Hidden History: The Story of the Latinx Immigration to Holland, Michigan

31 West 10th Street,Holland MI 49423

02 December, 2021

Description

Sarah and Aaron Yore-VanOosterhout will share the history of Mexican/Latinx immigration to the United States with a focus on Holland, MI. Sarah Yore-VanOosterhout, Founder of Lighthouse Immigrant Advocates and K. Aaron Yore-VanOosterhout, Ph.D, a Lighthouse consultant and research manager at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy will share the history of Mexican/Latinx immigration to the United States with a particular focus on Holland. The free program may be moved to Zoom. Donations are encouraged. Sarah Yore-VanOosterhout (she/her) completed her undergraduate studies at Calvin College in 2008. Sarah attended the Michigan State University College of Law, devoting herself to the study of immigration and public interest law. Following law school, Sarah, her husband, and young daughter moved to Mexico for a year where her husband completed his doctoral research. In the fall of 2013, Sarah started work at the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Immigration Legal Services, serving as one of two full-time attorneys. She tackled a wide variety of family-based immigration cases and grew accustomed to handling a high-volume caseload while still offering high-quality legal services. Sarah left the Diocese of Grand Rapids in December 2014 and soon discovered for-profit legal services were not what Holland immigrants needed. And so, she pioneered Lighthouse Immigrant Advocates. In addition to her work at Lighthouse, Sarah is a mother to two young daughters. Aaron Yore-VanOosterhout (he/him) has worked as a research manager at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University since 2017. In this role, he designs and conducts a variety of community-based research projects on topics ranging from homelessness to postsecondary education in prison. Aaron has a doctorate in history from Michigan State University, with a focus on race/ethnicity and anti-state rebellion in 19th-century Mexico. Before joining the Johnson Center, he taught Latin American history at a number of colleges and universities, most recently at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.