In 2014, at a moment when immigration was cresting a wave in the public consciousness in America, Newest Americans was launched. Cities and counties across the country were beginning to shift to minority majority status, DACA was altering the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people, and a backlash against immigrants would help fuel a presidential campaign. In this climate, project partners Talking Eyes Media, VII Photo, and the Center for Migration and the Global City at Rutgers-Newark birthed a project that honors the past, present and future of our migrating identities.
Newest Americans is a multimedia collaboratory of journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories that radiate from the most diverse university in the nation and the global city of Newark, New Jersey. This project’s stories have been published in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Nation, The Atlantic, and Mother Jones, and have garnered support from National Geographic, the Dodge Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Most recently Newest Americans was named the 2021 Online Storytelling Project of the Year by Pictures of the Year International.
Ed Kashi, Julie Winokur, and Tim Raphael will share a sample reel and a selection of work from Newest Americans, discuss their most recent developments in curriculum and teacher training, and the process of creating the Newark Story Bus, which is a mobile media lab scheduled to launch this spring. The goal of this multi-year project is to shift the narrative on immigration and support the next generation of diverse storytellers.
This event was recorded and you can watch the video here
