Resources
Session Two: March 7, 2008
Grappling with Immigration: Re-envisioning Americans
Purpose of this session:
The purpose of this session was for participants to explore past, current, and future issues concerning immigration in Washington State and the United States.
The presenter for this session was Steven S. Miller, Partner, Cowan Miller & Lederman, in Seattle, Washington. For the past fifteen years he has limited his practice to immigration law, specializing in the needs of business and professionals with a particular emphasis on complex and difficult cases and immigration court hearings.
Guest speaker Pramila Jayapal is the founder and executive director of Hate Free Zone, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance the fundamental principals of democracy and justice through building power in immigrant communities in collaboration with key allies.
Throughout the session, Steve and Pramila brought controversial topics to the table, such as: the state of the broken immigration system; desired immigrant quotas; and the effect of immigration laws on the work place.
Session learning outcomes:
Gain knowledge about how current and past waves of immigration have contributed to the workforce and economy of our country and the Puget Sound Region. Understand the tensions that surround immigration issues—both superficially and in depth, and why they exist.
Explore the values that portray the United States as a "nation of immigrants," and what this means today.
Gain insight into how and why immigration issues are important to Puget Sound organizations, to their diversity and inclusion efforts, and to individuals personally. Understand how current and future changes in immigration law and its enforcement will impact employers and more specifically what needs to be done to prepare.
Practice using dialogue as a tool to explore and reframe immigration issues as a means to greater creativity in how we approach these issues, now and in the future.
Process:
The session began with Steve presenting information on the history of immigration in the United States, providing various immigration statistics and several scenarios that encompassed the realities of immigrants' lives.
This statistical information revealed that: people are not necessarily educated about the factual pros and cons of immigration; discrimination abounds against immigrants in and out of the labor force; integration and assimilation are two very different concepts; and laws do not necessarily uphold wage labor laws.
Steve introduced the history of immigration by dividing it into four waves, each wave increasing in size by about five million people.
We are currently situated within the fourth wave of immigration, which began in 1915. Immigrants to the US are now primarily from Asia, Central and South America. The current distribution of immigrants as of 2003 is as follows; 53.3 percent Latin America, 25.0 percent Asia, 13.7 percent Europe, 8.0 percent other regions.
After providing a variety of statistics concerning specific immigration issues such as separation of family, home ownership, and citizenship status, Steve moved on to describe and discuss anti-immigrant rhetoric that is currently in use today by anti-immigrant advocates, as well as the Top Five Immigration Myths of this campaign season. To discuss these issues, he invited Pramila to the dialogue. Pramila herself immigrated to the US at age 16 from India.
During this dialogue, myths such as, "Immigrant workers suppress the wages of American workers" were set straight with statistical evidence. For example, in response to the myth above, Pramila and Steve explained that a 2006 study found that "immigrant workers generally 'compliment'—rather than subsitute for—native workers in terms of their education and skills, immigration tends to increase the productivity, and therefore the wages, of natives."
The other myths proven false are as follows;
- Enforcement-only policies are a practical solution to the problem of undocumented immigration.
- The nation spends billions of dollars on welfare for undocumented immigrants.
- Undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than native born citizens.
- Immigrants don't "assimilate" into U.S. society.
Steve then proceeded to provide immigration statistics pertaining to Washington State. In 2005, there were 421,994 foreign born workers, making up 14 percent of Washington's workforce. According to the Department of Labor, Washington's workforce would experience little to no growth without immigrant workers. Fifty-six percent of these foreign born workers are non-citizens, and 18 percent of foreign-born families with children live under the poverty line.
After Steve's presentation and his dialogue with Pramila, participants divided up into dialogue groups. They were asked to dialogue the following questions:
- What does the American Dream mean to you? What draws people to immigrate to the United States?
- Who should we let immigrate into the US?
- How do we welcome and fully enable the participation of immigrants into our workplaces and communities? Do you have any reservations about why we would want to do this?
Participants then regrouped and Steve Miller answered any last questions.
Comments about the session:
- "It would have been great to focus more on practical ideas of inclusion in our workplaces."
- "Have soy or other non-dairy creamer—a high percentage of Asians are lactose intolerant, so it's a diversity issue."
- "Thought it was great—maybe more time given in dialogue groups."
- "Steve Miller and Pramila Jayapal were excellent speakers and handout book is useful information"
- "This session was excellent; I think we as a country have a long way to go on this subject."
Applying this information:
How can you utilize the information you acquired during the session?
Personal development:
Visit websites such as http://www.wecanstopthehate.org/ or http://www.hatefreezone.org
Follow national and state debate on fixing a broken immigration system, and identify conflicting values that underlie each argument.
Encourage others' development:
Share what you've learned today with coworkers - ask for their feedback and personal views.
Lead a discussion at a staff or team meeting about the impact of what you've learned: on your views of immigrants, how you perceive fairness and inclusion for others in the workplace, and what you think your organization or business unit could do better with diversity, fairness and inclusion.
To impact the organization's culture:
Talk with your organization's diversity leader or executive diversity champion to develop a strategy to incorporate lessons about how to enable immigrants to be successful in your organization. Make sure that community resources are easily accessible for immigrant employees.
Identify and support a champion who will lead the organization's thinking and policy about how fairness and equal opportunity ft into the overall diversity and inclusion strategy.
Session Two was the second of the 10th annual 2008 NW Diveristy Learning Series - Grappling with Immigration: Re-envisioning Americans. The Series, held in Seattle, WA, is organized by The GilDeane Group, publishers of DiversityCentral.com.
Presenters were Steven S. Miller, Partner at Cowan Miller & Lederman in Seattle, WA, and special guest Pramila Jayapal, founder and Executive Director of Hate Free Zone.
