PANORAMA: The Old Oak
After the screening, join us for a conversation with Jessica Chicco, Director of Citizenship & Training at Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition.
The Old Oak is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing, it is the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline.
TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) the landlord hangs on to The Old Oak by his fingertips, and his hold is endangered even more when the pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees who are placed in the village. An unlikely friendship develops when TJ encounters a young Syrian with a camera, Yara (Ebla Mari). Can they find a way for the two communities to understand each other? So unfolds a deeply moving drama about loss, fear and the difficulty of finding hope.
About the Speaker
Director of Citizenship & Training Jessica Chicco (she/her) joined MIRA as Staff Attorney in January 2020 after more than a decade working with immigrants and immigrant communities. She oversees our education and training programs and our citizenship program, and will also work on federal policy issues.
Most recently, she was the Senior Immigration Attorney at DOVE (Domestic Violence Ended, Inc.) in Quincy, a MIRA member organization, where she represented immigrant survivors of domestic violence. Before joining DOVE, she was the Human Rights Fellow at Boston College’s Post-Deportation Human Rights Project, where she focused on advocacy and representation of deported individuals as well as various interdisciplinary collaborations with community-based immigrant organizations in the greater Boston area.
She started her legal career as an associate attorney at Human Rights First’s Refugee Protection Program in New York, where she provided legal rights presentations to detained immigrants and co-authored a report on the detention of asylum seekers.
Outside of work, Jessica serves on the Diversity, Inclusion and Community Relations commission of her town, with a focus on immigrant advancement. Jessica spent her childhood in Italy, and has lived and studied in Corsica, Senegal and Spain. She holds a JD from NYU Law School and a BSFS from Georgetown University.
