Norfolk State to host immigration conference

By Denise Watson Batts
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 21, 2010


A Virginia Beach car crash that left two teenage girls dead and led to cries for immigration reform helped spur an international conference that will begin Tuesday at Norfolk State University.

The school has partnered with the University of Siegen in Germany to hold the two-day conference, "From-Heres and Come-Heres: Perceptions of the Immigrant Other and Transcultural Encounters in Virginia and North Rhine-Westphalia," to study attitudes about immigration.

In 2007, Virginia Beach made national news after an illegal immigrant killed two girls while he was driving drunk. He had three prior convictions, and the case led to debates on immigration.

Earlier that year in Siegen, legally registered foreigners received official-looking letters ordering them to leave Germany within 14 days or face deportation. Police investigated, but no one was charged with sending the false letters.

Page Laws, dean of Norfolk State's Honors College, said discussions surrounding immigration have become more heated since 2007 and sees the conference as a needed arena for debate.

"It's a complex issue, and we need to treat it as a complex issue," Laws said.

Laws had collaborated with a colleague at the University of Siegen before, and the two decided to apply for a grant that will partially fund the conference and a similar one to be held in Germany in June.

The symposium, which is free and open to the public, will have Norfolk State graduate students and faculty from both universities present research on topics from education to business.

One session, "When Jobs Become Ethnic," will look at the lives of immigrants who make a living in niche trades, such as Vietnamese and Korean nail salons. Laws' work will examine three films - "Gran Torino," "The Visitor" and "Sin Nombre" - and look at the changing perspectives of immigrants in recent movies.

Charles Ford, professor of history and interim associate dean for the college of liberal arts, will present his study of local reaction to a Haitian immigrant case from the early 1980s. He said scholars have rarely examined how African Americans react to immigrants of color.

"I want people to realize that responses to immigrants, of whatever background, generally reflect our own anxieties and hopes about our own prospects in achieving the American dream."

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