Who are the faces of Erie.

With a population of little over 100,000, Erie is the home to Whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics. However, the population is rapidly growing with immigrants and refugees from many other nations. Immigrant is defined as individuals who choose to abroad their home country and live in another. Refugee is defined as a person who is forced to leave their home country due to war or persecution.

Today, Erie has become a safe haven for refugees and immigrants from many other countries. Erie is the home to refuges from Iraq, Nepal, Somalia, Sudan and many other countries. Erie and its local universities have also gained many immigrants and students from numerous Gulf Countries of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

Many of these refugees have fled their homeland to secure safety in other countries. These refugees lived in countries that were home to the largest refugee camps in the world where food and health was limited but life was much better.  After many years, the United States of America and numerous westerns countries have accepted these refugees to give them the opportunity to start a new life but with consequences.  The United States accepts these refugees to struggling cities but those cities have the potential to improve.

One of the struggling cities that I will be discussing is my current home town of Erie, PA. I will not be talking about the economy rather I will be talking about how Erie can gain from the diverse people in this city. We have seen a great presentation of cultures but those cultures seem to be forgotten not by its people but rather by our local government. I remember when my cultural geography professor stated to our class that, “Canada honors other cultures by implementing a program in the schools where it allows people from diverse background to stay connected from where they came from.”  Erie and it is local governments including police departments, outreach departments, or councilmen have done minimum recruitments to gain people from such great cultures. The local police department has yet to reach out to individuals to represent those countries with majority of the police officers coming from small town boroughs that have minimum knowledge of cross-cultural.  Erie needs to do more in bringing people together such as having a cultural sharing day at least once a month where  incoming refugees can be introduced to the Erie community and showing them what Erie has to offer for them from jobs, attractions, to its political system.

With the great diversity of the people from many nations in the Erie region, we must do more to honor these cultures by bringing them together and honor what they have to bring to the local region from their homeland. As more and more refugees are coming, the local government must do more to keep these individuals in the Erie region.  They can do this by keeping their cultures alive by implementing a program in the local schools to honor their culture or a cultural day where refugees are introduced to the city.