Plastic foldout chairs formed two rings in a central hall, where community members passed along a microphone to tell their migration stories.
As part of their current exhibit “We Are Here: Stories from Multilingual Speakers in North Central Florida,” the Matheson History Museum hosted an open discussion with community members about the experiences and challenges of local immigrants Saturday afternoon.
Beatriz Alemán, a Chilean-born immigrant with Puerto Rican ancestry, moved to Tallahassee at a young age while her mother furthered her education. Later on, Alemán moved to Chile for her own studies.
However, social unrest in Chile sparked a transitory period in her life, where she lived and worked in Puerto Rico with family, culminating in her moving to Gainesville.
“I was like, ‘Oh, wow, Gainesville’s like Miami or Orlando, it's pretty similar because I felt like I've been there,’” Aleman said. “Then I realize this is completely different. This has nothing to do with what I imagined Florida to be.”
Adriana Menendez said in 2020 she immigrated from Guatemala, where she had met her husband. Menendez, a community member and volunteer for the Rural Women’s Health Project, said her position allowed her to be involved in the community while she had yet to obtain a permit.
“When I came, I had no idea of the big population of recent immigrants,” Menendez said. “One of the biggest barriers for them is learning a language, which makes everything more difficult in every single way.”
Menendez noticed these linguistic barriers also entailed other problems, such as an inability for parents to enroll their children into schools or for adults to receive medical procedures. These problems continued to limit accessibility for local immigrant populations.
And for others, medical complications have created more barriers in the migration process.
Veronique Rodriguez, a Brazilian immigrant, experienced first hand both the highs and lows of living in the U.S. Rodriguez came to the U.S. when she was 16 to escape a difficult family situation and attend college in New York City. She moved afterward to Florida to further her education, and it was there she had her first daughter with her boyfriend.
During her pregnancy, her child developed gastroschisis, a condition in which the intestines grow outside the body as it develops. The doctor said if her daughter was born in Brazil, she wouldn't have made it.
“You just don't think about anything else, you don't think about going back to your country,” Rodriguez said. “You think about the health of your family and your daughter, so a lot of struggles came with that and that was what strengthened us to be here.”
Now, Rodriguez serves as an education advocate for migrant workers and low-income families in Florida after her experiences with the roadblocks in place for migrants to enroll their children in public schools.
Greg Mullaley, a volunteer with Baker Interfaith Friends, also works to advocate for Florida immigrants. His organization is parented by the national Freedom for Immigrants network, which aims to acknowledge immigrant struggles and promote advocacy for these marginalized groups.
Periodically, the group visits immigrants who were captured by ICE at the Baker County Detention Facility in Macclenny.
“We are always looking for people to accompany us because we need bilingual speakers,” Mullaley said. Speaking on immigrants coming to the U.S., he said: “They need to be treated properly, and they're not, unfortunately.”
While volunteers and advocates can spark change, lasting change at an institutional level is rare to see. John Yohan John, an immigrant from Dubai and City of Gainesville Program Manager for Immigrants, told his story of migrating from Dubai to India and finally the U.S.
On the subject of his new role with the City of Gainesville, he described the importance of community events like these in tailoring policies for how the city can facilitate the lives of Gainesville’s immigrant community.
“I have a platform to help develop a program that can help not just immigrants but international residents in our city,” John said. “I want to make sure that we don’t exclude any community just because of that.”
On the theme of immigration, Matheson partnered with the UF Center for the Arts, Migration and Entrepreneurship to screen the 2022 film “Mija” earlier in the week. This documentary followed the stories of Latina daughters of undocumented immigrants as they pursued careers in the music industry. The high aspirations and deep tragedies of their stories mirrored those that rang through the Matheson’s halls Saturday.
Contact Eluney at editor@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter @Eluney_G
