The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/refugees/page/2/)
Sunday morning I found myself in a coffee shop on North Cayuga street. My notes for an art history exam laid on the table. My iPhone 6s was charging and I checked it periodically to scroll through Instagram or check my email. I sat with my earphones in and some soft tunes playing. The contrast of this outside representation of being calm, cool and collected made me want to laugh, for my mind was raging.
Following the announcement of its new initiative to hire 10,000 refugees across the United States in the next five years, Starbucks reigns in general approval from Collegetown coffee fans.
Sue Chaffee, Director of Immigrant Services Program, told The Sun that the charity had already accepted a vetted family of six from Afghanistan and two families from Syria. The new executive order puts an indefinite hold on the Syrian families.
In 1925, after three weeks spent in steerage on the USS America and three years spent in a German refugee camp, a seven-year old Jewish boy named Benjamin Karasik stepped foot on the island of Manhattan. He and his family had fled from the horrors of the Russian Civil War, and now they arrived in America speaking no English and with only meager savings. Twenty-five years later, Captain Benjamin Karasik was commissioned as a doctor during the Korean War. And in a few short months, decades after passing under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, Grandpa Ben will celebrate his 99th birthday surrounded by his friends and family. Grandpa Ben was one of the lucky ones; by extension, I am one of the lucky ones as well, as are both of my sisters, my mother and all my cousins.
Ithaca Welcomes Refugees consists of individuals who are passionate about creating the smoothest possible transition for the refugees, according to Meeder. She explained that Ithacans have been planning several events to welcome the newcomers.
Last week, laid out in the center of the Arts Quad were five sets of sets of flags, each displaying a number. Heading each display was the name of a different nation: Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Somalia and Sudan. These signs, placed there by Cornell Amnesty International as a part of the Week of Action, counted the number of refugees displaced from each nation, and were designed to raise awareness about the hardships faced these millions. On Wednesday night, nearly all of the 250 flags were removed from the ground and scattered throughout North Campus. And it is very difficult to understand why.
“The display was inspired by the sheer number of refugees that have been forced to flee their homes in the past two decades,” said Fiona Boomer ’18, Amnesty International programming chair.
The mythical demigod Theseus is a testament to the heroic ideal of the ancient Greeks. King of the Athenians, his mythical slaying of the minotaur is still present in the western cultural narrative. He performed many acts of heroism throughout his reign, including the valiant defense of Hippodamia. This young bride was stolen by the lecherous centaurs on her wedding day. Thankfully, she was restored to her groom by the noble Theseus.
Mayor Svante Myrick ’09 announced that he will do “everything in [his] power to welcome Syrian refugees to Ithaca” in a Nov. 17 post on his Facebook page, echoing sentiments many New York State officials have also shown. Referencing a Washington Post article about Americans’ negative attitude towards accepting Jewish refugees at the brink of World War II, Myrick wrote, “If we turn away all Syrian refugees, we are committing the same sin.”
There is a strong historical precedent for accepting refugees in New York State and in the Ithaca area — nearly one-third of refugees from the former Soviet Union sent to the United States were resettled in New York, according to the Migration Policy Institute. In 2014, New York had the third highest resettlement rate of refugees across the U.S. states, admitting a total of 4,082 refugees. Ninety-five percent of all New York State refugees were resettled to upstate New York that year.