Generations of people coming to America from other countries made Akron and the nation the places they are today, Madhu Sharma said Wednesday night at a bicentennial event highlighting the city’s immigrant history.
But Sharma, the executive director of the International Institute of Akron and herself an immigrant, said many immigrants now feel like they’re “collectively in survival mode” as a result of the federal government’s attacks on minority communities.
“I feel like we’re in the early 1800s again,” said Sharma, an immigrant from India. “I’m concerned we have a lot of work to do.”
Sharma spoke on a panel at the Akron-Summit County Public Library’s main branch auditorium, part of the Akron 200’s Discovering Our History series. She said although there haven’t been immigration raids in Akron, “there’s a lot of fear” in immigrant communities because of the current political climate.
The International Institute hasn’t resettled a refugee since Jan. 24 of this year, she said, four days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Sharma added that families remain separated and people who expected to be able to come to the United States have not been able to do so.
Additionally, the government is cutting off food benefits for a number of immigrants and taking other steps to encourage people to leave the country.
“We’re going to see people sick, we’re going to see people in hunger,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like the promise of America right now.”
People are afraid to go to school, said Lida Ahmadi, a community care lead at Asian Services in Action, Inc. who was working with the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan before coming to the United States four years ago. Ahmadi said some of her clients have been taken from the road “because they’re driving and they look different.”
“At the present time, I think a lot of immigrants are laying low. They’re afraid to speak out,” said Dave DiDomenico, a lifelong North Hill resident whose grandfather emigrated from Italy. “It’s up to us, the third and fourth generation, to speak for them.”
How to help welcome people
Sharma said undocumented families in particular have been targeted, but anyone who was not born in the U.S. — and many first-generation citizens — are scared about what will happen to them.
“There’s a deep sense of fear,” she said. “That fear is a fear of violence.”
DiDomenico said he has heard a lot of criticism from people whose families immigrated decades ago about more recent waves of immigrants. But he said immigrants who settled in Akron’s North Hill neighborhood — who are largely Asian — have filled vacant storefronts by opening businesses and made the community feel safer by being on the sidewalk, walking around.
“Diversity is not a bad word,” he said.
Since moving to the U.S., Ahmadi has faced racism and xenophobia, she said, as well as feelings of invisibility. She said part of her job is teaching foreign-born residents about American culture so they don’t experience the same sense of isolation she once did. She wants them to feel valued.
Samantha Mutebi, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo who has been in Akron since 2019, said there are mental health challenges within immigrant communities that need to be addressed. And May Chen, the co-founder and former executive director of Asian Services in Action, who came to the U.S. from Hong Kong as a child, said many new residents who spend their formative years in Akron have to contend with bullying.
“A lot of kids don’t feel like they fit or belong,” Chen said.
Still, for many, Akron has come to be home. Chen praised the city for its cherry blossom-themed festival, saying it had made residents of Japanese descent feel welcome. Mutebi said she thought about returning to Africa — and spent several months there earlier this year, starting a health clinic in Uganda — before realizing she missed Akron.
“Akron is community oriented,” Mutebi said.
Panelists agreed there is room to improve how immigrants are integrated into Akron. Ahmadi suggested that inclusive growth could include an increased focus on immigrants’ economic vitality, with the goal of helping everyone thrive. Chen said existing institutions must plan to be inclusive, maintaining a high level of cultural sensitivity and being more proactive than reactive.
“We can do a lot to help welcome people by making an effort to know them,” Chen said.
And, she said, there should be more inclusion on boards, to better represent communities.
Sharma said there’s room for the community to be more inclusive, including by recognizing immigration stories of families who have lived in the U.S. for generations. She added that curiosity can help bridge divides at a time when many immigrants feel unwelcome.
“If you’re three generations in,” she said, “you’re still connected to your story.”