Processing the ICE surge isn’t over, professor says
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Hamline University creative writing professor Angela Pelster-Wiebe never expected to have to make a plan like the one she brought to her students on the first day of the semester in January.
She told them a plan for what they would do in the unlikely situation of immigration enforcement officers coming into class.
“It was really awful to say that and to watch people’s faces fill with fear, even just talking about it. It made me sick. It still makes me sick thinking about it,” Pelster-Wiebe said.
It was the peak of what the federal government called “Operation Metro Surge,” causing palpable tension across the small St. Paul university.
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She wanted to assure students that since Hamline is a private college, ICE is not allowed on campus without a warrant. She explained that, if they were to show up, no one should lie. They would all work to ensure laws were followed and that they looked out for their “most vulnerable” classmates.
It was inspired by a plan another professor made. They felt it was necessary to address the topic that had become an unescapable reality for both the school and the surrounding Hamline-Midway community.
Now, nearly two months later, Pelster-Wiebe said it remains too early to talk about what happened as people process. She said she sees the ripple of anxiety and trauma in her classes still.
“It feels like people are emotionally unwell in a way that feels a little bit different from other years,” Pelster-Wiebe said. "Maybe I’m just making that connection because it feels like it's a difficulty I’m still processing. But it‘s not usual for students to just start crying in class one after the other.”
Since the drawdown of federal immigration officers in the state, she has noticed students have resorted to a “back to normal” approach, attempting to shift their focus on the semester wholeheartedly, even though it seems many are still navigating the emotional effect of the ICE surge.
For Pelster-Wiebe, it feels rooted in a lack of coping mechanisms. It reminds her of how people slowly got life back to normal after the worst of the COVID pandemic because no one knew what else to do.
“We haven’t figured out how to help students holistically as a society,” she said. “It’s really weird on individual levels when we get students in the classroom who are desperately trying to hold things together but don’t really have structures in place to deal with it.”
Less than 1 percent of Hamline’s student body are international students; however, nearly half identify as people of color, according to the university. Pelster-Wiebe said students feared for their own safety and their peers after seemingly racially targeted arrests in the cities.
Moving forward
Creative writing has always offered Pelster-Wiebe a space for processing. As primarily a nonfiction writer, her work often explores trauma-induced storytelling.
Throughout everything that has happened, she’s turned to writing to help feel grounded.
“I keep needing to have affirmed what we went through, because it was so unlike anything I’ve ever lived. There’s so much of part of it that just feels not real.”
It’s something she continues to offer her students through class. She is noticing themes of what happened seeping into her students' work in unforeseeable ways, though she admits it is too early to know what it means.
“My students, who maybe used to write about werewolves and dragons and otherworldly creatures, are writing about that less, and their writing seems to me to be more focused on reality,” Pelster-Wiebe said.
Pelster-Wiebe and the creative writing program initially hosted writing and art events for the university and the surrounding community. They have since shifted to partnering with other campus and surrounding events since different spaces in the surrounding community were hosting events on the same nights.
The importance of not rushing into the future is top of mind for Pelster-Wiebe. She doesn't know how or when a feeling of safety will be restored.
“I feel like we’re in this moment of shock and processing now,” Pelster-Wiebe said. “Now that the anxiety and the reoccurring traumas have slowed down, I think we're just in this period of taking stock of everything.”
