New Tulsans Initiative By Ethan Veenker
Some hold the notion that one’s city nourishes its inhabitants as much as they nourish it, though many of us know things are not often as simple as our aphorisms would have us believe. Since Sept. 20, 2017, however, the New Tulsans Initiative, a brainchild of Tulsa mayor G.T. Bynum, has held fast to this symbiotic belief regarding a city and its citizens. The resulting program has ushered in changes toward an ideal future where Tulsa can better and truly nourish its Tulsans. “The New Tulsans Initiative recognizes the core belief that our city’s greatest asset is our people,” says the City of Tulsa’s website in a statement from Bynum. The Initiative, in a nutshell, seeks to empower this asset — the people — by championing equity for all groups of citizens. This ultimate goal has meant a particular focus on supporting Tulsa’s immigrant and refugee communities and to create opportunities for inclusion and shared prosperity. They are the New Tulsans. “We really need all Tulsans, whether (they’ve) been here five minutes or five generations,” said Krystal Reyes, chief resilience officer at the City of Tulsa. “One of the (New Tulsans Initiative’s) priorities is to help make Tulsa the mostwelcoming city in the United States.”
Flourish Tulsa is a program of the New Tulsans Initiative that supports internationally trained immigrants to fully utilize their skills and education through credential recognition, career pathway guides and culture competency trainings for employers. Flourish Tulsa partners provide career planning consultations, ESL (English as a Second Language) classes, networking opportunities, as well as paid internship and training opportunities. But the Initiative’s focus is not only on the college-educated. The New Tulsans Initiative Welcoming Plan lays out, for the city, a 26goal roadmap within five categories: civic engagement, economic development, education, health and public safety. These goals all focus on immigrant equity in Tulsa and include, for example, “Immigrants in Tulsa have equitable access to safe and reliable public transportation,” under economic development, and, “Data is readily available to evaluate and track how immigrants are served in health and social services,” under health.
Through community events, advisory from the City of Tulsa and multi-faceted monitoring of statistics from a number of angles (particularly during the pandemic), Reyes shared an enthusiastic vision of the city’s progress in this roadmap. Particular attention is placed on naturalization, a formerly nebulous process that would require a trip to Oklahoma City. Reyes shared estimates of around 6,000 Tulsa County residents eligible for citizenship. The team behind the Initiative has worked to bring the necessary components for the Oath of Citizenship — the final step in naturalization — to sites in Tulsa, with 616 citizens naturalizing since April 2019. As 2022 progresses, the City plans to keep holding naturalization ceremonies on a regular basis. Find a more comprehensive history and list of resources on the New Tulsans Initiative at cityoftulsa.org/new-tulsans.
Fifteen-year-old Cing Sang was one of 25 children who took oaths of allegiance to the U.S. in 2021 at the city’s first child citizenship ceremony on July 8 at Gathering Place.
It’s naturally difficult to tackle that superlative without a certain reckoning: according to the 2021 New American Economy Cities Index, 9.2% of Tulsa’s population is foreign-born. According to the same source, that amounts to 37,898 people, a quarter of whom hold bachelor’s degrees. There is among this population, however, an under-employment epidemic. While a steady stream of nourishment has been afforded to Tulsa by this stream of immigrants and professional talent, the pendulum has, until now, failed to swing the other way.
tulsacouncil.org
| VISION TULSA 2022
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