How A Diverse Community Tackles Migration
Dispatches from Clarksville, Maryland USA
My name is Julia Bryant and I am from Clarksville / Columbia in the state of Maryland in the United States of America. Maryland is located in the northeast of the U.S. (even though some like to consider us a southern state). I didn’t go far for school and decided to attend the University of Maryland, in College Park, located roughly eight miles from Washington D.C.
About Columbia
I pride myself on being from a place that prides itself on its diversity. Although Clarksville is my postal address, Columbia has been my home. I identify with that group because it is so diverse in not only ethnicity and race, but also in ideas. I have learned so much from the people around me. Columbia is incredibly diverse as a city. It was a planned community and the vision for it was to be an integrated community during times of segregation.
Me and the digital culture
Being a millennial, I have grown up encompassed and immersed into the digital culture and have been using it heavily since around the age of 10. Media has taken over the lives of almost everyone I know who is around the same age as me. Most of my non-journalism friends do not get their news from anywhere except for social media, and trust and rely on the idea that it is all true and unbiased. In addition to just news, social media has caused us to become incredibly invested in our phones or our computers almost 24/7. I am always plugged into technology, because if you are not, you will miss out on what is going on around you because the digital sphere is where everyone else is.
My community is very active on Facebook, and uses that as its main communication form with those throughout the city. For example, I worked as a lifeguard for many years and the way that we communicated pool closings was through Twitter and Facebook, because that is what people from our area read. People from my community, at least the millennials that I know, use Facebook for the news. It is very common for people to only read what is going on from social media. Although that is part of the problem because people get the information that they agree with.
What does this all have to do with migration?
Migration has not impacted me personally, however, it has impacted my community. Maryland was faced with almost 40 refugees seeking asylum in our state, and our governor, Larry Hogan, decided that he did not feel comfortable letting in anymore, citing safety as a concern. This sparked two very distinct reactions from Marylanders: one of frustration, and another of praise. In addition, UMD is located in Prince George’s County, Maryland, where many undocumented immigrants live and are now in fear for possible deportation with the current political climate. There has been a decline in school attendance because students are worried that their legal status will be found out and they will be relocated.
Migration rocked (a word I don’t even see fitting because it really wasn’t much of an impact, but some citizens were livid) my area. We have many immigrants, mostly from Asia, yet many people from my area are anti-immigrant. It seems that at its core, the issue is of where the immigrants are coming from. Asian countries? Fine. Syria, hell no! The community was created specifically to be inclusive, but over time has re-segregated based on class and groups per income and level. Because many people are fed their information based on their political affiliation, it is hard to break free. In addition, within my community, and similar to around the world and even what I have seen here at the Academy, like cultures tend to stick together. It is hard to see the world from a different point of view if you are surrounded by people who agree with you. Maryland as a whole has a long way to go… the first step is probably for the governor to not make inflammatory statements and be a bit more welcoming. As for Columbia and Clarksville, it is our job to be more aware of our biases and look for opposing ideas rather than dismiss them as crazy.
This personal narrative was written at the 2016 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. It exists as part of a digital publication which explores how personal stories and human connections can enable us and others to be more inclusive, responsive, and understanding of migrants and the socio-political-cultural impacts of migration.
