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PHOTO BY ELIZABETH KORELITZ/SOLAKA PHOTOGRAPHY
We Must Awaken Offering solidarity to migrant families
(right to left) Maria del Mar Farina, M.S.W. ’98, Ph.D. ’15, participated in a panel discussion on immigration policy with social worker Dalila Hyry-Dermith; Jorge Renaud, senior policy analyst at Prison Policy Initiative; and Andrea Schmid (not pictured), an organizer with the Pioneer Valley Workers Center.
Just down the hill from Smith at the Academy of Music on July 29, SSW co-sponsored Ofrendras: Solidarity With Migrant Families. Ofrendras is Spanish for offerings, and, fittingly, the event was a fundraiser for the Southern Poverty Law Center, raising more than $10,000 for programs assisting detained immigrant families. In her welcoming remarks, event organizer Jaycelle Basford-Pequet, M.S.W. ’10, quoted peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh’s belief that “we have to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” SSW student Natali RauseoRicupero moderated a panel discussion, which included Maria del Mar Farina,
M.S.W. ’98, Ph.D. ’15, an SSW adjunct professor and assistant director of field education. Del Mar Farina, who has done extensive research on American immigration policy, put recent, wrenching media images of children in detention centers within a historical context. Her remarks focused on the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which expanded the range of crimes considered deportable offenses, introduced fast-track deportation procedures, and has led to millions of deportations since. She also emphasized the human toll of separating immigrant children from their parents, citing tragic stories of
immigrant children lost in the fostercare system after separation from their parents and evidence that, in general, separation has long-lasting emotional effects. Other presenters shared their own stories of coming to the country as immigrants or working with immigrant families. The second half of Ofrendras featured a stirring performance of excerpts from Diana Alvarez’s Quiero Volver: A Xicanx Ritual Opera, which explores themes of motherlessness, political consciousness and building community. A line from Alvarez’s song “Orphan Heart/Orphan Will” struck just the right note for the occasion: “I will build this whole family.”
BRINGING TRUTHS TO LIGHT The history of psychoanalysis and racial study Dr. Beverly Stoute, M.D., and Michael Slevin, M.S.W. ’08, worked for two years on a series of eight articles about race and psychoanalysis for The American Psychoanalyst (TAP). The series stimulated such discussion that they used it as the base for a co-edited book on the subject, Race in the Therapeutic Encounter. Stoute and Slevin share a conviction that a psychoanalytic understanding of and engagement with racism could help both patients and our society. “The history of psychoanalysis and race is stained with ignorance, misapprehension and, yes, racist theory and practice. However, from that dark past it is emerging,” they write. On June 11 they shared their perspective with the SSW community in a talk detailing the importance and transformative potential of dealing with racism in a clinical
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S M I T H COL L E G E SCHO O L FO R SO CIAL WO RK
psychoanalytic environment. “Psychoanalysis doesn’t just happen in the consulting room,” Slevin said. It has implications and uses “in one’s traditional social work endeavors, and in the sort of social-services Jane Addams world. One of our premises is that it’s relevant in both places.” The presenters framed the discussion on the developmental evolution of race awareness from childhood to adulthood with their own clinical examples, as well as eliciting and exploring examples from the audience. Attendees were given the opportunity to explore how issues around race emerge in their consultation rooms, and how they can be addressed. Slevin described the talk as “emotionally rich,” and found the students “attentive, riveting and respectful at every step of the way—which is a real gift for a presenter.”
