Buffalo premiere of the documentary, Lessons in Seeing, followed by a community conversation on the future of the U.S. refugee resettlement program and other related topics

Lessons in Seeing

When an elderly math teacher, Sibhatleab, ventures alone from a refugee camp in Ethiopia to the United States, he finds himself at the bottom rung of the social ladder in the vast, faceless Texan metropolis of Houston in the summer before a contentious presidential election. As he still copes with his unthinkable twenty-five year history of imprisonment and torture, he finds hope at Salem Market, a tiny store that caters to the city’s refugee community. Lessons in Seeing tells his story of disillusionment and resilience, which causes us to question our understanding of the immigrant experience in contemporary America.