League of Women Voters partners with Wooster High School for series on immigration

WOOSTER — The Wayne County League of Women Voters will present the second part in its three-part series, A Civil Discourse Series on the Topic of Immigration. The event takes place on Tuesday, Sept. 12, at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 305 E. Pine St., on the COW campus at 7 p.m.

Parking is available in the two lots directly across Pine Street from the church, along Pine and College Streets adjacent to the church, one block north of the church on University Street in front of Taylor Hall and across the street from Freedlander Theatre, and in the lot behind Taylor Hall off Bever Street.

In March, the League of Women Voters (LWV) had a presentation about how the immigration process works and what it takes to become a US citizen, looking at how long it takes and highlighting how broken the process is. Data about immigrants coming into the United States and the challenges they face were presented.

The series evolved from multiple discussions within the programming group with feedback from League of Women Voters members, according to Mary Sue Kaliszewski, program chair.

"We wanted a topic with broad appeal, something that our membership could be passionate about, and something that would motivate the local community to come together for a discussion," she said. "The individual parts of the series came about from brainstorming on how best to bring Civil Discourse on Immigration to the local community.

"This is the second of our series," Kaliszewski added. "A couple of years ago, the Wayne County League of Women Voters decided that we really wanted to begin to focus on being able to have a civil discourse about politically charged issues. In today's world, it's tough. We chose immigration because it's an issue a lot of people have a touch point with,. So many of us are first, second or third-generation Americans."

Creating civil discourse

Kaliszewski said the second part of the series will be more about exploring the issues facing immigration, because it is important to educate yourself on the various sides of an issue before you can have a good discussion. How to research a topic, and how to know if the information you are getting is good information are important parts of developing a civil discussion.

"How do you sort through all the information to know what's real, and what's not, so you can explore an issue from both sides and have a dialog about it," she said.

It just so happened that one of the recent topics the Lincoln Douglas Debate Team at Wooster High School was debating was 'Justice requires that you have open borders for human migration.'

"We thought we'd have the students come in and talk about how they investigated the different sides of an issue; which aspects of the issue were most important to debate and how they actually go about debating a topic," Kaliszewski said. "When they go into a debate, they don't know if they are going to be pro or con, so they have to be prepared to debate either way."

The students will give a brief presentation and a debate demonstration, and then LWV members will break down into small groups for further discussion.

A great opportunity

Megan Kleinhenz, Nate Byrne and Addy Gerbick shared their thoughts about being invited speak to the League of Women Voters event.

"Talking about something you're passionate about and have already done a ton of research on, is really intriguing," Byrne said. "This opportunity is really fun, even though it's not our current topic. We're still very passionate about it because of our personal connection to the debate and the topic itself."

Gerbick added that it has been an eye-opening experience for her because she likes getting to apply what she's learned to a real-world event as opposed to in the debate setting.

Kleinhenz said she has been strapped with debate topics which she was not in favor of, but admits she just has to make do with what the information you can find. Sometimes, additional research is required to find out if information is reliable.

"The borders topic was a debate topic we had in January and February, and it's actually my favorite topic," Kleinhenz said. "It was a very, very meaty topic, with a lot of different angles to approach it from, and everybody had a lot to say. It ended up being a really great topic."

LWV a nonpartisan organization

This event will lead to a third session, which probably won't happen until after the first of the year, where the community can come together for a small group discussion and possibly come up with suggestions for the direction they believe politicians should be taking.

The Wayne County LWV is a local chapter of the national League of Women Voters organization. The LWV of Wayne County is a nonpartisan organization with the mission of both empowering voters and defending democracy.

The LWV works to encourage active and informed participation of local citizens; increase the understanding of major public policy issues; influence public policy through education and advocacy; foster civil dialogue about important community issues; engage voters through voter registration events, candidate forums and voter education.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: League of Women Voters and Wooster HS debate team to discuss immigration