The Immigration Series Takes Shape

Leslie, an MMU student, designed this logo--and I think she did a great job.

There is a lot of organizing left to do on the Fall Faculty Series at Mount Mercy University this year, but I’m pretty excited to see our third such series coming together.

The university communication and marketing office just finished the logo for the series. I hope it, and the PR push the university will do, will draw a lot of media attention to what I think is an important topic and conversation.

The logo is pretty cool. It was designed an art student named Leslie, and she did a fantastic job.

Black and white version of series logo.

The series is on a pretty hot topic, in this volatile election year. We’re going to step back from the current controversy and take a deeper look at what immigration has meant to the United States, and why.

What will the series be about?

Well, here are tittles of some of the individual presentations in the series, which begins early in September and runs through mid November:

• The Immigration Nation Story: An Overview of our Journey History
• The First Americans: U.S. Policy in “Indian Country”
• Fear of an Immigrant Nation: Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination Against Immigrants in the U.S.
• The Wall: Research and Being Detained Along the U.S.-Mexico Border.
• When Deportation Means Death: The Church and Sanctuary
• Our Immigration Stories: Coming to Cedar Rapids and Mount Mercy
• The Immigration Election: How Has Immigration Become a Hot Topic and How Has it Been Discussed?
• We are your Neighbors: The Rhetoric of the Mother Mosque
• The Catholic Church and the Ethics of Immigration
• The Dollars and Sense of it: What Immigration Does to our Economy

Besides faculty members speaking about these events, the series also includes author Cristina Henríquez  discussing her novel "The Book of Unknown Americans;" and a performance of "VANG," a drama about recent Hmong immigrants who are farmers. In addition, a staff and faculty group will read and discuss the book  “Empires and Walls: Globalization, Migration and Colonial Domination,” written by Dr. Mohammad Chaichian, who is also doing "The Wall" presentation during the series.

We plan to end the series with a forum that reflects back on of what we learned along the way. I hope you can join us for many of these events. They will be announced soon and listed on the MMU web site.