HOME Conversations on Forced Displacement 2022-2023

Saturday, October 22, 2022 – 11 am-12:30 pm
Saturday, November 12, 2022 – 11 am-12:30 pm
February 18, 2023 - 11 am - 12:30 pm
March 18, 2023 - 11 am - 12:30 pm

Photo credit for home page: Tina Hartung

Virtual.
Registration: Free but advance registration is required. Click here to register.

The HOME Refugee Steering Committee continues its virtual HOME Conversations series in 2023 with more HOME: Conversations on Forced Displacement. The series continues to emphasize both active dialogue and actionable steps. Each conversation takes place in two parts, with a virtual panel discussion on an aspect of forced displacement followed, a month later, by a discussion about taking action.The series is moderated by HOME Refugee Steering Committee member Paul Vang.

HOME: Conversations on Forced Displacement examines relevant issues in contemporary refugee resettlement at the local level and across the globe. We hope to engage community members in understanding specific refugee resettlement crises as well as the larger issues of forced displacement, including its various contexts, while also providing an opportunity for participants to learn how they can get involved in local, on-the-ground efforts to aid refugee families and communities as they resettle among us.

As with all HOME Conversations, artists will be integral to our discussions and action plans, and we will be seeking ways to bring together diverse voices to forge solutions that extend beyond a specific refugee population.

About the Moderator | Paul Vang serves as the Civic Engagement Director at HAWA, the Hmong American Women’s Association. He is a former science educator and is passionate about helping to build power within the Southeast Asian community by engaging in conversations with people at their doors, hosting educational events that are open to the public, and educating elected officials on the Southeast Asian population here in Milwaukee.

Saturday, October 22, 2022 – 11 am-12:30 pm
Saturday, November 12, 2022 – 11 am-12:30 pm
Ukraine, Origins of Conflict and Its Continuation
Click here to register.

Conflict in Ukraine has been intrinsically tied to the identity and history of its people and the region, shaped by geopolitics and relations to neighboring Russia. About 8 million internally displaced Ukrainians and 7 million Ukrainian refugees have been affected by the Russo-Ukrainian War which began in 2014 has now extended for over eight years. These conversations on Ukraine will discuss the root, the complexity, and the continuation of the country's crisis through the lens of Ukrainian scholars, artists and activists. In October, we present a panel discussion, and in November, we guide participants in an action-based discussion with a focus on impacting change in Milwaukee, both led by moderator Paul Vang.

Recommended Readings
Missing the Home You Needed to Leave, New York Times, November 2, 2022, link
The Words About Ukraine That Americans Need to Hear, The Atlantic, October 24, 2022, link
‘War crime:’ Industrial-scale destruction of Ukraine culture, CNBC, October 9, 2022, link
Ukraine unveils stamps celebrating Kerch bridge explosion - hours after the attack, The Telegraph, October 8, 2022, link
Leipzig: Outrage over verbal attacks on Ukrainian refugees, Deutsche Welle (DW), October 12, 2022, link
Ukrainian refugees to enter US surpasses 150,000. Long-term survival is a big concern. Here's why., USA Today, August 23, 2022, link
Supporting Ukrainian Journalists on the Frontlines of War, Internews, August 10, 2022, link
Why Russia’s War in Ukraine Is a Genocide, July 28, 2022, Foreign Affairs, link
In Ukraine and Neighboring Countries, Democracy Activists Are Prepared for a Long Struggle, Freedom House, June 9, 2022, link
'You can't imagine the conditions' - Accounts emerge of Russian detention camps, BBC, April 25, 2022, link
Syrians who saw Russia commit ‘the most egregious atrocities' warn that Ukraine 'is a repeat of what happened to us,' expert says, Business Insider, April 11, 2022, link
How Ukraine’s Greatest Novelist Is Fighting for His Country, The New York Times Magazine, May 24, 2022, link
Will Ukraine’s tragedy spur UN Security Council reform?, Brookings, March 3, 2022, link
Street Artists Are Creating Moving Murals in Support of Ukraine, My Modern Met, March 3, 2022, link

