Nebraska Is Home is excited to introduce a virtual learning and engagement opportunity that will help you progress toward your equity and inclusion goals! We invite you to join us for a training and conversation using powerful tools that you can continue to use in your work. Continue reading “REGISTER TODAY – Training & Conversation on Race Equity Nov 16 & 18”
Nebraska is Home is celebrated in Bridging Divides, Creating Community: Arts, Culture, and Immigration, a new publication highlighting the power that creative placemaking holds in creating an America where everyone can belong and thrive. The report explores how arts and artists, writers, musicians, and performers have long been and may increasingly be partners in helping to achieve community development goals. Continue reading “Nebraska Work with Arts and Immigrants featured in National Report”
Cheers to a successful Welcoming Week!Welcoming Week 2020 helped us find new ways to bring people together across lines of difference to develop greater understanding and mutual support. This year, like no other, with COVID-19 and a divisive political climate, creative Welcomers across the state held Naturalization clinics, voter registration drives and even a drive-through tasting party of local ethnic foods. Continue reading “Photos and videos from your Welcoming Week events”
This blog is written by Nebraska Appleseed summer intern Vivian P. Alvarado.
Haeler Paw, or as she prefers to be called Hae Paw, is originally from a refugee camp in Thailand. She immigrated to the United States in June, 2012. Because Haw Paw already had some siblings living in Nebraska she decided to relocate close to her family. Hae Paw was welcomed by a social worker with Lutheran Family Services when she arrived at the airport in Nebraska. Not only did the social worker welcome her, she also worked with Hae Paw for months to help facilitate her adaptation to the new culture and language. Continue reading “Celebrating Nebraska Immigrants: From Refugee Camp to Nebraska Nurse”
This blog is written by Nebraska Appleseed summer intern Vivian P. Alvarado.
Patricia Vazquez Leyva and her husband Antonio de la Rosa own Durango Style, a food stand in Lincoln’s Haymarket. They immigrated to the United States at different times and their stories and experiences are different. Yet, they both immigrated to the United States to give their son the best education and opportunities. Continue reading “Celebrating Nebraska Immigrants: Two Cultures in One Chile Relleno”
Welcoming Week is here, and already we’ve seen some amazing events across the state in celebration of this year’s theme, “Creating Home Together.” It has been truly inspiring to watch neighbors gathering together within virtual and digital spaces, to get to know each other, learn something new about a culture that’s different from their own, and celebrate the values that unite us as a community. Continue reading “Welcoming Week continues! See recordings from previous events and don’t miss what’s coming next!”
Welcoming Week is a chance for neighbors — both immigrants and U.S.-born residents — to come together, get to know one another, and celebrate what unites us as a community!
This year’s theme for Welcoming Week is “Creating Home Together.” Home is not just a house — it’s any place where you feel safe and accepted: in your neighborhood, in your community, or at school or work. In this pandemic, we may be redefining where home is, what makes us feel at home, or how to make home a more inclusive and equitable place for all. This Welcoming Week, let’s build home in new ways through virtual spaces, digital sharing, and being together even when we’re apart! You can participate in events happening locally, across the state, and across the country!
Continue reading “What’s happening on Welcoming Week in your community?”
Welcoming Week is September 12th-20th and we’re ready to help you plan how you’d like to participate! Each year, Welcoming Week is a chance for neighbors — both immigrants and U.S.-born residents — to come together, get to know one another, and celebrate what unites us as a community.
In July, Nebraska Is Home partnered with Dakota County’s own Unity in Action and One Siouxland to host a virtual community conversation about race and the system of inequity using the video series, Cracking The Codes. Leaders across many different sectors and backgrounds–educators, librarians, city officials–came together to talk about how race affects us in our daily lives. Members of the community shared their personal stories and experiences in a way that was both vulnerable and powerful.
Olga Guevara, Executive Director of Unity in Action reflected on her experience at the event, noting:
We were truly inspired by Dakota County community leaders’ willingness to become part of the solution, and we are eager to help others have conversations about racial equity with additional groups of friends, family, and coworkers too!
What is Cracking The Codes, you ask? It’s a powerful tool for engaging in community dialogue that is meant to help deepen the local and national conversations on race. It helps groups to examine some of the causes and consequences of racism, and to ask themselves how the system of inequity shows up in their schools, at work, and in their neighborhood.
If you’re interested in hosting a conversation in your community, school, or faith group, let us know. We’d be happy to connect you with this great resource and help you facilitate the discussion. Just reach out to us:
It is not enough to be concerned. It is not enough to be tolerant. It is not enough to consider yourself not racist.
Again. Again we witness an unarmed Black man shot by police and the effects have rippled through the country.
This past Sunday, when Kenosha, Wisconsin police shot Jacob Blake multiple times in the back and that graphic video showed up in all of our social media accounts, we were reminded that little has changed since our communities rose up in protest following George Floyd’s murder by police in Minneapolis. Still reeling from that grief, we are concerned about the trauma experienced by Jacob Blake’s sons who witnessed the shooting, the trauma felt by the people who caught the incident on camera, and certainly the physical and emotional trauma Jacob Blake has and will continue to experience as he heals. And we are also concerned about continued trauma to our country.
At the beginning of the summer we saw protests across our nation and across our state. Not only in Omaha and Lincoln but also in McCook, South Sioux City, and in Harvard community members came out to say “Black Lives Matter” and to call for meaningful police oversight and investing in community supports.
The solidarity, the increased awareness of inhumane systemic inequities, gave many of us hope. We are not naive to the amount of time and work it takes to achieve racial justice, but we cannot be the country we idealize as the “land of opportunity” when Black people fear for their lives everyday. We cannot consider ourselves Welcoming or inclusive while policies and laws continue to harm our Black and brown neighbors, generation after generation.
Yet, here we are again.
It is not enough to be concerned. It is not enough to be tolerant. It is not enough to consider yourself not racist. We must be actively non-racist. We must not only have the hard conversations, we must denounce racism and we all need to take responsibility for creating systemic change.
Here’s how you can learn more, engage with your co-workers, faith group, friends and neighbors.
Additional resources for your own learning and tools for talking with family, friends, and neighbors:
Support, donate, volunteer with local organizations:
What is going on in your community? Share your favorite tools and local organizations to combat racism and promote inclusion. We would like to hear from you. You can contact me at cyoakum@neappleseed.org or (402) 438-8853 ext 114.
Christa Yoakum
She/Her/Hers
Senior Welcoming Coordinator
Nebraska Is Home
