The city of College Park is honoring its immigrant community by naming June Immigrant Heritage Month this year and moving forward, Mayor Patrick Wojahn said.
“As a city we wanted to recognize that a lot of members of our community are immigrants and descendants of immigrants,” said Wojahn, who introduced the proclamation at the May 24 city council meeting without a vote. “We wanted to recognize the contribution that immigrants make to our community.”
Recognizing immigrants speaks to the community’s goal to embrace diversity, District 2 Councilman P.J. Brennan said.
“There are diverse communities in the city of College Park that should be recognized from time to time,” Brennan said. “I think that we should do what is in our power to recognize the diversity, and that recognition, whether it be through a banner or proclamation, … doesn’t take a lot of time on the part of the city to make such an expression.”
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 18.7 percent of the city’s population is foreign-born as of 2014. The council passed a resolution in March welcoming all refugees with a 7-0 vote, according to a previous Diamondback article.
Having immigrants involved with businesses in the area and stepping into community leadership roles helps make the decision easier to recognize immigrants, said Jackie Pearce Garrett, a District 1 resident who attended the May 24 meeting.
“While talking about this resolution, District 1 council member Christine Nagle noted that refugees and immigrants in general bring a lot of great qualities in leadership, and the example she cited was that of District 1 council member S.M. Fazlul Kabir,” she said. “[Kabir] is not originally from the U.S. He is a leader. … I think he is a great example of what immigrants do for the community.”
Because the city has always tried to be inclusive, respecting different groups would help create a more cohesive community, District 2 Councilman Monroe Dennis said, adding that “doing this was one of our goals as a council.”
Recognizing June as Immigrant Heritage Month brings back memories from when Pearce Garrett and her husband were first looking for a new home in northern College Park, she said.
“We really liked College Park because it was very diverse,” she said. “You can just drive around or walk around and you see lots of different kinds of people … age, country of origin, race … that was a pretty important factor for us to live in a diverse community.”
Having community events such as more community picnics where people get to know one another is a great way for the community to continue showing their support for immigrants, Pearce Garrett said.
“A lot of times when you are a member of a community like ours … you see a lot of diversity but don’t really know about people’s backgrounds,” she said. “I think it’s really interesting to find a space and take the time to really get to know folks and where they come from. … [It] shows different stories of these people.”
