Conversations for the Common Good Program to Tell Immigrants' Stories
BLOOMSBURG - PA (09/05/2023) — Commonwealth University-Bloomsburg's Conversations for the Common Good program and WVIA will present "Immigration Stories: From the Statue of Liberty to Northeast Pennsylvania" on Thursday, Sept. 7, at 5 p.m. in Carver Hall, Gross Auditorium.
The event will begin with a screening of the PBS Iconic America docuseries episode, "The Statue of Liberty," followed by a moderated panel discussion. The panelists, all from northeast Pennsylvania, will share their own immigration stories. They will reflect on the film and their own experiences, and share stories of immigrants they have worked with in their professional lives in the United States. The event is free and open to the public and will be available later in in broadcast or on-demand forms.
Panelists will include:
Jenny Gonzalez Monge, a licensed social worker, who has been advocating for immigrants and civil rights of the growing immigrant and refugee population in NEPA through her work at Community Justice Project (CJP). She started working for CJP in 2013 as an outreach paralegal addressing issues related to public benefits, language access, subsidized housing and immigrants' rights in the Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton areas. Due to the growing need, CJP opened its third outreach office in Scranton in 2017. Gonzalez Monge is a co-founder of the Students Together Achieving Remarkable Success mentoring program at Marywood University in Scranton.
Alejandra Marroquin is the community outreach coordinator at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine where she facilitates the year-long community outreach project required of all incoming medical students. A native of Guatemala, she emigrated to the U.S. in 1993 with her family, and moved to northeast Pennsylvania in 1997. Marroquin has served the Latina/o/x population, in positions at a host of social service organizations in the region, including St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church, Catholic Social Services, Friendship House in Scranton, and the Lackawanna/Susquehanna Behavioral Health Program.
Ushu Mukelo is a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo who arrived in the U.S. as an immigrant in 2015 after 12 years in refugee camps in Uganda. He holds a certification in accounting and customer service software from Lackawanna College, as well as a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Scranton. A speaker of eight languages, he is currently president and CEO of Profficially
LLC, a translation and interpretation service in Scranton that also provides refugee resettlement counseling, in particular to the Congolese community. Mukelo works with refugee families to insure protection of human rights, access to educational and employment opportunities, to fair housing and public benefits.
Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania
Julie Stellfox, Assistant Director of Strategic Communications, jms833@commonwealthu.edu, 570-484-2280Share this Story
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