Experiencing intentional recognition: Welcoming immigrants in Dayton, Ohio

Abstract

What is possible if Dayton became a city that intentionally welcomed immigrants? This question was the starting point for a community conversation about the wellbeing of and outreach toward immigrants in a midsize city in southwest Ohio – the City of Dayton. This paper examines the processes employed to support the emergence of an immigrant-welcoming initiative now called ‘Welcome Dayton’. Early conversations resulted in a formal plan, written by the community and endorsed by city commissioners, which realigned and crystallised local priorities, sparking a wide spectrum of efforts aimed at becoming a welcoming city. Using qualitative methods, primarily participant observation, we identified practices of creating spaces where both long-time residents and recent immigrants come together in a way that recognises and reveals the value of each participant’s perspectives and ideas. Herein we examine the practices of creating and sustaining Welcome Dayton, paying particular attention to the role of recognition in generating ‘resourcefulness’ in the community.

Live, Work, and Stay? Geographies of Immigrant Receptivity in Atlantic Canada’s Aspiring Gateways

“…Practitioners, scholars, and journalists have celebrated Dayton, Ohio's "Welcome Dayton" process, for example, as a community-driven model of intentional welcoming grounded in a social justice perspective (Housel et al 2018;McDaniel et al 2019). In a city with an immigrant population of less than five percent, the process centered around the question: "what if Dayton was to become intentionally welcoming to immigrants?"…”

Rust and reinvention: Im/migration and urban change in the American Rust Belt

“…Since 2017, proimmigration local initiatives have become a key part of the politics of anti‐Trump defiance in majority democrat cities and counties, a symptom of the ongoing disjointed immigration reform debate and rising nativism at the federal level. As Housel et al (: 385) explain, the “fragmentation of the U.S. immigration policy which happens at multiple levels – national, state and local – has created openings for localities to create, redirect, and implement immigration policies and practices on the ground.”…”

“…In the context of increased immigration policy fragmentation, local responses are also inspired by problems and politics at multiple scales, the “sociohistorical legacies of localities” (Matos, : 810) and the emergence of “eco‐systems” of policy entrepreneurs (McDaniel et al, ). In the Rust Belt specifically, researchers have highlighted the growing policy consensus around the instrumentalization of im/migration to address problems affecting deindustrialized and/or shrinking cities (Filomeno ; Housel et al, ; Pottie‐Sherman, , ). In analyzing the string of initiatives that have formed around the Welcoming Economies Global Network, Pottie‐Sherman () highlights the alignment of welcoming efforts in the Rust Belt with post‐recession austerity politics after the Wall Street crash of 2009.…”

“…Policymakers and academics have lauded Dayton's “Welcome Dayton” initiative has as a community‐driven, consensus‐based project grounded in a social justice framework (McDaniel et al ). The Welcome Dayton process centered on the question: “what is possible if Dayton became a city that intentionally welcomed immigrants?” According to Housel et al (: 396), the process reframed im/migrants' presence in Dayton through an “ethics of recognition” that was “welcoming without conditions,” rather than contingent on their economic contribution (and self‐sufficiency). Drawing on theoretical work by Gibson‐Graham () and MacKinnon and Derickson (), Housel et al illustrate the importance of “active communities” that acknowledge the “shared humanity” among members that comes from “being‐in‐common” (Gibson‐Graham, : 81).…”

“…Columbus, for example, has the largest Somali population in the United States because of the secondary migration of Somali refugees Mott's (2010). study of Somali refugees in Columbus emphasized the importance of social networks, including the reputation of the local voluntary organizations and the presence of the existing Somali community, alongside affordable housing as key pull factors drawing former refugees to Columbus.Dayton, similarly, has benefitted from the inmigration of Ahiska Turkish refugees who settled elsewhere in the United States but were attracted to Dayton by low-cost housing and work opportunities in trucking(Housel et al, 2018). In St. Louis, the growing Bosnian community on the city's south side attracted former Bosnian refugees from across the United States.…”