Join The Community Listening Sessions
Learn More About The Project
A two-year event-based oral history project documenting how immigrants and their neighbors experienced MN Operation Metro Surge, the largest federal immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history, which began in the region in December 2025.
Digital Archive – Preserved interviews & transcripts
Public Exhibit – Stories + illustrations for community venues
Anthology – Curated narratives published for lasting record
This Moment Must Be Held
Space to Share – Providing impacted communities a dignified, supported space to share their experiences on their own terms.
Empowerment Through Story – Storytelling is a tool of power. These narratives belong to the people who lived them.
Preservation for the Future – Ensuring historians, educators, policymakers, and researchers have access to the truth of this era.
What do you want people in the future to understand about this moment?
Tea Rozman, PhD
Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director, Green Card Voices
First-Generation Immigrant | Cultural & Oral Historian
Born and raised in the former Yugoslavia, Tea Rozman is a multilingual cultural and oral historian who came to the U.S. on a George Soros Open Society Institute scholarship. She earned her Ph.D. in Cultural History from the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia, specializing in oral history. Her doctoral research included interviews with Bosniak survivors of the Srebrenica genocide and Dutch UN peacekeepers.
Tea co-founded Green Card Voices in 2013 and has since overseen more than 500 oral histories from people representing over 150 countries. Her editorial work has received a Kirkus Starred Review, Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, and Midwest Book Awards. She is a 2015 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, a 2021 OHA/NEH Fellow, and currently serves as Chair of the Oral History Association Development Committee.
Amy C. Sullivan, PhD
History Professor & Oral Historian
Oral Historian Since 1996
Amy C. Sullivan is a history professor at Macalester College and an oral historian with decades of experience. She is the author of Opioid Reckoning, published by the University of Minnesota Press. Her oral history work includes projects with Johns Hopkins Bioethics, the Bakken Museum, and the Organization of American Historians.
Fanny García, MA
Oral Historian & Educator
Formerly Undocumented | Honduran American Storyteller
Fanny García is a Honduran American oral historian, educator, and survivor of anti-immigration policies. She is the author of Practicing Cariño and Querencia and the founder of Narratives in Practice, LLC. She also led Separated, an oral history project documenting injustice, family separation, and community solidarity.
Ibrahim Hirsi, PhD
Journalist & Historian
Ibrahim Hirsi is a journalist, historian, and author of The First Somali Diaspora. He teaches at Augsburg University and has reported for MinnPost, MPR News, and Sahan Journal. He also led the Somali Oral History Project at the Minnesota Historical Society.
Who We Want to Hear From
We seek approximately 40 narrators representing the full breadth of community experience during Operation Metro Surge.
- Immigrants & Refugees
- Educators & School Staff
- Faith Leaders
- Nonprofit Workers
- Healthcare Providers
- Small Business Owners
- Community Volunteers
Interested In Sharing Your Story
If you are interested in being considered for an interview, please fill out the Narrator Interest Form.
The short form asks about your role, experiences, preferred contact information, and privacy preferences. For example:
- First Name
- Best way to contact you
- Language preference (English, Spanish, Somali)
- Role and involvement during Metro Surge
- How you’d like the interview to be conducted
- Preferences for dissemination of interview content