The Flickr Refugeeresettlement Image Generatr

The page at the left side of the payment window gives instructions in several languages about how to make use of live translators in order to do the resident's business at the payment window; a sign of this moment in history - remote linguistic expertise for people from many places (refugee resettlement attracts many people to the city: not too big, not too small in population for working and children to attend school).

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Part of the history section at the Grand Rapids Public Museum features several ethnic groups arriving in the Grand Valley and settling, finding work, lodging, and gaining language skills and education. One illustration is the personal story featured here and illustrated with many layers of documents - written by hand, by computer, by fax, and so on.

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Part of the flavor of ethnic restaurant comes from the atmosphere invoked by light and color and music. At this Mexican restaurant with some specialties from Veracruz part of the color comes from cut paper art strung across the ceiling and the scenes painted on wall plates and the framed landscape in bright paints. What to visitors looks exotic might to natives of the place look like home.

In the city of Grand Rapids are many resettled refugees, immigrants and first-generation children of immigrants. Agencies that facilitate resettlement, along with mutual aid societies, seem to prefer regional cities less than 1/2 a million people since places too small offer fewer services and job prospects, while places too big are logistically overwhelming to travel long distances from home to work and back. As a result, ethnic food businesses are relatively plentiful and varied around the city, since opening a public venue for dining is something where language and culture ability are less important than food skill and business acumen. In other words, of the many kinds of small business, food-related ones are often a good way to support a family in a strange country like the USA is for people moving in from other parts of the world.

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The Grand Rapids Public Museum opened at its current location in 1993 and that is around the time the most recent immigrant dioramas in this part of the permanent exhibition. The oldest artifacts and context descriptions go back to the middle 1800s. See also, www.grpm.org/newcomers/

As with the Native American, Anishinabe - People of this Place, adjacent exhibition, all these artifacts once belonged to individual owners for personal or workplace use. Later they were forgotten in attics and basements. Finally, they came to the museum collections. But most casual visitors see each artifact and the groupings of them by theme or ethnicity as being anonymous illustrations of general ideas, developments, trends, or observations made by the curators. It is easy to overlook the personal nature of the pieces. If somehow the original, first-use owners could assemble and tour the exhibit in order to see their once private property now serving the role of museum display, they might have mixed feelings mingled with particular memories.

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On the radio this week the headline was about the number of people displaced from their land and language community by famine, war, political persecution, economic collapse, or other natural disaster singly or cumulatively. A set of 10 or 12 well-presented story panels are on display at the town library about 23 miles north of Michigan's capital, Lansing, where the coordination for services, housing and jobs is centered. Using pictures and words to personalize some of the stories of people struggling to find safety, community connection, and meaning in a confusing and strange USA society, this traveling exhibit is reaching members of the public who visit the library but who, perhaps, would otherwise know nothing of the growing numbers of people desperate for safety.

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The entry to this part of the 3rd floor of the Grand Rapids Public Museum is crowned with the thematic title that is surrounded by patchwork quilt squares that express some of the visual heritage of the various immigrant groups who have become part of the west Michigan cultural landscape.

The displays inside are filled with numerous donations and loans of personal materials and stories. Once the personal item is added to a showcase it becomes a pale illustration of an idea or serves as an example of some larger category. Only the original source of the donation or loan will know the personal meaning clinging to the item. The same depersonalizing process happens for all the cultural artifacts and natural specimens collected: instead of holding specific or personal meaning, they are relegated to 2-dimensional place holders that stand for the theme being presented.

The letter "K" at the photo's left side is part of an A to Z way to organize many topics throughout the museum. Maybe there is some irony in the "K' that stands near the immigrant exhibition: 'K is for knives and guns'. After all, the ignorance between newcomer and old-timer easily becomes fear, which readily results in "fight or flight" instincts. So the concern with weapons like knives and guns seems to fit with the museum's spotlight on immigration experiences.

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This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report: www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-635

STATE DEPARTMENT: Implementation of Grants Policies Needs Better Oversight

Many refugees come from countries where they were persecuted by people in uniforms. The police workshop teaches refugees that there is no need to fear the Spokane police. The workshop also covers safety topics and what do do in an emergency.

Photo by Rilee Yandt

This workshop was designed to teach refugees about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The workshop also teaches refugees the laws regarding drinking such as the legal drinking age.

photo by Viktoriya Aleksandrov

This workshop was designed to teach refugees about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The workshop also teaches refugees the laws regarding drinking such as the legal drinking age.

photo by Viktoriya Aleksandrov

Many refugees come from countries where they were persecuted by people in uniforms. The police workshop teaches refugees that there is no need to fear the Spokane police. The workshop also covers safety topics and what do do in an emergency.

Photo by Rilee Yandt

This workshop was designed to teach refugees about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The workshop also teaches refugees the laws regarding drinking such as the legal drinking age.

photo by Viktoriya Aleksandrov

Many refugees come from countries where they were persecuted by people in uniforms. The police workshop teaches refugees that there is no need to fear the Spokane police. The workshop also covers safety topics and what do do in an emergency.

Photo by Rilee Yandt

Many refugees come from countries where they were persecuted by people in uniforms. The police workshop teaches refugees that there is no need to fear the Spokane police. The workshop also covers safety topics and what do do in an emergency.

Photo by Rilee Yandt

The library workshop informs refugees about the services offered at Spokane's public libraries. Refugees are taught how to get a library card and are encouraged to use the library's computers and borrow books to improve their English.

photo by Viktoriya Aleksandrov

The library workshop informs refugees about the services offered at Spokane's public libraries. Refugees are taught how to get a library card and are encouraged to use the library's computers and borrow books to improve their English.

photo by Viktoriya Aleksandrov

The library workshop informs refugees about the services offered at Spokane's public libraries. Refugees are taught how to get a library card and are encouraged to use the library's computers and borrow books to improve their English.

photo by Viktoriya Aleksandrov

This Congolese family just arrived at the airport and are greeted by their caseworker and volunteers.

photo by Chad Nelson

These Eritrean men just arrived in Spokane. The bag is the only luggage brought with them to start a new life.

photo by Viktoriya Aleksandrov