David Smith sees his current independent project, building a new online resource for attorneys who advise clients seeking asylum in the US, as a kind of capstone to his studies at UVM. A senior history major from Nashville, Smith has been interested in South and Central American politics since he was in high school.
“Some of courses Sarah (Assistant Professor of History Sarah Osten) offered lined up really well with that,” Smith said. “This final project brings together a lot of what I’ve learned at UVM.”
Last October, Osten spent a week at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, where she volunteered as an interpreter for the Dilley Pro Bono Project.The organization is an offshoot of the Immigration Justice Campaign, an initiative to ensure due process for detained immigrants by providing free legal counsel.
As a professional historian, Osten discovered that many fellow volunteers were seeking more context for the troubles in Central America today, which include widespread gang violence, domestic abuse and a rampant drug trade.
Smith was looking for an independent project and met with Osten after her return from Texas. They agreed that a website including a basic historical primer of regional history and politics would be useful to attorneys working with asylum seekers—often women and young children—fleeing the violence in the homelands.
“We feel like this website will fill an information gap,” said Smith. “The women and children being detained at the border are particularly vulnerable to gang violence that’s happening across the region, and people need to know about it. We want people to know that the United States has played a particularly important part in this violent region's history, from the Cold War to the Civil Wars to the War on Drugs.”
Smith has completed an outline for the new website and aims to have most of the content developed by the end of March. He doesn’t have a lot of web development experience, but figures he’ll be a WordPress software pro by the time he’s finished. He is on surer ground as a writer and editor—he works as a peer tutor in the UVM Undergraduate Writing Center.
He believes the site will be useful not just to volunteers working in the border regions but for anyone looking for deeper knowledge about the historic antecedents of the current crisis.
After taking some time off after graduation, Smith is considering applying to law school, and he sees the website as published material that could be a valuable asset to his future.
“This project also gives me the opportunity to put together a wholistic project that incorporates the research I’ve done in undergrad years. I also like the idea that I’m creating something of real lasting value that other students can build on.”
Sarah Osten, Smith’s mentor for the project, notes that the website will weave together source material drawn from Smith’s own research, and original research from students in her “History of Drugs” class last semester.
“David is editing and curating historical background briefs on drugs and gangs and violence in Central America who will also be credited as authors on the website,” she said.