I was on my way to falling asleep one October night when the alarming buzz of my phone startled me awake. I considered ignoring it, but I decided not to. So in a groggily voice, I replied, “Hello?”

Given that nobody my age really calls other people my age, I was expecting an emergency. Instead, my friend Joe excitedly posed a question: Would I like to partner with him to participate in an online course about immigration?

A while ago, I had seen an email  that described these sorts of online courses, but, although they looked like something remotely interesting, I knew that my schedule was too tight for that. Plus, I wasn’t sure that I needed yet another responsibility centered around migration. But Joe happened to have called me at that point of night when the irrational part of my brain takes over.

“Sure.”

I would later find out that Council of Public and Liberal Arts Colleges, aka COPLAC, is a partnership between liberal arts colleges and universities. Every semester, they offer a number of online classes to students from these universities, which includes my university, Truman State. Up to eight pairs of students from different universities meet via Zoom, which is like a more interactive form of Skype, in order to learn about the digital humanities and to support each other on a semester long project which involves creating a website. For this particular class, titled Voices of Migration, we are to create a website that shares the stories of migrants in our area.

Kirksville seemed like the perfect place to be for a project like this. About five years ago, an influx of immigrants, mainly from Democratic Republic of the Congo, began coming to Kirksville. They came over here through something called the Diversity Visa, which is a program that encourages immigrants from countries that don’t have a high rate of emigration to the United States. Once a citizen of one of these countries complete a certain level of schooling and turns the proper age, they are eligible to be entered into a lottery. Those who win the lottery are given the opportunity to apply for a visa to come live in the United States. Thanks to personal connections and a nearby meat processing plant, Kirksville soon became full of new immigrants.

When I first heard about this influx of immigrants, I was a senior in high school who was more concerned with graduation than politics and social change. I imagined myself spending a weekend or two with a couple of families, going over verb charts and later feeling good about myself. Of course, the situation wasn’t that simple. There were hundreds of people, and a lack of English was just the base of the problems Kirksville was facing. These immigrants are not refugees, which means that Kirksville is not given any government support in order to help integrate these immigrants. As a result, local businesses, schools, and community members continue to struggle with the language barrier and cultural differences. People on both sides relied heavily on Truman for translation, interpretation and English classes, but with crazy schedules and a lack of funds, it’s nearly impossible for French or Linguistics professors to be available whenever there is a problem. 

I joined the scene in September of my freshman year, after joining a club called Hablantes Unidos (now United Speakers), an organization that offers free English classes in the community. .  I soon found myself at the public schools, at weekend English classes, and even at the home of a Congolese family. I was fascinated at how excited some of the immigrants were to learn English, and elated to get this cultural experience. But as I became more and more involved, I began to see and experience the exhaustion that everyone felt. It’s hard to learn English when you are working at a factory twelve hours a day. It’s hard help out when you have classes and homework to worry about, not to mention the fact that ESL was becoming more than just verb charts. As much as I have learned in the past two and a half years about the Congolese culture and about teaching English, I learned just as much about the complications of migration.

Immigration is sometimes portrayed as a black and white issue: We should either accept immigrants or we shouldn’t.  I used to fall strongly on the side of “we should accept all immigrants,”  and a part of me wishes that I could still think like that. But on the contrary, I’m not at all supportive of the idea that we should not accept immigrants. What I do agree with is that immigration is a complicated issue, withmore levels than anyone would want to deal with. Some effects are good and some effects are bad. Yet, these effects exist, and it’s too late to ignore them. 

So, for this project, part my goal is to give a voice to immigrants, but I also want to give a voice to the entire community.  Through my COPLAC Digital website, I hope allow both the immigrants and the locals to understand the issues that come with immigration and finally, to go beyond individual opinions. To peel back the layers and find solutions to our disagreements. To get to know eachother better. Because by hiding behind an opinion that denies those effects doesn’t do any good, we accomplish nothing. This website is not meant to support one side or another, but rather to foster solutions that better our lives and unite our community. Only after that can we begin to see and fully appreciate the advantages of these merging cultures.