Top: Jane Kinity and Yemiamrew Teferi. Bottom: Rahab Kinity. Abiba Biao Photos.
When Rahab Kinity took to the mic, her energy was nothing short of contagious. Flaunting a bright red sequin maxi dress adorned with gold accents, her outfit was just as bright as her demeanor, mesmerizing adults and kids alike.
It wasn’t long before the whole auditorium, from young kids to Mayor Justin Elicker, was clapping along to the beat. In white block heels, Rahab danced up a storm, spreading the message of immigrant rights, unity, and support through the arts.
“Every hand that works makes the nation grow. Together we rise, together we grow. Let’s welcome them, let’s stand as one. Their future is our future,” she sang.
Song, dance, and food from across the globe filled the Dixwell Community Q House last Saturday, as over 200 people gathered at the World Refugee and Immigrant Festival. The event was the brainchild of nine nonprofit collaborators including Elena’s Light, Havenly, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), CT Students for a Dream (C4D), the Collective for Refugee & Immigrant Women’s Wellbeing (CREW), Junta for Progressive Action, Sanctuary Kitchen by CitySeed, New International Hope for Refugee and Immigrants, and New Haven Immigrants Coalition.
One principal goal of the event is “to have a celebration, to have this one day a year when everyone doesn’t need to worry and [can] just show up,” said Tetyana Pavelo, Ukrainian community outreach specialist at IRIS. Pavelo noted the importance of amplifying refugee voices and providing a safe space, saying that over 46 volunteers signed up to help with the event.
The decision to host the festival at the Q House was also a calculated safety decision, she added. Organizers wanted the venue to be accessible for people who rely on public transit, as many immigrant and refugee families do, but also have a lockdown procedure in place in the event that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were in the area. The federal agency has increased its presence in Connecticut, including in New Haven, dramatically in the past several months.
While World Refugee Day is usually celebrated on June 20, the event was postponed to September, to allow time for all nonprofit groups to collaborate due to scheduling conflicts in the summer.
The event was emceed by Yemiamrew Teferi, a lecturer in the department of anthropology at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and assistant director at New International Hope, where he works with Executive Director Jane Kinity. Prior to his time teaching at SCSU, Teferi was a visiting assistant professor on the Council on African Studies at the Yale University MacMillan Center.
“I’m really very happy about the day to celebrate refugees and immigrant[s] from the community… I hope we can continue doing this every year,” Jane Kinity said. She also serves as the Democratic co-chair for the Dwight neighborhood (that’s technically New Haven’s Ward 2), working alongside Alder Frank Douglass, and has been a Connecticut delegate for the Refugee Congress.
“When we see ICE in the community, we come together,” Jane said. “Right now, there’s a lot going on. Refugees, they are scared so that is why we came together to show them we are here to support them. Nobody can hurt them here.”
In November, Jane said that New International Hope plans to celebrate African day in New Haven to unite immigrants across the African diaspora. After going to an African event in Hartford and seeing New Haven residents there, she was inspired to host a gathering right in the Elm City.
Nearby, Yale students Dayra Quinonez and Whitney Xiao invited passersbys to join in an art project. The friends are sophomores at Yale, both studying political science. The project they’d designed was simple: on a canvas with a heart in the middle, the two had asked people to write the word “heart” in their native language.
Xiao is a member of the social justice campus organization Mecha de Yale. While she was at first expecting the event to be outdoors, she highlighted how the small space in the Q House “keeps people together” and allows for intimate and close connection, describing it as a “really welcoming, energetic space.”
“I've had so far, two people just come up to me and ask ‘What's going on?’ And then I was like, ‘Do you want to draw a heart?’
And they were like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ So I thought that was really cute, and I'm looking forward to that.”
With a purple marker, Quinonez wrote 심장, the word “heart” in Korean on the canvas and mentioned the importance of community involvement.
“I've been in New Haven a year now but I feel like I haven't had a proper chance to engage with the New Haven community,” Quinonez said. “So I'm trying to get out here and be at the events and kind of connect with these people, which I think it's been enjoyable so far.”
Xiao also shared some advice for those looking to volunteer and become more civically engaged.
“I'm super shy, too, but [I] like being a part of something. I like trying to give back,” she said.
“So if you try, bring a friend with you. I brought a friend, it's like moral support. It helps a lot.”
As festivities continued, Elicker perused the booths, talking to attendees and organizers and reading informational pamphlets. In a speech to the crowd, he shouted out Jane and Fereshteh Ganjavi, founder of Elena’s Light, for helping organize the event as the landscape around immigrant rights and community safety continue to shift under the current presidential administration.
He also highlighted the work of all the immigrants rights groups in the room, saying that there are “so many that I see working every, every day, in particular at this time, when immigrants in our nation are under attack.”
Elicker pointed to recent success, including the release of SCSU basketball student Deng Deng, who was captured by ICE at Tweed New Haven Airport earlier in the month. He also noted the city’s legal efforts to fight the Trump Administration, such as New Haven filing six lawsuits alongside other cities to push back against President Donald Trump and his anti-immigration efforts.
“We will fight back. We will continue to be together as a community,” he said, and the audience broke out into applause.
The event also included information and resource sharing, organizers not mincing words around the moment they and immigrant families are experiencing. Beginning on October 1, Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program) coverage will be limited to lawful permanent residents (also known as Green Card holders) who have achieved a five-year waiting period; some but not all Cubans and Haitians; and residents of Micronesia, Palau, or the Marshall Islands living in the U.S.
That stems from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, which placed new restrictions around lifesaving and vital coverage for millions of Americans.
Rebekah Sookdeo, associate director at Elena’s Light, said that inspiration for the event came from the last immigrant festival two years ago. While organizers weren’t able to hold the festival last year, Sookdeo said, they were determined to resurrect it by forging partnerships with additional community groups, which they since have. She said that celebrations were especially important under increased ICE presence, giving a shout out to the Connecticut Immigrants Support Network.
“It was really meaningful for me to include the word ‘refugee and immigrant festival’ because we wanted to really emphasize especially in these times the sort of nomenclature separation, it's not a real separation of the people,” she said in a phone call Monday evening.
Now they’re working to expand their programs in health education, English proficiency, and advocacy, and hoping to continue elevating refugee and immigrant voices.
“I really wanna thank the community for coming out and trusting us to be able to connect them to have a good day,” she continued. “A lot of folks are really going through a lot of situations, so we hope this event was really meaningful.”