Complex Immigration Issues are Focus for One Book, One Community Program

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — University of Arkansas students and members of the campus and Northwest Arkansas community are joining in this year’s “One Book, One Community” program.

The book is Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make a Difference by New York Times reporter Warren St. John.  The author will visit the U of A to give a free public lecture and sign books from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in the Donald W. Reynolds Auditorium. He will also speak to Fayetteville Public Library book club members at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 6. 

In a video message to the campus interim Chancellor Dan Ferritor encourages everyone to read “a book that tells stories and raises issues – issues as relevant for our community as they are for countless places in America.”

Outcasts United is the true story of refugees from wars in the Middle East and Africa who were re-settled in the small town of Clarkson, Georgia, a new miles outside of Atlanta. The process was as wrenching for the refugee families as it was for the townspeople. For the children and teenagers, soccer was a common link. For their coach, a young Jordanian woman, herself an exile, the challenge was to build that link into something strong enough keep her players in school and out of trouble. The soccer team she led, known as the Fugees, became a symbol of the turmoil and change for the refugees and the Clarkson community.

One Book, One Community EVENTS

A pair of one-act plays, a film screening, and a panel discussion, all dealing with challenging issues related to immigration, will set the stage for Warren St. John’s public lecture in November. All events are free and open to the public.

• A Mule in JFK by Keith Glover and Famous Ali by Robert Clyman, one-act plays about issues related to immigration, will be presented by the University of Arkansas Theatre Department in collaboration with the Classical Edge Theatre Company. Performances will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6 through  Friday, Oct. 8 at the Global Campus Auditorium, 2 Center Street, on the Fayetteville Square. A talk-back session will follow each performance. 
• Elizabeth Young, professor in the School of Law, will screen The Good Lie, starring Reese Witherspoon, a film about a group of Sudanese refugees resettled in Kansas City and the employment agency counselor who changes their lives. The film will be shown at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 in the E.J. Ball Courtroom, room 240. Young will lead a discussion after the film.
• Margot Jackson, executive director of the Ozark Literacy Council, with a group of her clients, will lead a discussion of the Welcoming America Project, a national network designed to help nonprofit and government partners make their communities more welcoming places. This event will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3. in the Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences Building, room D115.

For more information, contact David Jolliffe, co-chair of the One Book/One Community Project, at djollif@uark.edu or call him at 479-575-2289.