Author: Meghna Datta

When asked about the process of writing her memoir, Dana Lorene Creighton paused in thought.

“It’s like spilling your guts to a lined composition notebook,” she said.

On Tuesday, March 30^th, Creighton was joined by Dr. Sneha Mantri, her neurologist at Duke and director of the Trent Center’s Program in Medical Humanities, for Narrative Medicine: A Patient’s Perspective – a conversation about the impact of narrative medicine and the journey to her memoir, A Family Disease: A Memoir of Multigenerational Ataxia.

Creighton, who has an MS in exercise physiology and has spent her career involved in clinical research and community health at both UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke, has spinocerebellar ataxia, a hereditary neurodegenerative condition characterized by a lack of muscle coordination. The illness is commonly visible through slurred speech, stumbling, falling, and incoordination due to damage to the cerebellum – the part of the brain that controls muscle coordination.

As Creighton described, prior to writing her book in her late forties, she hadn’t successfully communicated to anyone the impact of ataxia on her life. And so, her memoir was organically born, but as Creighton says, “it was hard for me to type as fast as I was thinking, and that lasted for several months.”

It took Creighton a couple of years just to write the foundation of the book, which draws on neuroplasticity research, personal memories, and medical records to highlight the importance of storytelling in deriving meaning from illness. She spent the next two years after that re-shaping the arc, drawing on a wealth of her own experiences as well as decades of journaling that had left her with a meticulous set of notes.

As both Creighton and Dr. Mantri emphasized, writing is a deeply cathartic exercise as well as a way to share significant personal narratives. This is especially true in a field such as medicine, where people are so often treated as an illness or statistic rather than a human being.

Narrative medicine was coined as a term by Dr. Rita Charon in her book Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness, to refer to “medicine practiced with the narrative skills of recognizing, absorbing, interpreting, and being moved by the stories of illness . . . . Along with their scientific expertise, doctors need the expertise to listen to their patients, to understand as best they can the ordeals of illness, to honor the meanings of their patients’ narratives of illness, and to be moved by what they behold so that they can act on their patients’ behalf.”

While the recognition of patient and doctor narratives has been around for many years, it was not until fairly recently that narrative medicine emerged as a field of knowledge that doctors could educate themselves in.

Dr. Mantri is familiar with the benefits of narrative medicine from a clinical perspective, holding an M.S in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University and being a leader of various narrative medicine initiatives at Duke, both with doctors and medical students.

According to Dr. Mantri, elucidating these narratives is crucial to understanding that at the end of the day, doctors and patients work to navigate challenges of illnesses with different perspectives. It’s necessary to hear the story of a patient as well as understand the story of a clinician. Only then can doctors work to find moments of alignment between these two perspectives, resulting in care that is more patient-centered.

From the patient perspective, Creighton remarks that a chapter in her book delves into narrative medicine, even though at the time she had no idea what it was. As she learned more about the field, though, it became clear just how integral narrative medicine was to her experience processing and coming to terms with her ataxia. Prior to taking a class on narrative medicine, she assumed that it wouldn’t be a positive experience. But years later, she credits the process of writing her memoir with allowing her to move on, in many ways, from the hold her illness had on her.

Creighton also pointed out that as humans, “we want the same things – to feel heard and to make meaningful connections with others who can potentially help us navigate whatever condition we’re going through.”

To that end, Dr. Mantri and Creighton both referred to several resources that can help people with illnesses find communities of other individuals with the same illness, in order to find the type of solidarity and understanding promoted by sharing experiences. One such resource is PatientsLikeMe, where individuals can ask questions and exchange tips on their specific illness with others going through similar struggles.

Finally, Creighton was asked about the things she’d like clinicians to know from her perspective as a patient. She described the disconnect that she had often felt, not only with doctors but with therapists and counselors, stemming from a feeling that the help she was offered often did not meet her where she was. In brainstorming ways to mitigate this gap, both Dr. Mantri and Creighton pointed to a need for doctors to focus on a patients’ needs and desires, and a need for patients to advocate for themselves.

