We're so glad you're here. Whether you just arrived in the United States or whether you're been in this country for years already, we're here to say welcome and we're glad to be your neighbors.
How can we help?
Our network is here to try to make your life easier and better. You can reach out to us if you have questions or problems and we'll do our best to help: [email protected] or 413-271-5390. The people who answer our phone speak English and Spanish: if you speak another language, please email or text, and we'll get an interpreter to help us respond.
We can often help answer questions like:
What is going on with my asylum case? (Check out our Pro Se Project!)
Where can I get clothes, food, and other things I need? (Look at our list of local resources!)
What services am I eligible for?
Where can I sign up for English classes? (Here is a list!)
Where can I get job training for the career I want?
We also would love to connect you with our community of other people who have been through, or are going through, the asylum process. We know how hard it is and you don't have to do it alone.
About Western Massachusetts
Our area is known as the Pioneer Valley and includes Springfield (a medium size city), smaller cities like Holyoke, Northampton, Amherst, and Greenfield, and rural areas with farms and forests as well.
We have four seasons of weather here, from warm and hot in summer to cold and snowy in winter. We have a beautiful fall season where the tree leaves turn bright yellow, red and orange; tourists come from all over to view fall in New England. The weather can also be different in the morning than the afternoon: there is a saying, if you don’t like the weather right now, just wait a minute! This area is home to over ten colleges and universities. It’s an area with a lot of nature, hiking trails, conservation land, and the Connecticut River. It’s also an area with a lot of culture including live music, movie theaters, restaurants, museums, and art centers.
The people who originally settled Western Massachusetts belonged to the Nipmuc and Pocumtuc nations. In the 1670s, the people of these nations joined several other groups to form the Wampanoag Confderacy to defend their homeland against colonizers from England: these wars lasted almost 75 years. Through a combination of violence, biological warfare, fraud, and harassment, English settlers stole the majority of the land in Western Massachusetts from the Indigenous nations. These settlers broke away from England and established the nation of the United States in the 1780s.
Many settlers of Western Massachusetts were white, but there were also Black settlers, both those who came as immigrants and those who escaped enslavement before and during the US civil war. Many people came to this area in the 1800s and early 1900s to work in factories: this includes immigrants from overseas (such as Ireland, Poland, Greece, Italy, Germany, and Syria), and internal migrations (such as Jewish families coming from New York and African-American families coming from the southern states).
When many of the factories closed in the mid-1900s, Western Mass cities lost a lot of their population and jobs. These days, the biggest employers in our area are hospitals and other healthcare companies. Today, the population varies a lot depending on the specific city: some cities like Springfield are very diverse, while other cities like Greenfield are majority white. Our communities have welcomed many groups of people immigrating from all over the world.