collaborator perspectives: Tennessee Immigrants and Criminal Justice

June Rostan, Past Executive Director, Southern Empowerment Project

Working on this pilot project with McKenna, Kimberley and MIchael has been delightful. Together with their professor, Fran Ansley, and the Advisory Committee from Latinos Unidos (Stephanie House and Santos Aguilar) we all worked as a team. Most of the hard work was up to the terrific trio from the law school. They conducted the interviews with immigrants and their families and with people working in the criminal justice system in East Tennessee. What I really loved was seeing them learn about the problems that immigrants have and hearing their passion for the problems immigrants encounter in getting treated fairly. It is an honor to have worked with them.

Honduran immigrant who was interviewed by law student team members

I enjoyed speaking with the students who are working on this project. It makes me feel good to know that there are people who are interested in understanding the situation that we face as immigrants, and it is especially good to know that there are people interested in supporting our communities. I felt good after talking with the students because I had been able to share realities and experiences that were new for them. I would be interested in talking again with U.S.-born people about my life and my experiences, as long as there are no police around! Also, sometime I think it would be nice to see the students again in a different setting and to be able to talk about things unrelated to their work, more as friends.

Spring Miller, research assistant to Professor Ansley

I arrived in Knoxville mid-way through the spring semester and was amazed by how deeply the students were engaged with this project. They had uncovered lots of rich information and stories, and were pursuing a complex and expanding web of contacts within the immigrant and criminal justice communities. I was very impressed by their resourcefulness. The challenges of taking on an investigation like this in a region where the presence of fast-growing immigrant communities is still new and mysterious to most residents and institutions are great. The organizations dedicated to serving and promoting the well-being of these communities are still in fledgling stages themselves. In many ways, these students were "going out on a limb," forcing conversations about what is still a largely invisible phenomenon, and delving into a complicated and -- at least in this city -- largely uncharted world of issues. These students didn't hold back, though; they really allowed themselves to be affected by and to grow from what were probably somewhat unsettling new experiences. I really admire them as people, and I appreciated having the chance to support in small ways their good work.

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