< None this month >

 

Our speaker today was Veena Iyer, Executive Director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.  ILCM works at a systems-level to promote fair and just public policies that support immigrant and refugee communities. ILCM works directly with the immigrant community, immigrant advocates, nonprofits, business and civic leaders, law enforcement, and policymakers to increase awareness of the contributions and needs of immigrants and refugees and to advocate for welcoming policies at the local, state, and federal levels.  Veena stressed that foreign born workers are powering our American workforce today.  According to a 2021 report by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, immigrant households paid $4.5 billion in taxes in 2019 and have higher rates of workforce participation than native born communities; they’re also more likely to work for service and production businesses that would otherwise find it very difficult to find workers.  As we know, immigration reform has been needed in this country for many years.  This is an extremely complex topic and there has been much talk and hand wringing but very little action since current laws were put in place more than 50 years ago.  Veena feels that reform will not happen based on statistics like these, however.  Change will require individual conversations with individual Americans. 

Today's speakers were Shoreview residents Steve Kahat and Renee Eisenbeisz. Steve is an active community volunteer and member of St. Odilia's Catholic Church. After learning through a program at church about the history of racial covenants contained in property deeds across the U.S. he reached out to Renee, who is the Assistant City Manager of Shoreview and a liaison to the Shoreview Human Rights Commission. Together, they have become involved with two Twin Cities initiatives - "Mapping Prejudice" and "Just Deeds", both of which are actively involved in addressing this historical injustice.  On November 7, 2022, the city council approved a resolution condemning the use of discriminatory covenants and joined the Just Deeds Coalition, which helps property owners remove discriminatory covenants from their titles. Its members range from cities and counties to law firms and realtors. They are dedicated to acknowledging and addressing systemic racism in Minnesota housing.  Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such covenants were illegal in 1948, it still matters that we work to fully remove this wording from existing property deeds.  A team of volunteers has reviewed all deeds and determined that there are 91 still in existence in Shoreview, mostly on lake properties such as Turtle and Owasso lake homes.

Today's speaker was Laura Packer, a specialist in the area of storytelling.  Packer says our human brains are hard-wired for storytelling, which has been important since humans have been on earth.  Video, on the other hand, is still, relatively speaking, a very new medium.  She referenced her organization's website:  www.thinkstory.com which provides resources to help businesses and other organizations tell their stories.  Areas of focus include how to: Better recruit new employees with stories, Build an onboarding narrative with the history mission and vision of the organization, Solve internal problems with deep listening and shared stories, Market products and services with real-life stories of impact, value and community, and Inspire stakeholders at meetings with excellent presentations, persuasive talks and compelling meetings.