As the conversation concluded, Creighton emphasized the importance of being seen as a human rather than a victim of a disease. Spinocerebellar ataxia is neurodegenerative, meaning that symptoms progressively get worse. But as Creighton remarked: “Losing my abilities is going to happen. Losing my abilities doesn’t change the human that I am.”

Post by Meghna Datta

Bass Connections Teams Tackling COVID-19 Problems, from Food Security to Voting-by-Mail

By Meghna Datta

On March 8, 2021

In Field Research, Global Health, Policy, Students

Most people at Duke are familiar with Bass Connections, the powerhouse interdisciplinary research program that brings together students and faculty from a wide variety of backgrounds to tackle complex problems.

Like most people, when the country went on COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, team leaders and members within Bass Connections needed to adapt their approach.

Instead of merely adapting, though, some Bass Connections teams saw a problem-solving opportunity. They pivoted to address some of the most pressing problems that the pandemic has created or exacerbated. On Tuesday, March 2^nd, eight teams gathered to present their research at the first Bass Connections Works in Progress Symposium.

Equity and Efficiency of Using Wearables Data for COVID-19 Monitoring was one team that presented at the Symposium.

These teams tackled issues ranging from the ethics of contact tracing to the availability and access to contraception.

One team focused on the issue of food security amongst Latinx populations in Durham. Their presentation was lead by Elaijah Lapay, Faraan Rahim, and Karina Moreno Bueno. The team aimed to tackle three major goals: “How is the pandemic affecting the food security of Latinx residents, and how do environmental public health factors contribute to this population’s risk for COVID-19 infection? How does the incorporation of fresh, local foods mitigate these effects? How is the pandemic affecting the food assistance services locally, nationally, and internationally for the Latinx community?”

Of the Hispanic/Latinx respondents to the 2019 Durham Community Health Survey, 20.9% said they sometimes skipped or limited their meals. Combining that with the fact that 36% of the total number of COVID-19 cases in Durham have been within the Hispanic population, it’s fairly clear that there is a link between food security and health outcomes.

To this end, the Bass Connections team partnered with Root Causes to help advance their project goals through Root Cause’s Fresh Produce Program. Root Causes is an organization started by Duke Medical School students prior to the pandemic that previously provided fresh produce to food-insecure patients at the Duke Outpatient Clinic. But in order to adapt to contactless delivery and new needs due to COVID-19, Root Causes and the Bass team partnered to expand its reach to nearly 150 households in Durham.

Pipeline for Fresh Produce Program, taken from the symposium presentation of Improving Food Security to Increase Resiliency to COVID-19 for Latinx Populations

This expansion was aided immensely by the Duke Campus Farm, which despite the pandemic mobilized to change the produce it grew to be more culturally relevant to the households they were supporting.

In the future, the team hopes to continue to expand their survey data in the Triangle and continue to assess the impact of the Fresh Produce Program.

Another Bass Connections team broadly addressed the challenges COVID-19 posed to the election process, through three sub-projects focusing on absentee balloting, organizing, and overall voter participation. The symposium presentation for the absentee balloting research was lead by Chase Johnson, Emma Shokeir, and Kathryn Thomas.

To hear more about the work of this Bass Connections team, watch the presentation above.

The 2020 election saw more people than ever relying on absentee voting, either by the one-stop process or by voting through mail. However, this team aimed to address the many voters that are disenfranchised because their votes are rejected due to errors in their ballot. While NC courts ruled that voters are required to be notified if their ballot needs curing, the difficulty of curing one’s ballot often dissuades people from even starting the process, leading to those votes not being counted.

The team utilized the app BallotTrax, a company that the North Carolina State Board of Elections hired to track these ballots. The team then focused on phone banking to increase BallotTrax usage, and then analyzed voter outcomes.

