The recent dispersion of millions of migrants and refugees throughout the world has produced ongoing debates over national identity, social dynamics, and population shifts. In the last few years alone, we have witnessed how different countries respond to an influx of migrants and how these responses in turn reflect various historical, political, cultural, and economic realities. Likewise, the refugees themselves come from a broad spectrum of ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds, and this diversity embodies the incredibly complex nature of this issue. As in Europe, a crisis grips America, where we struggle to define our response to a massive, shifting humanitarian dilemma. The agenda of the current political administration in the United States, for example, foregrounds the ethics of immigration, that is, how and when states may accept or refuse displaced peoples within their borders and for which reasons they elect to do so. This is a topic that has vast ramifications. How we speak about migration, whether amongst ourselves, in classrooms, or in the media, underscores the power of narratives to alter viewpoints and, in turn, to define the subjects of a narrative, for better or worse.
In an effort to highlight the ways in which literature and, more broadly, the arts might positively inform our perspective on the current global refugee crisis, we have organized a reading and discussion with Mikhail Shishkin, one of Russia’s best living writers. His novel Maidenhair depicts the refugee experience in multifarious ways. While the refugees portrayed in Shishkin’s novel may not be “real,” they are based on his own encounters with migrants when he worked as an interpreter at the Swiss border, and he
conveys their traumas, struggles, and daily existence in ways that have resonated quite strongly with readers around the globe. There is no easy solution to a problem that involves an estimated 65.5 million forcibly displaced peoples and 22.5 million refugees. However, the stories presented in Maidenhair offer a more human(e) perspective that encourages empathy, that transcends statistics by delving deep into the experiences of the displaced, and that emphasizes the power of storytelling as a means to transform our perceptions and sympathies.
To support a process of reflection in conjunction with the reading, we have created this web page to highlight the rich diversity and heritages of our own community, both at Swarthmore College proper and in the surrounding areas. We invite you to speak about your own individual experience as a migrant or that of your
parents, grandparents, friends, or partner. We want to hear what migration means to you personally and in your own terms. Accordingly, we accept stories regarding all kinds of immigration, not one particular variety. We intend to collect a true range of voices in order to spotlight their similarities (as well as the meaningful differences) and the humanity expressed in these stories. This project seeks to celebrate the dynamic, transglobal nature of our community and its members’ backgrounds, broadly understood. It furthermore stresses the value of storytelling when exploring our shared human experience beyond national borders.
To purchase a copy of Maidenhair, click here.