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IRIM staff lead discussions at An Immigrant Class
Cast of An Immigrant Class.
Photo: Deone Jahnke
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All performances of An Immigrant Class at Chicago's Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theatre this spring were followed by discussions with community guests, twice with staff of Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries (IRIM), a Church World Service affiliate.
This new play presents four of the 20 first-person stories in the book An Immigrant Class: Oral Histories from Chicago's Newest Immigrants by Jeff Libman. The book features a diversity of refugee and immigrant stories and won the Chicago Book Clinic's 2005 Crystal Book Award for excellence in non-fiction.
Shawn Douglass, Associate Artistic Director of Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, adapted the book for the stage. The mission of the company's "think theatre" is to "engage audiences with the emotional and ethical complexities of society through the provocative power of great theatrical language."
Gregory Wangerin, IRIM's Executive Director, said the post-performance discussions during the play's March 22 through April 15 run "helped to bring refugee and immigration issues to light in a new and creative way. We were excited to be involved in this project. The opportunity lent itself well to our efforts in finding non-traditional partnerships in the community." Wangerin and Dr. Edwin Silverman, Chief, Illinois Bureau of Refugee & Immigration Services, led the post-performance discussion April 13.
 Left to right: Jeff Libman, Shawn Douglass, Elizabeth Fulmer, and Mayon Ashien in discussion following a performance of An Immigrant Class. Photo: IRIM
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March 25, IRIM's Mayom Ashien, African Outreach Caseworker, and Elizabeth Fulmer, Community Relations Coordinator, led the discussion, and were joined on set by Libman and Douglass.
Ashien recounted his own journey as a refugee from southern Sudan, beginning in the early 1980s. He fled to Egypt and, several years later, to Switzerland, where he applied for political asylum and worked at a hotel and for a non-governmental organization. But because he was never granted permanent residence in Switzerland, he had to appear before immigration authorities every three months to renew his residency.
While attending the English Congregational Lutheran Church in Geneva, Ashien met Wangerin, who was working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees at the time. Ashien spent seven years in Switzerland until, in 2003, he was admitted to the United States as a refugee and resettled by IRIM.
He staffed hotel banquets and worked in a hospital cafeteria and at Crate & Barrel before IRIM hired him in 2005. His wife and son, now 23, were resettled to Canada. Ashien, eager to end the long separation, has filed for them to join him in the United States.
"The audience had so many interesting and intelligent questions, far beyond the typical 'What's the difference between a refugee and an immigrant?'," Fulmer reported. In the give and take, panelists described differences between the refugee resettlement programs in the United States and Europe, how – and how many – refugees are chosen for resettlement, and how long the process actually takes.
Read more about the book and play at www.animmigrantclass.com, and about IRIM at www.irim.org.
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