| On Saturday, October 15th, the City of Irving
held a citywide Diversity Dialog to discuss issues relevant to
the growing diversity in the population of Irving.
The Dialogue was held at the First Methodist Church
in Irving’s central business district.
The meeting
was the first of a series of dialogues on diversity
that will continue into 2006. The meeting was
organized and moderated by Dr. Rene Castilla, Dean
of Northlake College. The facilitators included:
Mike Benton, John Danish, Delmar Perry, Gerri
Kunstadt, Jim Marshall, Nita Patrick, Lewis Patrick,
Bob Reichelt, Joe Colvin Gibson, Ray Ebbighausen and Elvia Wallace-Martinez.
Attendees listen to the opening remarks before
they left for the individual workshops.
|
The goal of the meeting was to initiate public
discussion of the many difficult issues that Irving
faces as it deals with the changing demographics
that are an inherent part of the Irving's population growth over the last several decades. Although Irving
is home to immigrants from many globally diverse countries,
with approximately 60
indigenous languages, much of the focus was on
the growth of the Hispanic segment of Irving’s
population. This ethnic segment has seen the most most pronounced
growth and
had has received the greatest response from
longtime Irving residents.
The Dialogue was structured with an opening
overview session followed by twelve concurrent
breakout sessions covering the following five
discussion topics:
- Challenges recent immigrants face living in
Irving—what they need to know and who should tell
them?
- A confluence of cultures in Irving—how can
they peacefully coexist?
- Who leads the way to overcome the resistance
to the changing face of Irving?
- Multicultural neighborhoods—let’s make it
work. How?
- Building blocks for successful
neighborhoods—moving beyond race and ethnicity.
How?
After the sessions, the group reconvened as a
whole for a debriefing session and hear specific suggestions from
a few of the groups. In addition, notes from each of
the groups were displayed during a reception
following adjournment in the church hallway. A summary
of all discussion groups is being compiled and will
be available to the community at large.
Continued |