In the future, they hope to analyze the effect that BallotTrax outreach had on voting success, the efficacy of BallotTrax for voters in North Carolina, and the efficiency of North Carolina’s vote-by-mail system compared to other states.

A goal of this symposium for many teams was to ask audience members for suggestions on ways to direct their research further. The beauty of seeing research midway through the process is that it opens the door for collaborative thinking, out-of-the-box ideas, and being open about obstacles and mistakes.

This virtual Symposium is a testament not just to Duke’s collaborative research spirit, which is alive and well despite the pandemic, but to the adaptability of Duke student researchers and faculty. There’s no doubt that these eight Bass Connections Teams, among the many other teams part of the program this year, have been generating relevant and impactful knowledge and will continue to do so.

Post by Meghna Datta

The Diversity Problem in Science

By Meghna Datta

On February 1, 2021

In Medicine, Policy, Responsible Conduct

With COVID-19 being a fixture of our lives for nearly a year now, science has been a staple in the news. Along with science, though, a long-overdue conversation about the state of race relations in America has taken center stage, which makes diversity in science a critical topic to delve into. COVID-19 has highlighted not only a national crisis in healthcare response, but also longstanding health disparities across racial and socioeconomic groups that have only been exacerbated by the pandemic.

On Wednesday, January 27, Dr. Gowthami “Gow” Arepally, known for her work as Professor of Hematology at the Duke School of Medicine, led a talk called “The Diversity Problem in Science” that aimed to highlight not only the obvious problems in research but the urgency with which everyone, from the individual to the collective level, should aim to address the problem within their spheres of influence. Dr. Arepally is not only known for her work in the medical school but also as a valuable mentor for colleagues, undergraduates, and high school students — a point that was highlighted as an important way non-URM (under-represented minority) scientists can make a difference.

Underrepresentation in science starts early, Arepally says. For example, while discrepancies in graduation rates between Black/Hispanic students and their white/Asian peers are not bad in high school, they get progressively worse through college and beyond. In 2016, 18% of degrees nationally were awarded overall in STEM fields — but this number drops to 12% for Black students and 15% for Hispanic students. As of 2015, Black applicants have lower medical school acceptance rates than peer applicants – 34% versus 44% for their white counterparts. And the numbers get worse further into medical school; Black students and Hispanic students each represent less than 6% of medical school graduates, while a staggering 80% of graduates are either white or Asian.

This perpetuates a cycle going into the workforce that discourages young underrepresented minority (URM) students from entering STEM, seeing a lack of role models that look like them. As of 2016, only 39% of full-time faculty at medical schools were female, and a mere 4% of faculty were Black. This results in barriers to NIH research that further hold URM scientists back. Between 1999 and 2012, 72% of NIH awards were given to white scientists and 24% were given to Asian scientists, but only 2.4% of these awards were given to Black scientists.

This is a story that is shocking when told through statistics but is all too familiar, as an experience, for minority students and researchers interested in pursuing careers in the sciences. However, there are concrete ways to counter the problem. As Dr. Arepally pointed out, NIH Diversity Supplements for existing NIH grants can be obtained from the high school to faculty level as an added source of support for URM researchers. Medical societies themselves can be sources of diversity initiatives, such as Dr. Arepally’s society, the American Society of Hematology, which boasts one of the most aggressive minority recruitment initiatives. Within Duke, many pipeline programs exist for researchers to support URM students and new researchers and faculty.

Most importantly, it’s important for individuals to enact change on a personal level. Whether it means educating oneself on underrepresentation, advocating for the advancement of other URM trainees and colleagues, or committing to the success of URM students through pipeline programs, individual steps can add up.

And as Dr. Arepally highlighted, these steps, however small, are important to prioritize. Increasing diversity in medicine, for example, can help address existing health disparities. URM physicians are more likely to address the care of minority populations, while minority patients are more likely to choose URM populations. And the existence of more URM physicians improves the cultural competency of all trainees. Sex diversity, too, has a positive effect on the quality of science in collaborative groups. The impacts of diversity extend to role-modeling for younger students, who may be at a crossroads in terms of determining a future career. In this way, current measures to increase diversity can foster a cycle of more diverse students entering STEM and being supported there, for generations to come.

