Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Tampa Bay’s Refugee and Migrant Women Initiative deepens the meaning of community

The Refugee and Migrant Women Initiative was founded to deepen a sense of community (Photo c/o Florence Ackey)

Florence Ackey sees immigration in a very simple way: The eggplant theory. “A vegetable I rarely used, but after meeting women from Syria, Somalia and even Ukraine, I now have seven different ways to eat an eggplant,” Ackey told CL. “Same eggplant, but I opened my mind instead of thinking that they would just eat all my eggplant.”

“When you don’t understand them and you allow those misconceptions to dictate policy, it becomes a dangerous thing. I always say, we are afraid of what we don’t know,” Ackey said. “I see all these immigration policies, all saying ‘just send them back’.”


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