History is filled with tales of immigrants leaving the old country and settling into ethnic neighborhoods where they could struggle to master a new language and culture without obliterating their identity.
When history is written of the current wave of immigration, social networking online will tell a very different story of how immigrants are regrouping in America. Digital immigrant communities already are being mined by historians intent on capturing the first wave of the American immigrant experience online.
Social networking sites have become the new ethnic enclaves where young immigrants post detailed accounts of their struggles and connect with other new Americans. Those online jottings are viewed as a gold mine by researchers at the University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center who spent nine months capturing the Facebook conversations of young Hmong, Mexican and Somali immigrants in Minnesota to create a new digital archive.
For Yuridia Ramirez, a student researcher on the project, the growing archive captures the importance social networking has played in her own journey to form her Mexican-American identity.
The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she grew up in a small Wisconsin town, where her family was the only Mexican family around. When she arrived at the University of Minnesota, she longed to know more about her roots and meet others from her background.
"I really yearned to have Latino friends and friends that I could relate to and organizations that I thought were representative of my culture," she said.
"It's a very small community at the U,'' Ramirez said, "so Facebook has been integral in helping me find those things that are important to me."
Such Facebook discussions are valuable artifacts, explained University of Minnesota history professor Donna Gabaccia, because they offer a rare glimpse into the lives of teen and twentysomething immigrants.
"Among the project's key findings: Facebook is giving immigrant and refugee youths new spaces to explore and form their cultural identities.
Led by Gabaccia, the research center director, seven students studied discussions of Facebook groups focusing on issues affecting Hmong, Somali and Mexican-American youths. Researchers chose those groups because they are the state's largest immigrant populations.
"You find people writing from multiple locations and multiple countries," Gabaccia said. Discussion themes included homeland politics, education and cultural identity. Some conversations become heated.
For example, Spanish-speakers weighed in on this debate over a topic called: "Hablar Spanglish Es Devaluar El Espanol," or "Speaking Spanglish is devaluing the Spanish language."
This excerpt was saved to the U's archive:
Moises: "Ignorant people speak spanglish."
Jose: "I speak como yo quiero according to the Freedom of Speech, ya'all can have tus opinions. HOOAH."
Jose: "Also, I have professors here that say 75% of Spanish is from Arabic, like everything with "el" in front, like El Chingon ... food for thought.''
A young woman named Janet then jumps in, arguing "it takes talent to speak Spanglish'' because "you need to know both languages in order to put them together.''
Online correspondence, marked by its informal and immediate nature, is unlike most other documents found in historical archives.
Andy Wilhide, one of the students working on the project, compared it to a transcript of a telephone conference call.
Unlike oral histories, which rely on community elders reflecting on what they've experienced, the digital records capture the voices of young people as they're in the midst of defining their new American identities.
For example, one discussion began when someone posted this question to fellow Hmong-Americans: "When people ask you what Hmong is, how do you reply or explain 'Hmong'"?
Soua: "We are just people from southeast asia. You can say that we are kind of like Chinese. (something like that)''
Ka: "ethnic group from south east asia."
Samantha: "I tell them to watch Gran Torino."'
Souny: "We are indigenous people living traditionally in mountain villages in southern China and adjacent areas of Vietnam and Laos and Thailand. ... We call ourselves "Hmong" which means 'free man.'"
Allie Shah • 612-673-4488
Source: The Star Tribune.
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