a whirlwind of immigration studies

on wednesday my class met with the staff of “the new times,” a magazine written by and for asylum seekers in demark. comparable to “real change” in seattle, this is journalism with a purpose. check out their website— it is an awesome project. my class will be working with the staff to create their next issue, with the theme of “the asylum system from the perspective of the asylum seeker.” some of the asylum seekers live in centers for up to ten years, in limbo as their immigration papers are processed or rejected/appealed. there are a whole host of extremely specific, seemingly arbitrary requirements for them to fulfill before they are granted a residence permit in DK. and, due to the dublin convention, the first EU country in which a person is registered with the authorities remains the country they must stay until they are granted residency. this is a bit confusing and i didn’t see why it was such a big deal until we met farnam…

we were put into groups of five DIS students and one asylum seeker. we sat in a circle sharing our names, ages, etc. at first. then we dove into the deeper matters and were shocked by farnam’s story. he explained that he had turned 16 the day before. he had been living in the sandholm asylum center in copenhagen for the last seven months. farnam finished high school at age 14 and dreams of becoming an architect. he had fled iran because his parents, both teachers, were persecuted for being christian. he got separated from his family in belgium and had to fly to denmark on his own, thinking he would be reunited with them soon. i’m pretty sure they were all en route to sweden, a desired location for many due to their more lenient asylum policies but secure welfare system. in any case, farnam was caught with a false passport— the only way to escape iran— in denmark and he was thrown into jail. i believe he stayed there for 40 days—until danish authorities realized they had imprisoned an unaccompanied minor fleeing persecution in his home country. he was taken to sandholm with only a brief acknowledgement of their mistake. he learned that his family had made it to england and was told that he could join them there. due to the dublin convention, however, he would have to stay in denmark because that is where he was first documented in the EU.

he recounted this entire story in timid but completely correct english. we assumed he had studied english in iran, but he informed us that the only things he is taught at the school at sandholm are english and danish. he is looking forward to working on the new times staff to give him something to do— asylum seekers are not permitted to work, go to outside school (only the one provided, no university or technical school), or leave the center for more than a day. hearing him speak was heart-breaking. it really brought home the more ridiculous aspects of the asylum process. my group is going to go visit farnam at sandholm next saturday. later that afternoon we visited the ministry of integration—one of the first of its kind— whose policies i have mixed feelings about. integration: into what? for whom? this is certainly a hot issue in demark right now and i hope to come up with some more cogent thoughts on this matter by the end of the semester. right now i am puzzled and want to listen to both sides of the debate.

now that i have rambled at quite some length, i will keep the study tour discussion brief. we took a giant swedish bus (the windshield exclaimed that it was the “scandorama”) two hours west to hans christian andersen’s hometown of odense. there we met with a few inspirational figures from the odense integration council and started the trend of receiving copious amounts of free food and coffee from non-profits. not sure what the deal was with that, but we were continually served these fine refreshments when they were already going out of their way to host us. in any case, after touring an exhibit on anti-semitic cartoons through danish history at the mass media museum, hearing a somewhat scandalous lecture by the zany professor mehmet umet necef, and eating a delicious buffet lunch at “the ugly duckling” (another theme: buffet style eating!), we hopped back on the bus another two hours to denmark’s second-largest city, århus. i am a big fan of århus now, despite the fact that we were there just briefly and remained mostly just in one area. it was awesome. our stay there included listening to a participant in a integration mentorship program at the women’s museum, an afternoon at sondervangskolen— an elementary school where 90% of the students speak another language at home— and the absolutely wonderful art museum ARoS. their interactive digital art exhibit was honestly one of the best exhibits i’ve ever seen. our “cultural activities” included a pub night (in which the professor bought all 37 of us a beer! the girl sitting next to me seemed happy to receive mine after taking my usual three sips), a “carpark north” concert, and ice skating outdoors by arne jacobsen’s famous rådhus (city hall). it was really nice to finally get to know my classmates and to see a bit more of this lovely country! i look forward to more travels soon….