The Green Card Voices Exhibit, located in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library until March 11, tells the stories of immigrants who came to the U.S.

The exhibit, composed of large posters displaying the stories and photos of immigrants, aims to provide students with a first-person perspective of immigrants’ lives. The Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion Services and the OSF library partnered with the nonprofit Green Card Voices to set up this exhibit.

“I think it displays various cultures and ethnicities, and I think that’s really interesting,” said freshman Paige Kocourek, who attended the exhibit. Kocourek thinks the display “helps (students) to open up their minds to the different beliefs and cultures here.”

Planning for this event began approximately one year ago when Green Card Voices held its annual banquet at the Minneapolis campus. SDIS Associate Dean of Students Patricia Conde-Brooks attended the banquet and said it was a good learning opportunity for students because immigration is a “hot topic” of conversation in the U.S.

“Many of our students here are immigrants themselves, so it’s the idea of starting a conversation about that. It’s educating you outside of the classroom,” Conde-Brooks said.

Senior Meg Walter noticed the exhibit in the library and found it informative.

“I like how it shows a large diversity of experiences from people all over the world,” Walter said.

In order to measure the success of the project and the impact it had on St. Thomas students, SDIS will conduct standardized surveys to measure whether the project met the desired learning outcomes, which included “holistic development” and “global and intercultural competence.” Within these two topics, SDIS measures cultural engagement in opportunities provided by students and cultural education programs that integrate interdisciplinary studies.

“There are different sides to immigration,” Conde-Brooks said. “I’m an immigrant myself, so when you speak to an immigrant, they all have a story to tell … Some of those are immigration stories that lead to green cards, and then there are immigration stories that lead to undocumented individuals who have a story to tell also.”

This exhibit begins a series of events on immigration, the next of which will feature Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas on April 25. He will lead a discussion about the experiences of documented and undocumented immigrants.

Emily Sweeney can be reached at swee4225@stthomas.edu.