Last week, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced the birth of their first child. Given that Prince Harry is, of course, a (rather famous) British citizen, and Meghan is a US citizen waiting for her British citizenship to be approved, immigration attorney John Manley examines the very important question of what citizenship the child has. While Manley notes that in general the “automatic acquisition of US citizenship at birth by a foreign-born child is actually pretty complicated,” thankfully for Harry and Meghan’s royal baby the question of his citizenship is simpler…
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Viewfinding
Viewfinding is a public art installation and queer poetry collaboration by Sarah E. Brook, a New York-based artist whose work utilizes “translucency, layering, color gradients and architectural references to investigate the relationship between expansive external and internal (psychic) space.” Located off the 68th Street Entrance to Riverside Park South, the interactive light sculpture is comprised of five wooden trapezoidal panels within which are strips of cast acrylic painted in colors from rich blue to fiery pink, all meant to reference the sky at sunset. Twenty-six poems by queer poets are attached to the bench below the panels. Through her art, Brook invites the viewer to explore “how vastness can dismantle limiting narratives of being” and “offers viewers the opportunity to seek their own resonant orientation to the work through chosen sightlines, alternately illuminating, obscuring and revealing corridors of visibility.”
Think Immigration: “USCIS Acknowledges That Its Own Policies Compound Case Processing Delays.”
USCIS’s own policies are contributing in part to the dramatic slowdown of case processing times that affect millions of individuals, families, and businesses throughout the country, Jason Boyd, policy counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Government Relations department, writes in Think Immigration. Earlier this year in February, eighty-six members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) that demanded accountability for the agency’s increasingly lengthy processing delays.
Read moreA Meaningful Life
Designer of Dreams
Located in the recently-opened Sainsbury Gallery in London’s Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum, “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” features over 500 pieces that trace the house of Dior’s work and influences beginning with the inception of the fashion house in 1947. Focusing specifically on Dior’s fascination with British culture, the exhibition celebrates the designer’s successful revival of high fashion in the years following World War II, when countries throughout Europe were still being forced to ration their resources. “In 1947, Christian Dior changed the face of fashion with his New Look, which redefined the female silhouette and reinvigorated the post-war Parisian fashion industry,” explains V&A’s Curator of Modern Textiles & Fashion, Oriole Cullen. The display of 200 rare couture gowns “showcases the ways in which Dior’s succeeding creative directors have been inspired by his legacy,” from the daring designs of Yves Saint Laurent to the ebullience of John Galliano and the minimalism of current Creative Director, Maria Grazia Chiuri. A collection of Christian Dior’s personal possessions is presented alongside the gowns, including accessories, photography, film, perfume, make-up, illustrations, and magazines, to give visitors a deeper understanding of the man behind the successful couture house.
USCIS: Israeli Nationals Now Eligible for E-2 Treaty Investor Visas
US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that effective May 1, 2019, eligible Israeli nationals already in the US in a lawful nonimmigrant status (along with spouses and unmarried children under twenty-one-years of age) can file to request a change of status to E-2 status.
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Earth Day New York 2019
This week the Earth Day Initiative hosted its annual Earth Day New York Festival in Union Square, meant to inspire attendees to make increasingly environmentally-friendly choices. This year’s festival was a special edition of the event — the start of a year-long countdown to Earth Day’s 50th anniversary in 2020. In addition to the dozens of exhibitors, including non-profits, green businesses, kids' activities, and live performances, the outdoor festival featured artists who created works of art — live and on-site — surrounding environmental themes that were inspired by the recent Green New Deal proposal. Among those featured was Molly Egan, a Philadelphia-based artist who, in anticipation of the art installation, said that her artwork depicts “people making more sustainable choices like recycling, composting, replacing plastic water bottles with reusable ones, and eating more environmentally friendly foods.” John Oppermann, Earth Day Initiative’s executive director, emphasized the importance of interactive events like Earth Day New York and noted how important the event has been since its founding in 1970: “That was a time when people really raised their voices and said, ‘We need to do something about these environmental issues.’ A lot of the safeguards we have in place today, we take for granted.” He added: “That is something we should keep in mind…when we see attacks on environmental protections we have now.”
Immigration Impact: “Director Jordan Peele Casts More Immigrant Actors, Tells More Inclusive Stories.”
Fifty percent of Latino immigrants, thirty-three percent of black immigrants, and twenty-five percent of Muslim immigrants on television are portrayed as criminals, according to a 2017 study by The Opportunity Agenda, a social justice communications lab. The study, called “Power of POP: Media Analysis of Representations of Immigrants in Popular TV Shows,” demonstrates that biased and narrow portrayals of immigrants and people of color in Hollywood is not new. But some in Hollywood, including Academy-Award winning writer and director Jordan Peele, are beginning to change this.
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