'Talking About Im/migration' - Swedish Dialogue

This Saturday the Swedish American Museum hosted the second dialogue in the ‘Talking About Im/migration’ series. The session was held in the Museum’s first floor gallery, against the colorful backdrop of Swedish-American artist Peter Åström’s ‘Roundtrip: New York – Gotland’ exhibition, where coffee and Swedish cake were served before an interesting and engaging discussion. The participants included both Swedish citizens living in Chicago and Americans whose families migrated from Sweden many generations ago, who shared fascinating stories and discussed what Swedish culture and identity mean to them.

Talking Im/migration Facilitator Training Workshop

On Monday, May 18, 2009 the Chicago Cultural Alliance's first facilitator training workshop for the Talking Im/migration series happened at The Field Museum. This all day event was attending by representatives from the four pilot sites for the Talking Im/migration dialogues, the Cambodian American Heritage Museum, Polish Museum of America, the Swedish American Museum, and the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society. These four sites will be putting together 2 dialogues each with their community on immigration. Also in attendance was representatives from the facilitating members, who were there to be trained to assist the pilot sites in facilitating their dialogues. The Indo-American Heritage Museum, the American Indian Center, Bronzeville Historical Society, and Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, will be the four facilitating members.

The workshop ran from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and many topics were covered. A review of articles on immigration and civic engagement started a great discussion amongst the group. A trip into the museum to the thresholds case was an illustration of different object related to different immigrant and cultural experiences. The workshop concluded with the facilitator training and general outreach strategies. The 4 pilot sites will now have to hold two dialogues over the summer with people from their community who do not normally participate with their organization. This is an exciting capacity building program developed through the Chicago Cultural Alliance with the support of The Field Museum.

Letter from the Chairperson of the Swedish American Museum

My second year as chair of the museum's board of directors has been a fascinating story both of evaluation and of planning for the future. Our membership in the Chicago Cultural Alliance (CCA), a collection of more than 20 ethnic museums in the Greater Chicago area, gave us a flying start at the beginning of 2008. We were the first member museum to participate in CCA's smARTscope process, a professionally conducted survey to analyze where we stand and where we want to go.

With those findings as a basis, the whole board met for a retreat in eary September to build the foundation of our new strategic plan. It was that terribly wet weekend, when all of Chicagoland seemed to flood, but we managed to be quite productive! At our retreat, we outlined our Vision and Mission Statements to keep us focused on the right direction in the years to come.

Before and after the retreat, several staff and board members participated in CCA-sponsered workshops to improve our knowledge and understanding of brand indentity, fund raising, budgeting, and other topics designed to help us run a succesful institution. We also formed two new committees- Marketing and Strategic Planning- and recruited competent new members to move us forward.

Thanks to major donations from our 30th Anniversary Campaign, we are now in the process of completing the reonvoation of our facade. We call it "A New Face in Andersonville" in the spirit of the ambitions for the future.

The troubled economic times are hitting us all, but together we can weather the storm. Because of sound fiscal management, the Museum is fortunate to be reasonably well prepared during the economic downturn. Like all non-profits institutions, however, we will need all the help we can get. To assit our members in leaving a lasting legacy for the Museum, we have a Planned Giving campaign in the pipeline that you will hear more about during 2009.

We are proud of our Museum and invite you to share your ideas for the future!

This is adapted from the Swedish American Museum 2008 Annual Report

Immigration Storytelling Workshop

On Monday, May 11, 2009 a group gathered in the basement of the Cambodian American Heritage Museum to discuss immigrant stories in a workshop hosted by the Chicago Cultural Alliance and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. The Medill School of Journalism was recently awarded a grant from the Carnegie Foundation to start a collection of immigrant stories to be placed on Immigrant Connect Chicago.

The workshop, run by Jack Doppelt, a professor at the Medill, focused on teaching the participants the core questions and interview techniques required to draw out the stories that everyone has about immigration or migration. With the assistance of some written prompts, the group divided into partners and began to tell each other their stories, or the stories of someone they knew. The results were astounding; when given the task of reporting on other people's story, everyone was able to relate the story of their partner in great detail.

With the knowledge of how to start asking the questions that can facilitate dialogue about an individual's immigration experience, this workshop was timed to occur one week before the Talking about Im/migration facilitator training workshop at The Field Museum. These skills will be expanded during the day-long session on Monday, May 18 2009 and over the next few months.

The Immigrant Connect Chicago program is an online forum, where people can write their own stories or contact a member/student of the university program to assist them with writing their story. The ultimate purpose of this program is to bridge immigrant groups and cross ethnic and generational lines within communities. Their goal can in many ways be assisted by the Alliance, and makes the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University an ideal partner organization. For further information on sharing your own, or someone else's immigration story, you can can contact Professor Doppelt and his students at contact@immigrantconnect.org.