-Maker Jean-Francois Llorens at the Gala

The movie-making class– renamed this spring “Movies without Borders” because of the wide diversity of the students we attract to the  class– takes place every Saturday for ten weeks. When we have raised the money for the next class, we offer it. The first Movie-Making for Immigrants and Refugees class was the fall of 2009. The latest class started in April.

The latest crop of students are just as diverse as our first class. We had students from Iraq (newly arrived refugees), Sudan, Ghana, India, Mexico and Vietnam.

Our movies are at our Video Sharing Site, Vimeo HERE. Or you can visit the special page we’ve set up here.

What time: 3 pm

Where: Greensboro Historical Museum
131 Summit Avenue
Greensboro, NC

Refreshments will be served after the show.

Join us for a late afternoon extravaganza to celebrate the movies created by the seven students in the Movies without Borders Project.  Our students for this round are from Iraq, Sudan, Ghana, Mexico, India and Vietnam. They tell stories around the theme of My Journey, and that journey can be geographical or emotional or a little of each.

We at Movies without Borders provide digital literacy tools so that our students, immigrants and refugees — here just this year or here for many years– can tell the stories they want to tell about their lives, their concerns and their unique perspective on their lives.

Please  join us for a great party and a wonderful celebration of creativity and joy.

Christine Hagar, a student from the first-ever class in movie-making, has been volunteering with Movies without Borders ever since. She was so touched by Arjun’s story that she wrote a song and then had it professionally arranged and recorded! Here’s Christine Hagar’s song about Arjun’s Film:

The Border and Greensboro from Patricia Perkins on Vimeo.

Folks gather for a movie and coffee

A group of students from North Carolina State University went to Northern Sonora in Mexico and southern Arizona in an experiential education trip. They spoke briefly Monday night about what they learned. Then the participants broke up into groups to discuss the issues raised by the film. Afterwards, everybody enjoyed coffee from Café Justo, a Mexican coffee co-op formed to address the root causes of immigration–the disappearance of jobs and farms from Mexican society. What, the groups asked, is our role in the economic systems that continue to send people north looking for work, even at great risk to their lives and health.

The event was organized by FaithAction International House and took place at New Creation Community Presbyterian Church (in Redhead Hall of First Presbyterian Church.)

Students Talked about their Experiences

Documentary Trailer: http://www.bretttolley.com/dying-to-get-in/trailer.php
Learn About Café Justo: http://www.justcoffee.org/

Silent Witness for Immigrant Rights from Patricia Perkins on Vimeo.

On Saturday, 200 Greensboro residents stood in solidarity with tens of thousands across the country who support immigration reform, oppose the recent draconian Arizona law and denounce the inefficient 287(g) program in Guilford County.

We lined the sidewalk on Elm St and received appraising honks from cars and were covered by News 2 WFMY (with video) and the News & Record.

FaithAction is compiling a short video of interviews with attendants of the silent witness that we will post later.

Global Music Night at Greensborough Coffee from Patricia Perkins on Vimeo.

FaithAction was Charity of the Month in March for Greensboro Coffee. The last Friday of the month, we celebrated with music from around the globe with live performers from several countries and traditions over snacks and a cup of coffee.