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Visionaries Documents the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
Posted on Jan 16 2019
Visionaries, an award-winning public television series hosted by Sam Waterston, chose us as an organization to feature in a television documentary! They came to Minnesota to film during the week after Thanksgiving, visiting Moorhead, Austin, and Worthington, as well as St. Paul and Minneapolis. We are excited about the wonderful stories that they have to tell, highlighting immigrants and refugees, the issues of immigration today, and ILCM’s history and work.
Visiting us, they met lawyers, immigrants, refugees, and past and present board members. In St. Paul, they watched a naturalization ceremony for a client from Romania, and heard about the wonderful support that ILCM’s Martha Castañon gave to the family throughout the process. They interviewed a DACA recipient about his family and the help he had received from ILCM, and his current studies at the University of Minnesota. Visiting Dulceria Bakery in Minneapolis, they learned firsthand how Dulce works to create “a cozy, family-oriented space where intersectionality and inclusion are an everyday experience for each one of our customers, employees, and partners.”
In Moorhead, they met Martha in person, and saw the farm where she had picked cucumbers as a child, as well as sugar beet fields and plants. In Austin, Maylary Apolo showed them her family’s grocery store and introduced them to traditional Burmese holiday foods of Sweet December. Sara Karki explained how ILCM works collaboratively with partners in the Austin Area Minority Business Project.
A winter storm gave them a taste of Minnesota as they traveled on to Worthington, where they met Joyce Bennett Alvarado and Erin Schutte Wadzinski and experienced the Spanish Mass at St. Mary’s and an informational forum on immigration afterward.
Over the last 23 years, Visionaries has captured the stories of more than 150 nonprofit organizations in every corner of the world. The Visionaries series airs on public television stations across the country. We can’t wait to see how they show and tell the story of ILCM and immigrants and refugees in Minnesota. We hope to premiere the documentary in the fall of 2019 in the Twin Cities.