Exhibit illuminates immigrants’ stories
When he was 10 years old, Atif Qarni, Virginia’s Secretary of Education, came to the United States from Pakistan. He went on to serve in the U.S. Marines during the Iraq War.
Bol Gai Deng, who works at a Richmond home-improvement store, survived the destruction of his Sudanese town when he was seven years old, fled to America and settled in Virginia. Today he’s campaigning to be the next president of South Sudan.
These are just two of many stories of first-generation immigrants and refugees who arrived in Virginia after 1976 that are told in a new Library of Virginia exhibition highlighting the commonwealth’s changing demographics.
“New Virginians: 1619-2019 & Beyond,” which opened in December, is built around more than 30 video interviews, each of which illuminates the personal story of a Virginian born abroad.
“Some of them were fleeing oppression, war or genocide. Others came seeking greater opportunities for themselves and their…children,” wrote interviewer David Bearinger in the library’s magazine. Bearinger and Pat Jarrett, who filmed the interviews, work for Virginia Humanities, the state’s humanities council.
“This journey has to be shared,” said Karla Almendarez-Ramos, in her video. A Honduran native, she is the City of Richmond’s human services coordinator and manager of its office of multicultural affairs. “It’s the only way to get stronger.”
Immigrants play a growing role
Fewer than 50 years ago, only one in every 100 Virginians had been born outside of the United States. Today, that number is closer to one in eight, reflecting about one million residents.
Furthermore, immigrants make up one in six Virginia workers; one in five self-employed business owners; two in five college graduates; and nearly 20 percent of employees in the state’s accommodations and food-service industries, according to research conducted by Barbara Batson, the library’s exhibitions coordinator.
Emigrating from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, the people interviewed for the exhibit were selected based on the diversity of their personal stories and their countries of origin.
They include medical doctors, teachers, college professors, a world-renowned artist, a computer engineer and two former U.S. Marines.
Some immigrants arrived with only a handful of possessions; “in a couple of cases, nothing but the clothes they were wearing,” Bearinger said.
In their videos, immigrants reveal the circumstances that led them to leave their homes; their arrival in Virginia; the challenges and obstacles they faced or overcame; answer questions about identity, assimilation, language and culture; and explain what it means to them to be a Virginian (and an American).
“Two things surprised me most in this research,” Bearinger said in an email. “One is how willing, even eager, people were to share their immigration stories, and how thoughtful they were in describing what these experiences — good and bad — had meant to them.
“The other was the way that gratitude became a universal theme, expressed in one way or another by every person we interviewed — gratitude for the privilege of being part of this country, and a desire to give back.”
Rounding out the picture
To complement the video excerpts that may be viewed at the exhibit, a display of objects that have special meaning for the immigrants gives a glimpse into their personal lives.
For example, there’s “a graduation stole given to Isabel Castillo by her grandmother to celebrate Castillo’s receipt of an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco; a copy of Wedding Song, a memoir by Farideh Goldin of her journey from Iran to the United States; a mask crafted by Ganna Natsag for a tsam (“masked dance”) ceremony practiced in his native Mongolia; and a stringed instrument called a charango from Bolivia,” Batson wrote.
In addition, a brief historical summary of immigration to the commonwealth is on view in the library’s lobby.
“The composite portrait of Virginia is becoming more complex, challenging an older, simpler understanding of what it means to be a Virginian,” Batson wrote for the exhibit’s overview. “The challenge and opportunity is to reconsider what kind of place Virginia is — and what kind of place it should be.”
The New Virginians exhibit runs through December 7. The Library of Virginia is located at 800 E. Broad St., in Richmond, and is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission and parking are free.
Look for information about exhibition-related events and programs on the library’s website at lsa.virginia.gov, and on its Facebook page. For more information, call the events line at (804) 692-3999 or (804) 692-3500.
The complete interviews may be viewed on the library’s YouTube channel and on its website at edu.lva.virginia.gov/changemakers/new-virginians.
2019 is the year the Commonwealth commemorates the 400th anniversary of several major historical events — among them, the bringing of the first Africans to Virginia as slaves in 1619, and the first women to arrive in the 17th-century colony in significant number in the 1620s.
Visit americanevolution2019.com to learn more about how Virginia is engaging with diverse individuals and organizations to tell these stories from its past.
