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from the issue of August 23, 2007
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After one last delay, Ari (finally) settles into Oldfather office
BY SARA PIPHER, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Ari has arrived.
After nearly two years of waiting for an H-1B visa, Latin American historian and scholar Waskar Ari has arrived at UNL to assume his professorship in the history and ethnic studies departments.
Call it one big step for Waskar Ari, one giant step for academic freedom.
For months, a team of lawyers pressured the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to grant a visa to Ari, a member of Aymara indigenous group of Bolivia. UNL administrators and the leadership of the American Historical Association have wrestled with a seemingly endless bureaucracy. Local and international activists initiated T-shirt and letter writing campaigns. Finally, in July, the government issued Ari's H-1B visa and he began planning his move to Nebraska.
His journey to Lincoln was arduous, a fitting - if unkind - end to his ordeal. When he arrived in Miami from La Paz, Bolivia, he was detained for several hours in Immigration. He reasons that, because his case has been so complicated, it took extra people and extra time to pore over his file. Thankfully, he had prepared for this possibility by collecting letters and documentation from his lawyers in Washington, D.C. After about five hours of detention - everyone was very polite throughout, he noted - Ari was allowed into the United States. He had missed his connecting flight and, after logging nearly 36 hours of travel time, he arrived in Lincoln Sunday night.
Late or not, Ari is not complaining. He is just thrilled to be here.
"This morning (Aug. 20), I woke up and said, 'I'm here.' And I cried. I achieved it. I said to myself, 'I did it.'"
The process has been emotionally and physically taxing. All along, Ari said, he has been living with two possible futures, Plan A and Plan B.
"It's not easy to go through life like that, especially when those two plans are in different parts of the world, it's a little bit more difficult," he said. "Also, when you can't make long term plans, you're just waiting... I was offered a tenure track position in Bolivia and I couldn't take it. Living in permanent limbo, it makes you frustrated."
The waiting process strengthened his commitment to UNL.
"After all of this, I will say how much I will love this place, how much commitment I will have to UNL, to the university community, and how much I will do my best because it cost me not only two years of my life, but many emotional moments," he said.
Ari has felt like a part of the UNL community since he received his teaching appointment in 2005.
"I think people here had the same feeling," he said. "Faculty here at history and ethnic studies contacted me, and I was part of what was happening on campus all along. Everyone was very active on my case. Many different groups worked on my behalf, writing letters. All of that makes me feel that the fact that I am here is not only something that I did, it's also something that the UNL community did. When I read letters, and the message from the American Historical Society talking about my case, I saw that this is something that intellectuals, academics - people who work with ideas - achieved. It is not just something personal I did, it's something much larger."
This fall, Ari will teach one class on the economic, social, historical, and cultural history of Latin America. His other class will focus on contemporary issues, including the formation of Latin American societies in the 19th and 20th centuries, with an emphasis on race, gender and culture. He is looking forward to teaching, he said, after two years of waiting. Ari is also active in a number of organizations, and has national and international duties within them. Because of his specialty in indigenous history, he is particularly interested in getting to know more about the minority communities in the region. He hopes to get involved in campus minority activities, in addition to pursuing his research in American Indian comparative history.
Ari spent his first late night and first morning in Lincoln just "looking around."
"Walking to campus in the morning, it's like walking in my dreams, walking in what I've thought about for two years, walking in my hopes. For me, it means a lot. I'm sure this experience will last for a long time."
GO TO: ISSUE OF AUGUST 23
NEWS HEADLINES FOR AUGUST 23
Big Red 'gym bum' chalks 40 years
After one last delay, Ari (finally) settles into Oldfather office
Chancellor to present State of the University
External funding increases to $172 M
UNL climbs in U.S. News top 50 list
Department opens semester with new name
Inaugural Nebraska Colloquium focused on the environment
Research helps gauge tendon injuries
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