People from many cultures celebrated National Immigrants Day, through food, Monday evening at the Bloomington Public Library.
Immigration stories were told through homemade snacks as an extension of the Breaking Bread in McLean County program series. Partners in the event included the McLean County Museum of History, BN Welcoming, the Immigration Project, Not in our Town, Illinois State University and the Illinois Art Station.
For the last two years, the event was only open to participants in a 10-part lecture series about immigration stories in McLean County. This year’s event was open to the public.
Archana Shekara, one of the event coordinators, is a professor of graphic design at Illinois State University. Shekara said she was approached about creating a visual identity for the lecture series when the event was first fleshed out in 2021.
“Of course, storytelling is important to people. You can capture people like, empathy is so important, and then compassion is so important when people talk about their story,” said Shekara.
“But then when you talk about it through food, right? Then that story becomes something else, right? Because food is the first way of understanding another, a first form of understanding another culture.”
Alberto Rigau shared his personal experiences regarding life in the continental United States. Rigau is the founder of Estudio Interlínea in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is an American citizen, but lives in San Juan and is visiting Normal this week for an artist talk Wednesday at the University Galleries.
On Sunday, a Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden caught Rigau’s attention when a comedian made disparaging remarks, calling Puerto Rico a “floating Island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”
“I was there when Trump threw paper towels at the Puerto Rican community after the hurricane,” said Rigau, referring to an incident in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017.
“And just two days ago, a comedian in a Republican rally basically said that Puerto Rico is the garbage of the United States. So as you can imagine right now, I am not the happiest human being when it comes to that.”
