Local Impact of Immigration

Friday, March 2, 2007 Download  RSS  Short URL  Share

This week, Congress once again started hearings aimed at overhauling the nation's immigration laws. As lawmakers debate the pros and cons of border security and guest worker programs, a group of Cleveland experts will discuss the local impact of immigration tonight. But, instead of meeting in a committee room, ideastream's David C. Barnett reports that this discussion will take place in an art gallery.

Spaces Gallery sits on the old Superior Viaduct on the west side of Cleveland’s Flats district. The industrial area below was a port of entry for many of the city’s immigrants a century ago. Inside the gallery, an exhibition called Legal Aliens features the work of ten artists, ranging from projected video to a line of flickering votive candles, each piece reflecting on what it means to be a legal - or an illegal - resident of the U.S.

Program coordinator Sarah Wiideman says the exhibition has proven to be provocative in a number of ways - right down to the use of words.

Sarah Wiideman: We had one woman call boycotting Spaces for this particular show, because she took issue with the term ‘alien’. I don’t know that the word was used to be provocative. The curators are both Israeli and they both live in New York, and they both consider themselves as being within the context of this show as ‘legal aliens.’

Tonight, a panel of immigration experts will discuss the social and legal costs of becoming a bonified U.S. resident. Wiideman says she hopes tonight’s discussion will provoke further thought about how mainstream culture uses words and images to categorize people - especially those who are seen as “outsiders”. The panel discussion is free and open to the public. It begins tonight at 6:00 at Spaces Gallery. The exhibit Legal Aliens remains on display through next Friday.