(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . ‘Coming to the Plains’ Project Documents Latino Residents’ Journeys to Small-town Nebraska [1] ['Lane Wendell Fischer', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2024-06-03 During an international studies course at the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK), a student’s mother visited the class to discuss what it was like to flee El Salvador during a political conflict during the 1980s. “I looked around the classroom,” said associate professor of Spanish Michelle Warren in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “There were probably 15 students in the room and 12 of them were first-generation immigrants.” This experience sparked “Coming to the Plains,” an oral history project that now illuminates the rich, diverse experiences of Spanish-speaking immigrants in Nebraska. The initiative, which began in 2017, was led by Warren, along with University Archivist Laurina Weisse, who assisted with the planning, execution, and preservation of the interviews, and Associate Professor of Communications Jacob Rosdail, who helped film and produce video installations of the project. It was funded, in part, by the University of Nebraska system, Humanities Nebraska, and the Nebraska Arts Council. “Our archives tend to very much reflect the status quo,” Wisse said. “I wanted to make sure our archives are more representative of the actual communities around us.” The Daily Yonder has previously reported that immigrants and refugees are a growing part of small towns across the country, where they help fill important roles as workers, leaders, and neighbors. But in small communities where important social services like healthcare, education, and public transportation can be more limited, support for the specific needs of immigrant families is not always accessible. The first step to addressing the challenges that immigrant families face is by understanding the experiences and concerns of the immigrant community — and to establish a sense of place and belonging for them in these communities, Warren said. From the very beginning, the project was designed to be inclusive and participatory. Latina students at UNK played a crucial role in working and volunteering for the project. Some ended up being interviewed themselves, and others helped bring friends and family members into the project. Community advisors were hired to serve in each of the major communities represented in the project to help coordinate interviews and identify additional participants, creating a snowball effect that enriched the project with diverse voices. Ensuring that the process was not extractive was paramount, Weisse said. The team provided participants with full control over their stories, including how they identified themselves — be it anonymously, by first name, or full name. The interview questions were open-ended, allowing interviewees to shape their narratives and discuss what they felt comfortable sharing. “It’s easy to think, oh, I want to protect them,” Weisse said. “We made sure that was clearly explained, but then let people make their own choices. They’re all grown adults and they deserve to have that same right.” The interviews could also be conducted in either Spanish or English, which required diligent and thoughtful translation. Sammy Jarquín Palacios Fox started working on the project while studying for her Master’s in Spanish Education at UNK. As a first generation immigrant from Mexico, the interviews resonated with Jarquín. “The stories touched my heart,” she said. “Just to know the way people came here for a better life to help their kids and the many reasons they had, that was heartbreaking.” With her expertise in both English and Spanish, Jarquín aimed to preserve the sentimental parts of each interview that can easily be lost in translation. “We have different sentiments in different countries,” she said. “I had to translate that and keep the meaning.” Jarquín’s translations proved important for the ultimate exhibition of the project in communities across the state. With 88 banners and an accompanying video installation, the exhibit shares only direct quotes from the participants — no summaries or paraphrases. “Everything we present is fully bilingual,” Weisse said, explaining that on one side of the banner is the original quote in either Spanish or English, and the other side of the banner shares the translation. “We wanted to make sure that all of our participants could access each other’s materials and find a sense of solidarity,” she said. Participants and their families were invited to the “red carpet” debut exhibit premiered at the UNK library, with a showing of the documentary version of the exhibit at the World Theater in Kearny. Later exhibitions were held in public libraries, schools, and other academic and civic spaces across the state, with primary focus being on the communities in which many of the participants lived. “We wanted to make sure that the people being interviewed felt that they had something that was worthy of becoming a traveling exhibit,” Warren said. “I hope that the stories communicated in the project create venues for communication and for humanization of people who are frequently villainized or are just unknown.” The Coming to the Plains traveling exhibit also features a video installation of the oral histories captured during the project. Click here to watch the complete exhibit video. (Photo courtesy of Coming to the Plains) The project has since morphed into an avenue to address some of the issues that rural participants expressed in their interviews. Using the relationships built through the project, Warren is working with partners at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Latina led community groups and organizations to begin addressing issues like physical and mental healthcare, education, and food insecurity. “On one hand, creating space for representation and knowing that these people are our neighbors is important,” Warren said. “But also taking that next step of making sure you are serving and working with those neighbors is even more important.” In the next phase of Coming to the Plains, the team plans to expand to other immigrant communities, such as an emerging group of young Somali students whose families have settled in Nebraska as refugees. Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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