Efforts & Relevant Resources
BIPOC Ukraine, link
Come Back Alive, link
HOME Book Discussion Group: Sonya Bilocerkowycz’s On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine, Lynden Sculpture Garden, 2022, link
Kyiv Independent, link
Misha Tyutyunik, link
Sonya Bilocerkowyz, link
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko, Ukrainian poet, link
The Earth is Blue as an Orange, Iryna Tsilyk, dir., link
The war in Ukraine, Free Press Unlimited, link
The Ukrainian Institute of America, link
Ukrainian Spaces, Podcast, link
Uniting for Ukraine process, USCIS, link
Wisconsin Ukrainians, link

About the Panelists
Sonya Bilocerkowycz is a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow and the author of On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine (2019), winner of the Gournay Prize for a debut essay collection. Bilocerkowycz's work has appeared in Guernica, Ninth Letter, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Colorado Review, The Normal School, and elsewhere. She has served as a Fulbright fellow in Belarus, an educational recruiter in the Republic of Georgia, and an instructor at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine. At present she teaches creative writing at SUNY Geneseo.

Halyna Salapata is a Ukrainian who moved to the United States of America in 1999. Salapata is a mother to three children and raised them to be proud Ukrainian Americans. Since 2014, she has been a Ukrainian community organizer and coordinator, and in February 2022, her efforts have gone to assisting efforts against the war in Ukraine. Salapata is also a board member of Wisconsin Ukrainians Inc., a Wisconsin-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 

Misha Tyutyunik is a Ukrainian-born painter, muralist, street artist, illustrator and most recently, virtual reality artist living and working out of Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Pratt Institute, he works with communities around the world to create public art and is regularly commissioned to paint and illustrate for many reputable brands, publications and collectors.

Tyutyunik works in a variety of styles and media to produce pieces that are both visually striking and thought provoking. His work, while tailored to the task at hand, always retains his persona and aesthetic. He balances his life between corporate endeavors, public art and personal work, often painting with youth and community organizations and exhibiting in galleries throughout New York and abroad. He recently completed a Fulbright grant abroad in Ukraine, and was one of five artists chosen to paint a sanitation vehicle for the NYC Department of Sanitation as part of their 'trucks of art' initiative.

Karina Tweedell is an activist and a volunteer with Milwaukee Ukrainians. She immigrated to the US from Donetsk, Ukraine in 2007 after first arriving here as a high school exchange student and then studying at Purdue University and then Cardinal Stritch University. She is now a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher and an avid volunteer with Wisconsin Ukrainians, a non-profit organization helping the people of Ukraine with humanitarian and medical aid. Karina manages a Telegram channel for Milwaukee Ukrainians, where she shares about the organization's upcoming events.

Saturday, February 18, 2023 – 11 am-12:30 pm
Saturday, March 18, 2023 – 11 am-12:30 pm
LGBTQIA+, Diversity, Intersectionality, and the "well-founded fear"
Click here to register.

People with a sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual characteristic (SOGIESC) that does not conform to the sociocultural norms of their surroundings typically face public and institutional stigma. Those who are also refugees confront multiple and compounding forms of discrimination and societal exclusion; often, it is their LGBTQIA+ identity that leads to the dire need to have their refugee or asylee status legally determined. According to UNHCR 2021, LGBTQIA+ refugees are also at a higher risk of not having access to services that are available for all refugees, and they may require specific or additional resources. This session looks into, as well as beyond, the diversity of gender and sexual identities that nest beneath the LGBTQIA+ umbrella and identifies areas where the need for international protection and, in many cases, resettlement applies. In February, we present these issues with a panel of LGBTQIA+ refugee artists, advocates, and thought leaders. In March, we guide participants in an action-based discussion with a focus on addressing biases and impacting change in Milwaukee. Both sessions are led by moderator Paul Vang.

