Documenting The Deportation Crisis in Wisconsin
Mentor 1
Rachel Buff
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
5-4-2019 1:30 PM
End Date
5-4-2019 3:30 PM
Description
The Documenting Deportation taskforce started as an internationally coordinated effort after the election of Donald Trump to document deportation in the media by collecting press accounts of deportation in all fifty states during the calendar year 2017, and this phase was completed over the summer. After the completion of the initial project, our international partners did not wish to continue the project; however, the Documenting Deportation taskforce at UWM recognized that immigration and deportation were becoming even more hotly contested issues, and so we have decided to continue the project. This year’s continuation of the project includes three components: ongoing documentation of immigration rhetoric and deportation in Wisconsin, a collaborative oral history project; and assisting deportation defense lawyers with a Northern Triangle Research project. Our main project for the past semester has been documenting and analyzing Wisconsin press accounts of deportation and immigration. By storing related press accounts in the Internet Archive, we are beginning to build a database of press that is searchable via keywords or tags. This is an ongoing process, and the mission of this project is to offer people the opportunity to see how media’s rhetoric can shape the general public’s opinion of the contemporary refugee and migrant crisis. Our main priority going forward is conducting oral history interviews with migrant activists and their allies because it is of a time-sensitive nature. This is because the migrant activists we will be interviewing are primarily elderly or sick. Our mission with these interviews is to preserve memories of experienced migrant activists by speaking to them about their migration experience, life in the United States, and their relationship to migrant rights organizing and migrant rights organizations.
Documenting The Deportation Crisis in Wisconsin
Union Wisconsin Room
The Documenting Deportation taskforce started as an internationally coordinated effort after the election of Donald Trump to document deportation in the media by collecting press accounts of deportation in all fifty states during the calendar year 2017, and this phase was completed over the summer. After the completion of the initial project, our international partners did not wish to continue the project; however, the Documenting Deportation taskforce at UWM recognized that immigration and deportation were becoming even more hotly contested issues, and so we have decided to continue the project. This year’s continuation of the project includes three components: ongoing documentation of immigration rhetoric and deportation in Wisconsin, a collaborative oral history project; and assisting deportation defense lawyers with a Northern Triangle Research project. Our main project for the past semester has been documenting and analyzing Wisconsin press accounts of deportation and immigration. By storing related press accounts in the Internet Archive, we are beginning to build a database of press that is searchable via keywords or tags. This is an ongoing process, and the mission of this project is to offer people the opportunity to see how media’s rhetoric can shape the general public’s opinion of the contemporary refugee and migrant crisis. Our main priority going forward is conducting oral history interviews with migrant activists and their allies because it is of a time-sensitive nature. This is because the migrant activists we will be interviewing are primarily elderly or sick. Our mission with these interviews is to preserve memories of experienced migrant activists by speaking to them about their migration experience, life in the United States, and their relationship to migrant rights organizing and migrant rights organizations.