Diversity in science is not only good for science and scientists, Arepally says, but for all of us. Science should reflect the society it serves, and with more diversity in science, breakthroughs will be applicable and accessible to every person — not just the majority.

Post by Meghna Datta

A Day of STEM for Girls

By Meghna Datta

On March 10, 2020

In Biology, Computers/Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Science Communication & Education, Students

On any average weekday at Duke University, a walk through the Engineering Quad and down Science Drive would yield the vibrant and exciting sight of bleary-eyed, caffeine-dependent college students heading to labs or lectures, most definitely with Airpods stuck in their ears.

But on Saturday, February 22nd, a glance towards this side of campus would have shown you nearly 200 energetic and chatty female and female-identifying 4th to 6th graders from the Durham area. As part of Capstone, an event organized by Duke FEMMES, these students spent the day in a series of four hands-on STEM activities designed to give them exposure to different science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines.

Nina MacLeod, 10, gets grossed out when viewing fruit fly larvae through a microscope while her guide, Duke first-year Sweta Kafle, waits patiently. (Jared Lazarus)

FEMMES, which stands for Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering, and Science, is an organization comprised of Duke students with the aim of improving female participation in STEM subjects. Their focus starts young: FEMMES uses hands-on programming for young girls and hosts various events throughout the year, including after-school activities at nearby schools and summer camps.

Capstone was a day of fun STEM exposure divided into four events stationed along Science Drive and E-Quad — two in the morning, and two in the afternoon, with a break for lunch. Students were separated into groups of around eight, and were led by two to three Duke undergraduates and a high school student. The day started bright and early at 8:45 A.M with keynote speaker Stacy Bilbo, Duke professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.

Bilbo explained that her work centers around microglial cells, a type of brain cell. A series of slides about her journey into a science career sparked awe, especially as she remarked that microglial cells are significant players in our immune system, but scientists used to know nearly nothing about them. Perhaps most impactful, however, was a particular slide depicting microglial cells as macrophages, because they literally eat cellular debris and dead neurons.

A cartoon depiction of this phenomenon generated a variety of reactions from the young audience, including but not limited to: “I’m NEVER being a doctor!”, “I wish I was a microglial cell!”, “Ew, why are brains so gross?”, and “I’m so glad I’m not a brain because that’s SO weird.”

Even in 2020, while fields like medicine and veterinary science see more women than men, only 20% of students that earn bachelor’s degrees in physical sciences, math, and engineering disciplines are female. What accounts for the dramatic lack of female participation in STEM disciplines? The reasons are nuanced and varied. For example, according to a 2010 research report by the American Association of University Women, girls tend to have more difficulty acquiring spatial thinking and reasoning skills – all because of the type of play young female children are more likely to engage in.

Durham area students learned how to perform a blood pressure check during a FEMMES session taught by Duke EMS, an all-volunteer, student-run division of the police department and Duke Life Flight. Duke senior Kayla Corredera-Wells (center) put the blood pressure cuff on sophomore Pallavi Avasarala. (Jared Lazarus)

This creates a chicken-and-egg story: girls don’t enter STEM at the same rate as their male counterparts, and as a result, future generations of girls are discouraged from pursuing STEM because they don’t see as many accomplished, visibly female scientists to look up to. Spaces like Capstone which encourage hands-on activity are key to exposing girls to the same activities that their male counterparts engage in on a regular basis – and to exposing girls to a world of incredible science and discovery led by other females.

After Bilbo’s talk, it was off to the activities, led by distinguished female professors at Duke — a nod to the importance of representation when encouraging female participation in science. For example, one of the computer science activities, led by Susan Rodger, taught girls how to use basic CS skills to create 3-D interactive animation.