About the Participants
Amal Haj Sleman is a queer poet from Syria who is currently a refugee in Malaysia. They have performed at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, University of Malaya, and at open mics under Nose InkQbate and Jack It, and were featured at Jalan Dalam Open Mic in Malaysia and Spoke & Bird in Singapore. They have also co-organized open mic platforms including Poetry Jam Penang. They won second place at the Migrant Worker & Refugee Poetry Competition 2021, and came in second at the Queerlah Lumpur Poetry Slam 2019, and were crowned champion at Merdekarya Fest 2019. They had a reading showcase for the Voices program for women writers at the Georgetown Literary Festival 2019 in Penang, Malaysia were their piece, ‘A Damascus Jasmine,’ was featured and published in the Voices: Reflections 2019 chapbook. They have been featured and published in Burning Press House, Over-Communicate Magazine NZ and Translation Migration Multilingual Poems of Movement. 

Ammar Khalifa (b. 1986, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), is a Sudanese artist, illustrator, graphic designer and animator with a background in Mechanical Engineering and Creative Multimedia. For over a decade he resided in Malaysia, in the eclectic, historic cities of Kuala Lumpur and George Town where he was a major contributor in the local art community. As of July 2022, he is based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, also known as the refugee capital of America. In 2016, his first solo exhibit, Season of Migration to the East, was inspired by Tayeb Salih's seminal literary work, Season of Migration to the North. Khalifa examines expressions of pre-, post- and cross-colonial narratives, such as migration and home, belonging and estrangement, and exile and assimilation. Khalifa's oeuvre draws upon traditional, calligraphy-inspired figures, including the human anatomy, juxtaposed against contemporary, culturally-charged and controversial interpretations of his subject.

Elnaz Javani is an Iranian artist and educator currently residing in Chicago. She works between the media of textiles, drawing, print, soft objects and installations. Her practice revolves around the fragmentation of identity and place, power dynamics and labor. She holds an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she was the recipient of the New Artist Society Merit Scholarship, and a BFA from Tehran University of Art. Javani was awarded Faculty Enrichment Grants from SAIC 2022 - 2021, and was named one of Chicago's Break Out Artists of the year for 2022, she has received a Spark Grant from Chicago Artist Coalition 2021, the Kala Art Institute Fellowship Award and Residency Grant 2020, the Define American Art Fellowship Grant 2020, and the Hyde Park Art Center Flex Space Residency Award 2019. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally in the USA, Spain, Iran, France, Colombia, Turkey, UAE, Germany, Canada, and Switzerland.

Recommended Readings
Asylum: A Memoir & Manifesto, 2022, Edafe Okporo, link and link
New Study on LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers highlights the need for data and research, Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, July 7, 2022, link
US: LGBT Asylum Seekers in Danger at the Border, May 31, 2022, Human Rights Watch, link
LGBTQ refugees fleeing Ukraine face discrimination in countries with anti-gay laws, March 4, 2022, NPR, link
Need to Know Guidance: Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer Persons in Forced Displacement, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 2021, link 
The Refugee Tree: A Queer Journey from Syria to Canada, Danny Ramadan, TEDxSFU, March 9, 2017, link
Unsettled: Seeking Refuge In America, 2019, film, link
UN rights experts urge more protection for LGBTI refugees, July 1, 2019, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), United Nations, link
Forgotten twice: the untold story of LGBT refugees, Jan 19, 2018, World Economic Forum, link
The Refugee Tree: A Queer Journey from Syria to Canada, Danny Ramadan, TEDxSFU, March 9, 2017, link
LGBT refugee resettlement in the US: emerging best practices, Scott Portman and Daniel Weyl, Forced Migration Review, link

Efforts & Relevant Resources
Ammar Khalifa, artist, link and link
Elnaz Javani, artist, link and link
Amal Haj Sleman, poet, link
Diverse & Resilient, link
Hmong American Women's Association, link
Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, link