Resistance in Clarkston, GA - Stratton Marsh
Introduction
Clarkston is often referred to as the “most diverse square mile in America.”¹ This town became a hub of refugee resettlement in the 1990s as many resettlement groups identified Clarkston as a good place for resettlement due to its geographic location on the outskirts of Atlanta. It was close to public transportation, as well as its variety of affordable housing.² Here is a map of the public transportation system in Atlanta. The population of Clarkston in 2019 was about 12,000, 53 percent of whom were not born in the US. This is about a fivefold increase of the 10 percent of people living in Georgia were not born in the US. However, 30 percent of Clarkston residents live in poverty, compared to 13 percent of the total population of Georgia.³ Only about 20 percent of students from refugee backgrounds end up graduating from the local public high school.⁴ Therefore, a lot of organizations have popped up in Clarkston, created and led by women of migrant backgrounds themselves, that address discrimination, inequality, and other problems faced by the refugee population in their community. The leaders of these organizations aim to empower their communities and have created spaces of collective care that represent resistance against systemic inequality.
I live 20 minutes west of Clarkston, but had never heard about local activism and advocacy organizations. The organizations in the pieces we have read this semester stood out to me as powerful examples of organizing by migrant women’s groups and I kept thinking about Clarkston and what kind of activism strategies were being employed in this locality.
So, I decided to highlight five different places in Clarkston to discuss resistance and empowerment in this community. I took these top two pictures a few days ago when I went and walked around Clarkston. Notice that the public health signs encouraging resistents to wear a mask are written in both Arabic and Burmese. I’m going to start by talking about the site of a 2018 protest and what looking at the protest tells us about the politics of the state in which this city is located. Next, I’m going to talk about, Amani Women’s Center, Fugees Family Soccer, Refugee Women’s Network, and the Clarkston International Garden. The other spot on the map represents Merhaba Schwarma, which I wanted to mark because it has great falafel.
2018 Protest
Although was not about migrant women in particular, I wanted to provide an example of physical resistance in Clarkston. In 2018, Georgia State Senator Michael Williams was campaigning around Georgia with a remodeled school bus painted with different racist phrases such as “Fill this bus with illegals” or “Follow me to Mexico.”⁵ Williams made a stop at Clarkston because of its high population of migrants, but his campaign was met with a protest of residents coming out and supporting their community. Many Georgia politicians (and national politicians) question the rights of organizations to resettle refugees in Georgia and therefore the success and efficacy of these organizations is a form of resistance against the racism of many state and federal systems.⁶
AWC offers programs and workshops for refugee women. These programs include workforce development, health navigation, financial literacy, computer literacy, language classes, and much more. They also provide the “Sewing Academy,” a 12-month program specifically for women in need of a safe space to make products and learn sewing skills.⁷ Long term, AWC aims to promote the well-being of refugee women and empower the community.
AWC was started by Doris Mukangu, who migrated from Kenya to the US in 1996. She started the organization because as a healthcare worker in Atlanta, she saw that language and cultural barriers prevented newly resettled refugees from being about to take advantage of available resources.⁸ AWC provides collective care to the community by fostering a safe and welcoming space for individuals and by offering resources for them to develop language skills, life skills, and foster community.⁹ Some of AWC’s partners are women’s organizations, some are advocacy organizations that offer services for the Clarkston migrant community, and some are East African community organizations. This variety speaks to the intersectional identity of many of AWC’s members: migrant, East African women.
This organization is a soccer academy, charter school, and tutoring program. The soccer team is coached by Fugees founder Luman Mufleh, who moved to the United States from Jordan and is of Syrian descent.¹⁰ Mufleh’s main goal in starting this program is empowering children who are refugees, as well as providing them with educational support, community, and opening up future opportunities. She is the daughter of Syrian refugees and grew up in Amman, Jordan, where she was one of the only girls on her soccer team. In Amman, she came out as gay and was disowned by her family. This organization is inherently political because Mufleh created Fugees to combat the discrimination faced by refugee children, and the discrimination she faced as a gay woman from an immigrant background. Although only 20 percent of students from refugee families graduate high school in the county where Clarkston is located, 90 percent of students enrolled in the Fugee program graduate.¹¹
The team is made up of 86 boys and girls from refugee backgrounds (23 different countries), who play on one of six co-ed soccer teams.¹² These teams are intentionally co-ed to allow boys and girls to learn to play together and compete on the same level. Mufleh is the head coach, and she is assisted by high schoolers who played on the team in elementary and middle school. This coaching program serves to provide players with mentors with similar backgrounds. Soccer is not the only aspect of this program, however. Students also attend tutoring twice a week, where they can receive help with homework, assignments, and improving English language skills. The Fugees Family offers a summer academic program focusing on language and math, arts, and physical fitness. They also offer support to students’ families, checking in with them weekly to help them navigate resources, offering transportation, and providing translators for parent meetings. Students receive support all through high school and Fugees provides ACT/SAT prep, information about college applications, covers college application fees, and helps with applications to apprenticeship programs and job placement.¹³ This program encourages young students to be physically active, provides them with mentorships to encourage academic success and is a form of collective care by providing community support and relationships with people of similar backgrounds.
Refugee Women’s Network is led by Sushma Bakari, who came to the United States from Nepal.¹⁴ The organization’s goal is to help support resettled women after support from resettlement agencies and the US government ends, and therefore fill the gap of the insufficient current resettlement system.¹⁵ It is the only organization in Georgia that serves only women. Many of the women in the program have graduated and come back to work for RWN. RWN has a number of programs, under the categories of social adjustment, leadership, economic empowerment, community health, and civic engagement.¹⁶ The Civic Engagement program worked to register people to vote in the 2020 election, something that was important to Bakari.¹⁷ Bakari herself became a citizen in 2017 (even though she had been in the US for many years) so she was able to vote and show her discontent with then-President Donald Trump’s policies.¹⁸ The Community health program was created to fill the gap of a lack of access to information about healthcare resources. During the pandemic, they have also started a vaccine workshop in which participants can receive language-specific information about COVID-19 vaccination.¹⁹
In March 2021, RWN created a Women’s Hiking Group that organizes monthly hikes: participants start with walks in local parks and slowly move up to more difficult hikes until they have built up the stamina to climb mountains in Georgia.²⁰ According to their website, “through this community-based program, participants build confidence, develop a sense of belonging, and establish positive relationships with peers and community members within the natural spaces of their new Georgia home.”²¹ This program decreases barriers to access outdoor spaces and provides a COVID-safe way for these women to improve their physical and mental health.
Clarkston International Garden
Clarkston International Garden is one of eight Global Growers farm sites.²² Global Growers started in 2010, when families from Burundi, Rwanda, Congo, and Tanzania started a community garden in Atlanta to reclaim their agricultural heritage and support their physical and mental health. The network has both Community Growers (who grow food for their households) and Commercial Growers (who grow food to sell). They prioritize land access to communities who experience barriers to land access due to historic or current oppression so they can preserve their cultural traditions and help with food stability. According to their website, “Global Growers Network builds and sustains networks of growers, land, resources, and markets in order to create a more equitable food system driven by cultural diversity, inclusive economies, and regenerative agriculture practices.” ²³ This organization is a form of resistance to discriminatory agricultural practices and advocates for food justice.
Endnotes
¹ Yang, Yenny. 2020. Refugee Resettlement in the Most Diverse Square Mile in America: A Study of Clarkston, Georgia. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School.
² Ibid.
³ U.S. Census Bureau (2019). Clarkston city, GA. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/clarkstoncitygeorgia/PST045219.
⁴ Fugees Family: ABOUT US. Fugees Family. (n.d.). https://www.fugeesfamily.org/about-us.
⁵ Kauffman, J. (2018, May 16). Georgia Candidate For Governor Doesn’t Plan To Use “Deportation Bus” To Deport Anyone. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2018/05/16/611680288/georgia-candidate-for-governor-doesnt-plan-to-use-deportation-bus-to-deport-anyone.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ What We Do. Amani Women Center (n.d.). https://www.amaniwomencenter.org/awc-what-we-do.
⁸ Hudson, L. S. (2020, April 6). Kenya Native's Nonprofit Helps Refugee Women Rebuild Their Lives In Clarkston. WABE. https://www.wabe.org/kenya-natives-nonprofit-helps-refugee-women-rebuild-their-lives-in-clarkston/.
⁹ What We Do. Amani Women Center (n.d.). https://www.amaniwomencenter.org/awc-what-we-do.
¹⁰ Fugees Family: Founder. Fugees Family. (n.d.). https://www.fugeesfamily.org/founder.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² Fugees Family: ABOUT US. Fugees Family. (n.d.). https://www.fugeesfamily.org/about-us.
¹³ Ibid.
¹⁴ Barakoti, S. (2020, November 2). Opinion: First-time voter: I needed to vote as if my life depended on it. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/02/opinions/new-us-citizen-first-time-voting-2020-barakoti/index.html.
¹⁵ Our Story. Refugee Women’s Network. (n.d.). http://refugeewomensnetworkinc.org/what-we-do
¹⁶ Programs. Refugee Women’s Network. (n.d.) http://refugeewomensnetworkinc.org/projects
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Barakoti 2020.
¹⁹ Ibid.
²⁰ Hiking Group. Refugee Women's Network. (n.d.). http://refugeewomensnetworkinc.org/rwnhiking.
²¹ Ibid.
²² Our Land Network. Global Growers. (n.d.). Hiking Group. Refugee Women's Network. (n.d.). http://refugeewomensnetworkinc.org/rwnhiking.
²³ Ibid.
Image Citations:
Chambers, D. (2018). Protesters gather outside state senator and gubernatorial candidate Michael Williams’s “Deportation Bus” in Clarkston, Ga. [Photograph]. https://www.npr.org/2018/05/16/611680288/georgia-candidate-for-governor-doesnt-plan-to-use-deportation-bus-to-deport-anyo
Clarkston International Garden. (n.d.). [Photograph]. Global Growers. https://www.globalgrowers.org/our-land-network.
Official Map: MARTA Rail System, Atlanta, Georgia, 2011 (2011) [Image]. Transit Maps. https://transitmap.net/marta-atlanta/.