An introduction to categorizing different minerals based on appearance was led by Emily Klein, while one of the medicine-centered activities involved Duke EMS imparting first aid skills onto the students.

For one of the biology-themed activities, Nina Sherwood and Emily Ozdowski (dubbed “The Fly Ladies”) showed students fruit flies under a microscope. The activity clearly split the group: girls who stared in glee at unconscious flies, shrieking “It’s SO BIG, look at it!” and girls who exchanged disgusted looks, edging their swivel chairs as far as physically possible from the lab benches. Elizabeth Bucholz, a Biomedical Engineering professor, led one of the engineering activities, showing students how CT scans generate images using paper, a keychain light and a block (meant to represent the body). In math, meanwhile, Shira Viel used the activity of jump-roping to show how fractions can untangle the inevitable and ensuing snarls.

The day definitely wasn’t all science. During lunch in LSRC’s Love Auditorium, most groups spread out after scarfing down pizza and spent intense focus over learning (and recording) TikTok dances, and when walking down Science Drive under blue and sunny skies, conversations ranged from the sequins on someone’s Ugg boots to how to properly bathe one’s dog, to yelling erupting over someone confidently proclaiming that they were a die-hard Tar Heel.

Nina Sherwood, Associate Professor of Biology, showed Emma Zhang, 9, some fruit flies, which we study because they share 75% of their genes with humans. (Jared Lazarus)

A raffle at the end of the day for the chance to win Duke merchandise inspired many closed eyes and crossed fingers (“I want a waterbottle so bad, you have no idea!”) And as newfound friends said goodbye to each other and wistfully bonded over how much fun they had at the end of the day, one thing was clear: events like Capstone are crucial to instilling confidence and a love of STEM in girls.

By Meghna Datta

Traveling Back in Time Through Smart Archaeology

By Meghna Datta

On December 9, 2019

In Art, Computers/Technology, Field Research, Students

The British explorer George Dennis once wrote, “Vulci is a city whose very name … was scarcely remembered, but which now, for the enormous treasures of antiquity it has yielded, is exalted above every other city of the ancient world.” He’s correct in assuming that most people do not know where or what Vulci is, but for explorers and historians – including Duke’s Bass Connections team Smart Archaeology – Vulci is a site of enormous potential.

Vulci, Italy, was an ancient Etruscan city, the remains of which are situated about an hour outside of Rome. The Etruscan civilization originated in the area roughly around Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Lazio, and in the north of Po Valley, the current Emilia-Romagna region, south-eastern Lombarty, southern Veneto, and some areas of Campania. The Etruscan culture is thought to have emerged in Italy around 900 BC and endured through the Roman-Etruscan Wars and coming to an end with the establishment of the Roman Empire.

As a dig site, Vulci is extremely valuable for the information it can give us about the Etruscan and Roman civilizations – especially since the ruins found at Vulci date back beyond the 8th century B.C.E. On November 20th, Professor Maurizio Forte, of the Art, Art History and Visual Studies departments at Duke as well as Duke’s Dig@Lab, led a talk and interactive session. He summarized the Smart Archaeology teams’ experience this past summer in Italy as well as allowing audience members to learn about and try the various technologies used by the team. With Duke being the first university with a permit of excavation for Vulci in the last 60 years, the Bass Connections team set out to explore the region, with their primary concerns being data collection, data interpretation, and the use of virtual technology.

Trying out some of the team’s technologies on November 20th (photo by Renate Kwon

The team, lead by Professor Maurizio Forte, Professor Michael Zavlanos, David Zalinsky, and Todd Barrett, sought to be as diverse as possible. With 32 participants ranging from undergraduate and graduate students to professionals, as well as Italian faculty and student members, the team flew into Italy at the beginning of the summer with a research model focused on an educational approach of practice and experimentation for everyone involved. With a naturally interdisciplinary focus ranging from classical studies to mechanical engineering, the team was divided, with people focusing on excavation in Vulci, remote sensing, haptics, virtual reality, robotics, and digital media.

