





































Authors
AIMEE ZOELLER 
  Lecturer,   Director of Sociol-
ogy Program and Coordi-
nator of Women, Gender, 
& Sexuality Studies Minor, 
Indiana University Purdue 
University Columbus 

GEORGE TOWERS 
Head, Division of Liberal 
Arts, Professor of Geogra-
phy, Indiana University Pur-
due University Columbus

KATHERINE WILLS 
Program Director and 
Professor, English, Indiana 
University Purdue University 
Columbus 

Immigrant women in Columbus, 
Indiana, expressed anxiety and 
fear in the aftermath of the 2016 
U.S. presidential election and 2017 
travel bans. Their concerns were 
highlighted in a National Public 
Radio (NPR) segment:  

“The Sudanese-American citizens 
who live in a big, airy house a short 
drive from the Cummins plant, 
where husband, Khalidd Eleawad, 
is an engineer. About 1,400 of the 
company's 9,500 local workers, or 15 
percent, were hired on H-1B visas. 
Right now, [Dalia] Mohamed says 
her family is in limbo. They usually 
visit Sudan in the winter, then fly 
their Sudanese relatives to Indiana 
in the summer — but with so much 
uncertainty around President Donald 
Trump's now on-hold immigration 
order, which targets Sudan and six 
other countries, they don't want to 
risk it. Mohamed is Muslim and 
wears a hijab. She says the changes 
she's noticed in town since Trump's 
inauguration are palpable. ‘I don't go 
out that much after Jan. 20, because 
my friends, they have been through 
so many harassments, so — so that's 
why I just kind of stay home,’ she 
says” (Ropiak, 2017i).  

The nation had turned their eye 
towards Columbus for two primary 
reasons: Columbus is Vice President 
Mike Pence’s hometown and is the 
headquarters of the Fortune 200 

diesel engine manufacturer Cummins 
Engine.  Similar to affluent suburban 
communities, though situated in a 
mostly rural community, Columbus is 
not the traditional small Midwestern 
American town. Yet, in other ways, 
such as its closely held governmen-
tal and business power organized 
by longstanding families, it is very 
much a small town. Columbus is a 
microcosm of Silicon Valley in its per 
capita output, manufacturing and 
tech startups, as well as international 
workers and scholars. Columbus has 
attracted the spouses and families of 
immigrants. Columbus stands out 
in Indiana for the relative size of its 
foreign-born population. As of 2015, 
the city’s 5,224 immigrants comprised 
11.4% of the population. In contrast, 
only 6.6% of Indiana residents were 
foreign-born in 2015. The exceptional 
size of our immigrant community is a 
new development: the number of our 
foreign-born neighbors grew by 54% 
from 2010 to 2015. 

Indiana University - Purdue University 
Columbus faculty and staff were moti-
vated to engage in purposeful commu-
nity conversations in order to support 
the women’s urgent need to address 
current rhetoric concerning immigrant 
work and everyday lived experiences.  
This work was also inspired by the dig-
ital model of Humans of New York and 
by community literacy projects defined 
by the Community Literacy Journal as 
the “collaboration between academ-

Experiencing our Town
In the words of immigrant women

AIMEE ZOELLER, GEORGE TOWERS, AND KATHERINE WILLS

P R O F I L E S  O F  E N G A G E M E N T

ENGAGE!  |  i u p u i  b i c e n t e n n i a l  e d i t i o n 50

Contributors
BRANDI RUND 
Senior Business Analyst 
with IT Community Part-
nerships, Indiana University 
Bloomington 

ANNA F. CARMON 
Associate Professor and 
Program Director, Commu-
nication Studies, Indiana 
University Purdue University 
Columbus 

MATT ROTHROCK 
Coordinator, Academic 
Resource Center, Indiana 
University Purdue University 
Columbus 

DOUGLAS GARDNER 
Lecturer and Program Co-
ordinator, History, Indiana 
University Purdue University 
Columbus



ics and community members, organizers, activists, 
teachers, and artists” (Community Literacy Journal 
homepage). The IUPUC team secured a Welcoming 
Community Arts and Culture grant from the Heritage 
Fund – the Community Foundation of Bartholomew 
County to form an interdisciplinary, intersectional 
community literacy project that focused on captur-
ing narratives of refugee/immigrant women in their 
words. The team identified three key outcomes, as 
specified by the grant: “broader and more inclusive 
participation from diverse groups and individuals,” 
“increase[d] understanding/appreciation of cultural 
differences and commonalities,” and “diversity is 
showcased and strengthened through productions/
exhibitions.” As measured through student and 
public surveys, and most importantly, participant 
feedback, all outcomes were joyfully met.   

Participants were recruited through community 
network email listservs such as the Columbus Area 
Multi-Ethnic organization (CAMEO). More than a 
dozen immigrant women expressed interested in 
the project; ten participated in two “writing in your 
own voice” workshops hosted by IUPUC faculty and 
staff at the Bartholomew County Library. Childcare 
was provided during both workshops. Six of the 
women are from Mexico, three from India, and 
one from Colombia. One of the Mexican women 
is from a family of Chinese immigrants to Mexico. 
Similarly, participants range in age and residency in 
the US. For example, one of the women is 22 years 
old and has lived in Columbus since she was 3. Two 
others arrived in the US only last year. Similarly, the 
women bring a variety of educational and profes-
sional backgrounds to our project. In addition to the 
narrative workshops, the participants were invited 
to be professionally photographed by an IUPUC 
staff member. The intent of both creative processes 
– writing and photography – was to co-discover the 
experiences of the most marginalized population 
in the community. Although the staff photogra-
pher was also a student, students were not heavily 
involved in this initial effort for logistical reasons: 
the grant proposal was due after students’ summer 
exodus and the writing workshops were conducted 
during the summer months. Student participation 
could have been improved upon by linking it with an 

academic course in the fall or spring semester.   

The resulting project was numerous and striking 
large-size posters with women situated in recog-
nizable Columbus landmarks alongside their writ-
ten narratives. In conjunction with Exhibit Co-
lumbus, the city’s celebration of its architectural 
heritage, the posters were intentionally displayed 
in political spaces such as City Hall and commu-
nity spaces such as The Commons and the Colum-
bus Learning Center through the fall of 2017. Our 
project website (columbusimmigrantwomen.com) 
was launched in late August 2017 and is linked to 
the IUPUC website, the Human Rights page on 
the City of Columbus’ website, and the Columbus 
Area Multi-Ethnic organization (CAMEO) web-
site. In May 2019, the participants reconvened for 
a panel discussion as part of the Columbus Con-
versations series of public forums at the Mill Race 
Center. The women discussed their journeys to 
and experience of living in Columbus and partic-
ipating in the project.  The women’s voices, their 
poster artifacts, and the website will continue to 
be presented to community audiences.   

Anna Carmon, Aimee Zoeller, and Kate Wills at Columbus 
City Hall with Experiencing Our Town: In the Words of 
Immigrant Women display. Photo credit: George Towers

References

Ropeik, Annie. (2/16/ 2017).“Immigration Exec-
utive Order Causes Anxiety in VP Mike Pence's 
Hometown,” National Public Radio Morning Edi-
tion. Accessed on 9/1/2019 at https://www.npr.
org/2017/02/16/515454556immigration-executive-or-
der-causes-anxiety-in-vp-mike-pences-hometown

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