On a mission to support the population of undocumented immigrants at Southern Utah University, the Undocu Migrant Alliance Club is hosting an informational exhibit.
Held on Friday, April 16 from 11-5 p.m. in the Starlight Room, the event will be located on the second floor of the Sharwan Smith Student Center.
Kai Lameman, a senior at SUU and the UMA treasurer, helped plan this Global Migration event.
“We want to educate, emphasize and create awareness and an education surrounding immigrants,” Lameman said.
Lameman explained that they will have informational displays discussing global migration, share stories of immigrants coming into the United States and have interactive exhibits that can simulate the challenges these immigrants have experienced coming into the United States.
“The interaction is supposed to help put themselves in immigrants’ shoes,” Lameman said. We will have a detention center replica that is supposed to imitate what that’s like and the inhumanity that comes with it,”
Along with the detention center exhibit, UMA will also have an interactive exhibit that will show the deportation process. Students will be given a suitcase and hypothetically be told that they can only take what fits in the suitcase, even if that means leaving family behind.
“We will have some art displays that we are completing as a club,” Lameman said. “We will have a map and tie strings to show where immigrants are coming into the U.S.”
Partnering with the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, UMA is hosting the event to fulfill their long-term vision created by UMA President Nestor Zapata who founded the club over two years ago.
“Our long-term vision is to create equal opportunities for immigrants through the influence of public opinion and the social construct,” Zapata said. “We don’t want to allow legal status to dictate the choices that immigrants make, or to limit them in any way.”
Lameman resonates with the mission of the UMA and decided to participate in the club due to his personal life.
“I believe in his mission, I have family members who came into the country and wanted to make something of themselves, so being able to connect with that made me realize the importance of this club,” Lameman said.
According their club description, UMA “offers a strong support system by providing helpful workshops for students, fundraisers for scholarships, up-to-date information on current events, and education for the public about the reality of being an undocumented immigrant.”
The event is a come-and-go event, and Lameman encourages those that attend to bring a friend.
“We want undocumented students to come out and feel supported at SUU, and we want them to know that there’s a community here for them,” Lameman said. “And that they have human rights, and a purpose here.”
Story by: Elizabeth Armstrong
news@suunews.net
Photos courtesy of: Kai Lameman