So what did the team accomplish? Well, technology was a huge driving force in most of the data collected. For example, with the use of drones, photos taken from an aerial view were patched together to create bigger layout pictures of the area that would have been the city of Vulci. The computer graphics created by the drone pictures were also used to create a video and aided in the process of creating a virtual reality simulation of Vulci. VR can be an important documentation tool, especially in a field as ever-changing as archaeology. And as Professor Forte remarked, it’s possible for anyone to see exactly what the researchers saw over the summer – and “if you’re afraid of the darkness of a cistern, you can go through virtual reality instead.”

An example of one of the maps created by the team

In addition, the team used sensor technology to get around the labor and time it would take to dissect the entire site – which by the team’s estimate would take 300 years! Sensors in the soil, in particular, can sense the remnants of buildings and archaeological features up to five meters below ground, allowing researchers to imagine what monuments and buildings might have looked like.

One of the biggest takeaways from the data the team collected based on discovering remnants of infrastructure and layout of the city was of the Etruscan mastery of water, developing techniques that the Romans also used. More work was also done on classification of Etruscan pottery, tools, and materials based on earlier work done by previous researchers. Discovering decorative and religious artifacts was also impactful for the team, because as Professor Forte emphasized, these objects are the “primary documentation of history.”

But the discoveries won’t stop there. The Smart Archaeology team is launching their 2019-2020 Bass Connections project on a second phase of their research – specifically focusing on identifying new archaeological sites, analyzing the landscape’s transformation and testing new methods of data capturing, simulation and visualization. With two more years of work on site, the team is hopeful that research will be able to explain in even greater depth how the people of Vulci lived, which will certainly help to shine a light on the significance of the Etruscan civilization in global history.

By Meghna Datta

Meet the New Blogger: Meghna Datta

By Meghna Datta

On November 4, 2019

In Biology, Medicine, Students

Hi! My name is Meghna Datta, and I’m a freshman. I’m from Madison, Wisconsin, so North Carolina weather has been quite the adjustment. Apart from the humidity, though, I’m so excited to be at Duke! I’m an aspiring pre-med student with absolutely no idea what I want to major in. And it’s funny that I’ve grown to love science as much as I do. Up until tenth grade, I was sure that I would never, ever work in STEM.

My first love was the humanities. As a child I was hooked on books (still am!) and went through four or five a week. In high school, I channeled my love for words into joining my school’s speech and debate team and throwing myself into English and history classes, until being forced to take AP Biology my sophomore year completely changed my trajectory.

Science had always bored me with its seemingly pointless intricacies. Why would I want to plod through tedious research when I could be covering a groundbreaking story or defending justice in a courtroom instead? But the lure of biology for me was in its societal impact. Through research, we’ve been able to cure previously incurable diseases and revolutionize treatment plans to affect quality of life.

In AP Bio, understanding the mechanisms of the human body seemed so powerful to me. Slowly, I began to entertain the notion of a career in medicine, one of many scientific fields that works to improve lives every day.

Now, the research going on at Duke doesn’t cease to amaze me. Specifically, I’m interested in science for social good. Be it sustainable engineering, global health, or data-driven solutions to problems, I love to see the ways in which science intersects with social issues. As I have learned, science does not need to be done in isolation behind pipettes. Science is exciting and indicative of society’s shared sense of humanity. At Duke, there’s no shortage of this environment.

As a blogger I’m so excited to see the inspiring ways that peers and faculty are working to solve problems. And because science isn’t a traditionally “showy” field, I am looking forward to shining the spotlight on people at Duke who tirelessly research behind the scenes to impact those at Duke and beyond. The research community at Duke has so much to celebrate, and through blogging I’m excited to do just that!

