{"id":119,"date":"2017-06-30T11:36:34","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T15:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/?p=119"},"modified":"2017-07-01T00:52:28","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T04:52:28","slug":"immigrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/immigrant\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston celebrates Immigrant Heritage Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohan Kumar<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Immigrant Heritage Month initiative was set up by Welcome.us, a pro-immigration advocacy group, during the month of June to celebrate and show solidarity with an extensive cross-section of the US population. <\/span><\/p>\n

The events held to celebrate the immigrant population of Boston are as diverse as the people themselves. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of the events that headlined Heritage Month in Boston was the Faces of Refugees exhibit in City Hall. The exhibit profiles 20 Syrian refugees who fled their homeland and have resettled in Europe and North America. Boston is the first stop for the exhibit, before it travels across the country for the next year. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Mayor\u2019s Office of Immigrant Advancement, headed by Alejandra St. Guillen, was the organizer behind the Boston events. <\/span><\/p>\n

The goal of the program, according to St. Guillen, is to \u201crecognize the contributions of immigrants and the children of immigrants. We want to show how immigrants have shaped the United States into what it is currently.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA further goal is to diffuse the American and non-American idea by spreading the idea that we are all Americans and on a certain level, immigrants,\u201d added St. Guillen.<\/span><\/p>\n

The events happening in Boston during June are only a part of the nationwide program. Immigrant Heritage Month was organized by Welcome.us, the non-political wing of Forward.us, a non-profit political action group. The intent is to mobilize the tech community to promote policies that keep the US competitive in a global economy, by \u201cfixing our broken immigration system,\u201d according to the group\u2019s website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, this year marks the start of a broader year-long Welcome.us program called \u2018I Stand With Immigrants\u2019. \u00a0According to the Welcome.<\/a>us website, the program, \u201cprovides new avenues for individuals, companies, organizations, and public leaders \u2013 to take action in support of their immigrant employees, colleagues, constituents, neighbors and friends.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome.us has similar goals for Heritage Month, saying: \u201cImmigrant Heritage Month gives people across the United States an opportunity to explore their own heritage and celebrate the shared diversity that forms the unique story of America.\u201d Additionally, the organization aims to \u201ccelebrate the monumental contributions that immigrants have made.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The impetus for creating the Heritage Month, according to Leezia Dhalla, who is the spokeswoman for Welcome.us, was to \u201crecognize that, on some level, we are all immigrants and to reflect on our unique heritage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about the success of Immigrant Heritage Month, St. Guillen said, \u201cWe did well pushing our events through social media and our event last week [Syrian refugee exhibit] was a great success.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen an incredible response to this initiative. I have seen hundreds of proclamations from congressmen and governors declaring June to be Immigrant Heritage Month,\u201d added Dhalla. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe more that people push the conversation and highlight immigrant contributions is a positive and I think we helped make that happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Immigrant Heritage Month initiative was set up by Welcome.us, a pro-immigration advocacy group, during the month of June to celebrate and show solidarity with an extensive cross-section of the US population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SVnH-1V","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/page-2-immigrant-heritage.jpg?fit=5312%2C2988&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}