August 14 PSN: Immigration Law for Oral Historians
Immigration Law for Oral Historians
Monday, August 14th
4:00-5:15pm Eastern / 1:00-2:15pm Pacific
This online event is designed to give oral historians an opportunity to address some of the concerns and challenges they face when working with vulnerable immigrant populations whose stories could reveal legally compromising information. Experts in immigration law will provide an orientation for oral historians as to the type of information that might produce legal obstacles for those who are sharing their personal stories as part of an oral history project. Then we will discuss together: How can we navigate the legal questions surrounding doing oral history with immigrant populations? How do rapidly shifting political, cultural, and legal realities for immigrant communities impact our work? When might the potential risks of documenting and sharing immigrants' stories outweigh the potential benefits?
Co-Facilitators:
Shiu-Ming Cheer
National Immigration Law Center, Senior Staff Attorney & Field Coordinator | Los Angeles
Shiu-Ming Cheer focuses on challenging immigration enforcement, promoting access to legal status, and integrating a field strategy into NILC’s issue areas. Previously, she held the positions of Soros Justice Fellow and managing attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network’s Los Angeles Detention Project and children’s attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. In those roles, she represented detained immigrants facing deportation. She was also the civil rights coordinator at South Asian Network and a public benefits attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a juris doctor from the UCLA School of Law Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. She has a long history of involvement in social justice organizing projects, campaigns, and coalitions.
Patrick O’Shea
National Immigration Law Center, Content and Research Manager | Washington, DC
Patrick O’Shea is an Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow who is developing and implementing a comprehensive communications research plan to produce a pro-immigrant narrative that will shine a nuanced light on the issues that impact low-income immigrants and their families. This project includes conducting interviews with plaintiffs, advocates, and other individuals for the creation of a story bank that will serve as a resource for NILC’s legal, policy, and development teams. Previously, he worked closely with immigrant families as a public school teacher and community liaison in Colorado, and he spent the past fourteen years teaching, studying, and conducting research in Mexico, Japan, Cuba, Chile, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Through an exploration of personal histories, his research engages with the ways in which socially transformative processes of migration (forced or voluntary) shape national cultures. He earned a PhD in Latin American Cultural Studies from the University of Manchester (UK).
Sarah K. Loose
Sarah K. Loose is an oral historian, popular educator, community organizer and mother of two. She's worked for over 15 years supporting social movements from the highlands of El Salvador to the shores of the Pacific Northwest. Currently she serves as co-coordinator of the national network, Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change and as the Sanctuary Organizer for Oregon's Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice. Together with Adriana López, Sarah also co-directs Amamantar y Migrar, an oral history project to document and address the impacts of migration on immigrant parents' experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, adoption, infantfeeding and parenting. Sarah holds a B.A. in History from Yale and an M.A. in Oral History from Columbia.
PHOTO CREDIT: Chicago Immigration Mural Photo Flickr CC by Mary Anne Enriquez