From Jails to Detention Centers: a Disconcerting Immigration History

By Meghna Datta

On October 16, 2019

In Business/Economics, Policy

The political climate for the past ten years has been anything but calm, and central to political struggles in D.C. and elsewhere has been the ethical issues surrounding immigrant detention. But for Brianna Nofil (T ‘12), there has never been a better time to research the questions that intrigue her the most.

A native of South Florida, Nofil has felt the undercurrent of immigration tensions throughout her life as a resident of a region with a large population of immigrants. Central to this tension was Krome Detention Center — a looming, overpowering presence in her community. Krome, which was a missile testing facility for most of 20th century, has only recently been converted to an institution to house detained immigrants. Krome had always been there, but exactly what its existence meant in her hometown was not usually acknowledged, and as Nofil remarked, “There was a reason people living there had a hazy understanding of what was going on.”

While at Duke, Nofil, who double majored in history and public policy studies with a minor in education, let her experiences growing up lead her to a senior thesis on the history and privatization of U.S. immigration detention — which, according to Duke history professor Gunther Peck, was nothing less than “stunning.” In a round-table forum on October 1, Nofil delved deeper into her central academic interests — of which she has written about in publications such as Time and Atlas Obscura — as well as her current studies as a doctoral candidate at Columbia University.

Coming to Duke, Nofil used the resources and classes in the history department to answer two chief questions: what power structures were in place to confirm an institution like Krome’s significance in the community? And where exactly did this power come from?

These questions lead her to her current focus at Columbia, which is the history of immigrant detention centers in the 20th century. Her main argument? “U.S immigration has always really relied on jails.”

By the early 1900s, immigration was taking hold as a major historical event in the U.S and the federal government took its chances on what it saw as the perfect solution — let local communities handle immigration, and thus control what could (and eventually would become) a growing problem. This led to a network of contracts in the 20th century that paid sheriffs of small, lower-income towns all over America a nightly rate to “board” immigrants in jails.

One case study, as Nofil points out, centered around Chinese immigrants in the early 1900s who came to northern New York from Canada. They were held in local jails all throughout the county while their cases were processed, and communities see the booming immigrant detention business as net-positive for the community. Within mere months, these Chinese jails had created an arms race of sorts. Communities competed and clamored for more contracts from the federal government as they saw incomes in their town continue to grow.

It’s easy to see the moral dilemma of profiting off of detaining immigrants, but what is even more concerning is why the federal government pawned off a federal responsibility to communities, thus ensuring a lack of standardization in immigrant treatment across the country. So while there was relative support surrounding the business, unease soon began to emerge. As quota laws and anti-trafficking measures were created, Canadian and European immigrants also made their way over to the U.S, prompting foreign countries to finally notice — and ask — whether communities utilizing prisons as detention centers was ethically sound. Newspapers around this time started publishing op-eds and editorials, and soon a resistance against profiting off of jailing immigrants cropped up — something Nofil adds is “inspiring” to see, especially in the context of our own times.

The perpetual failure of jails has allowed immigration in the modern day to position big detention centers as a humane alternative. But what does that mean for immigration detention today? As Nofil posits, early forms of resistance are inspiring because it assures us that jailing immigrants was always questioned by communities, even at that time. Communities were capable of distinguishing right from wrong, even amidst the issue of immigration where the makeup and economy of their communities were at risk of changing. As the conversation concluded, one central theme seemed to stand out — that to understand the consequences of immigration detention centers, we must look to the past to see how detention started, and only by understanding the origins can we work toward a better solution.

By Meghna Datta

Following the people and events that make up the research community at Duke

Author: Meghna Datta

A Patient’s and Doctor’s Perspective on Narrative Medicine

Bass Connections Teams Tackling COVID-19 Problems, from Food Security to Voting-by-Mail

The Diversity Problem in Science

A Day of STEM for Girls

Traveling Back in Time Through Smart Archaeology

Meet the New Blogger: Meghna Datta

From Jails to Detention Centers: a Disconcerting Immigration History