When launching a news site that covered the refugee community of Lincoln, Neb., professor Tim Anderson at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications expected his team of students to be seen as unwelcome outsiders. Instead, Lincoln’s New Voices has been met with nothing but enthusiasm, he reports.
“Perhaps I am too cynical, but I really thought that at some point we would run into someone among the people who work with refugees in Lincoln who would ask us what we thought we were doing in trying to create media for the refugee community,” Anderson wrote. “I even had a response ready that touched on our state’s history with immigrants and such regional literary notables as Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz and John Neihardt.”
“Perhaps I am too cynical, but I really thought that at some point we would run into someone among the people who work with refugees in Lincoln who would ask us what we thought we were doing in trying to create media for the refugee community.” – Tim Anderson
But he didn’t need to use those facts. His team has been met with nothing but enthusiasm from officials, public schools and the refugees themselves, he noted. In fact, their conversations have led them to shift their major focus from stories “about” the immigrant community, to stories “for” thee.
Lincoln’s population of ethnic minorities and immigrants has grown 24 percent in recent years, a change that demands new forms of connecting and reporting. Students, community members and high school students from immigrant families are working with the university to provide mobile and web news to the growing minority audience.
Anderson and Phil Willet, an advertising instructor, decided to address the challenge by forming a college course entitled “Special Topics: New Voices.” The students are almost evenly divided between journalism and advertising majors and are combining their skills to conduct audience research in the refugee communities.
Since launching the course in August, Anderson has seen significant progress in gathering information from and about the three primary groups: Karen refugees from Burma, Iraqi refugees and Sudanese refugees.
First, Anderson and Willet earned the cooperation of Lincoln Public Schools representatives. The New Voices students were able to meet with three refugees in the English Language Learner classes – offered by LPS, these courses serve over 2,000 students from 51 countries, speaking 49 languages.
The three refugee liaisons came from the project’s target groups: Daniel Wal, from the Sudanese community; Wah Wah Moo, from the Karen community; and Mohammed Ainajen, from the Iraqi community.
“These three people, who have continued to be sources of information for our students, told fascinating stories of their own journeys to Lincoln,” Anderson says. “Ainajen, for example, responded when the first President Bush asked Iraqis to stand up and tell Saddam Hussein they wanted a new government. When the U.S. troops went home, Ainajen left Iraq and resettled in Nashville, Tenn., making his way to Lincoln three years later because he said he had heard there marriageable Iraqi women in Lincoln. He found this to be true and is now married and the father of three children.”
Students are learning not only from refugees themselves, but from Nebraskan professionals who work within the communities as well.
Karen Parde, refugee coordinator for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, talked to the New Voices class, providing the students with background on what her program does for refugees in Lincoln and throughout the state.
Kit Boesch, administrator for the Lancaster County Human Services Department and the New Americans Task Force in Lincoln, provided much useful assistance in locating community members who will become part of a focus group in preparation for audience research.
According to Anderson, all the officials the class has contacted regarding the project, including representatives from the governor’s office, have expressed great interest in the course and the news and information website they intend to create.
With cooperation comes collaboration: LPS and the New Americans Task Force are interested in becoming partners with the course’s website. Both see ways in which they can provide ongoing content for the site.
“It appears now that we may be of more assistance to [the refugees] by telling them about us rather than the other way around.” – Tim Anderson
Within the Lincoln Public Schools, students in ELL classes produce video podcasts that are streamed only on the LPS website, providing them with a very limited audience. In partnership with Lincoln’s New Voices, the podcasts would be streamed on the course’s website as well.
The New Americans Task Force, which encompasses more than 40 participating agencies and another ten human services agencies, is a network of public and private organizations and community members that serves to support new immigrants in the Lincoln area. According to Anderson, the Task Force has been trying, with limited success, to create and maintain a website, and members are excited about developing links between the course site and their own as a way of improving both.
Beginning in October, the New Voices students will be conducting focus group interviews in each of the three communities, starting with high school students.
Right now, the journalism students are creating text, video and audio content for the website and to use during the focus groups. According to Anderson, their current stories include:
- Department of Motor Vehicles: Because research indicates that transportation issues, particularly with cars, cause refugees high levels of discontent, one student is preparing a how-to video of the DMV experience.
- ELL Courses: A student is analyzing what the English Language Learner classes offer to the nearly 2,200 non-English speakers in the Lincoln Public Schools.
- Soccer: One student is looking at the universal sport of soccer and what it means to the Karen, Iraqi and Sudanese refugees in their new home.
- Nebraskan Culture: Students have found that refugees are interested more in the cultures of Lincoln, Nebraska and the Great Plains than in telling their own stories.
Anderson says this last story accounts for “the biggest surprise” they’ve encountered.
“We thought a side benefit of our project might be bringing the stories of the refugee communities to a wider audience among the dominant community,” he says. “It appears now that we may be of more assistance to [the refugees] by telling them about us rather than the other way around.”
However, their new discovery may provide more opportunities for partnership with outside sources. The NATF website is designed to bring the refugee story to the general Lincoln population and Boesch believes the two sites can work well together to provide both perspectives for the entire community. The Task Force site will bring news and information to the dominant population, while the Lincoln’s New Voices site will bring news and information to the refugees.
- Rachel Karas
