St. Louis’ Nine Network of Public Media Explores Immigration Issues with “Homeland”

 

 

Public media is often the community’s opportunity to explore the local context of a larger societal issue, which is exactly what St. Louis’ Nine Network is doing through various media platforms on the contemporary story of immigration with their latest project: Homeland.

 “The topics explored through Homeland include immigration enforcement; refugees; and immigration and the economy, including both high skilled and low skilled labor, but Homeland is about much more than immigration,” said Amy Shaw, the senior vice president of community engagement for Nine. “It explores the complicated issues surrounding immigration and how we deal with it in our own communities.”

 The purpose is to help people embrace and understand the complexity of important issues to help address them in a more authentic, rational way. In the process of talking to people throughout the region, the Homeland team wants to show, analyze and present what it is that they learn from the community.

 For example, one issue found on the online discussion, http://www.explorehomeland.org/, is the revitalization of Cherokee Street in St. Louis. Another issue being explored is the significant emotional and psychological trauma often facing refugees as they leave their home country behind.

 “As we’ve been working on Homeland, we’ve learned that people didn’t understand why refugees were here, and didn’t realize that St. Louis has become a fairly recognized community for bringing in refugees,” said Shaw. “People are accepting, but didn’t really understand. Homeland presents a way to help people understand why they’re here and what happens when they get here.”

 KETC is exploring these issues through local and statewide facilitated conversations with community members, a robust website for people to connect and engage, original online content created by the community and Nine, and a three-hour television series, to broadcast nationally in 2012. In the meantime, Nine encourages everyone to participate, whether by volunteering to create content for the website or engaging in the conversation via comments at http://www.explorehomeland.org/ or on facebook at www.facebook.com/explore.homeland.

 “There are so many ways to participate, even if it is divergent material,” Shaw said “You can certainly disagree, just don’t be disagreeable.”

Return to page one

Also in this issue: