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On the third Thursday of every month, immigrants and allies across New York state hold tea time. But instead of the usual ritual of sitting around a table and sipping from porcelain cups, each participant turns on their cameras and joins a virtual meeting room. And the act of sipping tea isn’t a requirement.

“This is a space where people can come in with no sort of expectations,” said Bryan Lee, the director of community engagement at New York Immigration Coalition. “We’re not asking them to … perform at any level, that people can just come as they are.”

For the past year, the NYIC has hosted Immigrant Tea Time, a virtual event that creates a space for sharing traditions and stories throughout NY’s immigrant communities.

This September’s tea time was a collaboration between NYIC and Kind Fools, a Buffalo-based community organization known for its WRITE ON! workshops that facilitate conversations between people of different backgrounds.

Lee considers Immigrant Tea Time his “baby.” As an immigrant from Malaysia, Lee entered the advocacy space during former President Donald Trump’s term as a way to fight for policies he aligned with.

Immigrant Tea Time is another step in the work NYIC has been doing for over 35 years. As a coalition, the organization has worked to uplift pro-immigrant narratives and policies throughout its history.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric isn’t new, Lee said, but it’s gotten worse over the past few years. Lee wanted the space to reach people in Buffalo, the Finger Lakes or New York City.

“I really thought about, ‘What is some way that we can have a space where people can come together?’” Lee said.

At 5 p.m. on Thursday, Immigrant Tea Time started with introductions from twelve participants and a meditation led by Hy Carrel, the director of operations at Community Canvases, a Buffalo-based nonprofit devoted to facilitating community engagement and expression through the arts.

Burmese poet Saw Wei followed the meditation with a reading. Afterward, the participants had eight minutes for a free-write, which leaders encouraged they write in any language.

NYIC and Kind Fools previously collaborated on four in-person language access events this past summer. Mohammad Ali Seraji, NYIC’s manager of community engagement for central New York and lives in Syracuse, made the initiative virtual so people from all over the state could participate.

“I was seeing the joy in the participant’s faces when they were connecting with one another, and I was thinking, this is the kind of joy I want to work towards and bring to tea time,” Seraji said.

While the organizers love to see high attendance rates, the intimate environment allows for better interaction between participants.

Following the free-write period, Anna Porter, NYIC’s manager of community engagement for western New York, asked participants to read their writing aloud to receive authentic encouragement from other guests.

Janice Northia, NYIC’s manager of community engagement for New York City, writes often, but rarely ever shares. With encouragement from Porter, Northia read her poem. She related running in the Washington Heights neighborhood to the barriers immigrants face.

Northia described how passing rat-filled streets reminded her of how neighborhoods largely populated with immigrants often lack funding for government services. She knows immigrants “have so much power” but the systems in place hold her community back.

In addition to her role with NYIC, Northia is a social worker. Her parents immigrated from Ecuador and raised her in the Bronx. Domestic violence forced her mother to leave her father, which led Northia to her first encounter with a social worker at her school. It was the first time she’d felt safe.

“These kinds of spaces are necessary because it helps people not only process but recognize we are more than just machines,” Northia said. “Immigrant Tea Time can be therapeutic for a lot of people who might not necessarily be looking for that, but it becomes that.”

After sharing, participants were met with either verbal encouragement or virtual reactions. Most used heart filters to show support for each other.

NYIC always aims to refocus its work to build immigrant power, whether that be through community education or policy proposals, Lee said. In doing so, the organization hopes to contribute to a narrative shift.

Immigrant Tea Time’s organizers recognize the event’s potential to be a healing space where reflection can act as a form of self-care amid political chaos.

“Immigrants are often referred to as the minority and that word in itself makes you feel kind of less than because it’s minor, when in reality we are the majority,” Northia said. “There’s so many people in this country that are immigrants, and we hold so much power.”

Published on September 22, 2024 at 10:41 pm