By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic School teacher JC Santos was intensely proud of his students as their “Voices for Immigrants and Refugees: A Community Meal” unfolded this afternoon.
“They designed this whole thing,” he exclaimed, gesturing around OLG’s expansive Walmesley Center gym/event venue. “I didn’t even know what it would look like until I got here.”
We previewed the event after receiving postal-mail letters from two students inviting us – and the entire community – to attend. Right after arriving today, we met one of those students, Emmett, near the door, which was attendees’ gateway to an immersive experience.
Emmett was explaining a section of the gym’s south wall that held flags from the more than two dozen countries from which the participating students claim ancestry, and a map where all were invited to place dots near a city from which someone in their family emigrated.
Having been invited immediately to ponder their ancestry, attendees were in the perfect frame of mind to learn the difficulties often faced by the immigrants and refugees of today.
Some of these challenges were interpreted as versions of classic games – you could roll dice on a version of “Chutes and Ladders” and either make progress or face a setback; nearby, another table of students had a version of Jenga.
Many tables were set up for attendees to sit down and enjoy the student-prepared lunch, and each had a card with a factoid such as “40 percent of foreign-born residents own their own homes,” among other stats.
At one table were visitors who were immigrants and refugees themselves, a delegation from the United Methodist Church in Riverton that’s become a magnet for new arrivals. One of them talked with us, saying they had arrived here last year, stayed at the church six months, then got an apartment with their family (including two children ages 8 and 14), and now has a job too. We didn’t discuss their home country, but they repeated multiple times that they came here because it’s “safe” in comparison.
All around the gym, displays expressed messages of welcome and taught lessons about new arrivals, as well as showing examples of “welcome kits” helping set up homes for newcomers, who often arrive with nothing but the clothes they’re wearing. (Go here to donate to the fund for them.) And on the north side of the gym, students were serving the food that made the occasion “a community meal”:
Every dish – from lumpia to lasagna – had a story:
Once everyone was seated, Mr. Santos and some of his students gave a blessing, a welcome, and an explanation:
And there was evidence everywhere of an important takeaway – showing kindness to everyone, no matter where they’re from:
Volunteers at the first welcoming table estimated about 200 people had shown up.
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