{"id":5971,"date":"2020-08-21T10:41:47","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T14:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/?p=5971"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:35:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:35:05","slug":"this-experience-a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/2020\/08\/21\/this-experience-a-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;This Experience A Gift&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/files\/2020\/08\/HannahMcKenzieMask-600x900.jpeg\" alt=\"&quot;Despite working remotely this summer, I\u2019ve been glad to still be able to engage with the community a bit in-person like this.\u201d\n\n\u2014Anthropology major and Bonner Leader Hannah McKenzie of Stevenson, Md., photographed on Lewiston\u2019s Lisbon Street and in the Heritage Restaurant and its adjacent market place, where she regularly shops and purchases tea. \n\nThis summer, McKenzie has divided her time between two local organizations providing support to\u00a0refugees and immigrants: the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine and\u00a0Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project.\n\nThe tea she purchases at the Heritage Restaurant, says Mckenzie \u201creminds me of one of the first cultural lessons I learned in Lewiston.\u201d When Hamza Abdi, a community leader and an academic administrative assistant at Bates and she first started teaching an IRCM English class together her first semester at Bates, \u201cHamza would leave in the middle of each class to retrieve us each traditional Somali tea, flavored with spices like cinnamon and cardamom and sweetened in condensed milk. I loved this tea,\u201d she says. \u201cOnly three months into teaching did I realize Hamza had been buying the tea from this restaurant downstairs, rather than making it in the office break room as I had assumed. I contested that I didn\u2019t want him spending his money on me \u2014 after all, if I come to the Center twice weekly for four years, that\u2019s a lot of money. Hamza laughed, well versed in the differences between our cultures. He explained that in Djiboutian culture, money is considered best used for gestures of sharing and showing others appreciation. Someone in his culture doesn\u2019t \u2018lose\u2019 money, as people essentially take turns paying for their friends.\u201d\n\nThese days, Mckenzie regularly picks up tea at the Heritage Restaurant. \u201cI really appreciate the culture of collectivity that surrounds it. These kind of cultural lessons are what have made my experience of Lewiston and my studies of anthropology at Bates so eye-opening a\" class=\"wp-image-5972\" width=\"337\" height=\"505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/files\/2020\/08\/HannahMcKenzieMask-600x900.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/files\/2020\/08\/HannahMcKenzieMask-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/files\/2020\/08\/HannahMcKenzieMask-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/files\/2020\/08\/HannahMcKenzieMask-1024x1536.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/files\/2020\/08\/HannahMcKenzieMask.jpeg 1279w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 337px) 100vw, 337px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hannah McKenzie &#8217;21<\/strong><br><em>Stevenson, MD<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I knew I wanted to spend my summer before my senior year living in Lewiston and growing the community partnerships I\u2019ve developed as a Bonner Leader at Bates. But in a time when I could otherwise feel so isolated from the community due to social distancing restrictions, I have felt especially grateful to be able to engage personally with local communities with the support of the Harward Center. This time has been a challenge, this experience a gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent much of the summer learning about immigration law, processes of applying for asylum and citizenship, and the ways those processes have been altered and affected by the Trump administration in recent years (and even weeks). Under the guidance of my community partner, Alice Kopij of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, I developed a pro se (self-help) guide for people applying for U.S. citizenship without a lawyer, a task that required that I deeply understand the citizenship process and then translate it into materials that are both legally precise and linguistically accessible. I researched topics in asylum law, assisted with forms, and conducted country conditions research to be used to build individual asylum cases. I was grateful to meet some of Alice\u2019s legal clients, and most broadly, to gain insight into work that is dedicated to advocating for people in need in such a direct way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other work, I collaborated with partners at the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine (IRCM) to assist with culturally sensitive programs for immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. I took on the role as a grant writer, which I appreciated because it is a tangible form of support for the organization and a role that felt more appropriate for me as a white American than if I were to assist with more direct services that are based in cultural understanding and relatability. I\u2019ve spent a lot of time this summer thinking about what my role is\u2014and what it can\u2019t be\u2014in work supporting the refugee community. This is not my community in the way it is for the staff with whom I work at IRCM. With IRCM especially, I\u2019m learning to be an advocate responsive to community needs and direction. It\u2019s a lesson I\u2019ll take with me wherever I go in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re in a time of multiple crises, and I\u2019ve been grateful to have engaged with a part of the Lewiston community\u2019s response to them. It has also felt hugely important to my personal experience grappling with racial injustice, health disparity, and so many of the important contexts of this time. I\u2019ve seen how refugee\/immigrant staff from IRCM are working so tirelessly to support their community, from advocating for local government health support to coordinating rides for their neighbors to go to the doctor when they can\u2019t drive themselves. It was inspiring to see, too, how these local organizations partner; often, I would be in a Zoom meeting and notice that my supervisors from both organizations were on the call. I\u2019ve seen how Lewiston communities collaborate and help each other, and that\u2019s given me hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This community-engaged work has filled many of the gaps in what I\u2019ve understood about refugee and immigrant experiences in the local context in recent years, and my perspective feels immensely wider and deeper. I\u2019m now excited and feel prepared to conduct a community-engaged honors thesis in anthropology this year, which will grow directly out of my continued role with IRCM. Throughout the year, I\u2019ll communicate with Executive Director of IRCM, Fatuma Hussein, about how to produce the most valuable anthropological scholarship and also be most directly helpful to the organization. It is this kind of bridging\u2014of my academics and community work, of personal interaction and broader lessons about the city and country, of Bates and Lewiston\u2014that have made my college experience so meaningful. I can\u2019t imagine having done anything else these past months, and I\u2019m so grateful.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hannah McKenzie &#8217;21Stevenson, MD &#8220;I knew I wanted to spend my summer&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly","with-sidebar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5971"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10328,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5971\/revisions\/10328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}