Not right, not left but both and…

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In 2002-03 I was working as a substitute teacher in the public schools in a small town of about 25 K in Northeast Nebraska. While I went from school to school that year I encountered multiple children from the Sudan, Somalia and various parts of Africa. These children were in the local school system because Tyson Foods had hired their parents who had left these war torn areas of the world seeking refuge here in the US to work in the local meat processing plant. 

One reality we in the US must face is that the only way that corporate food giants like Tyson Foods can get workers willing to do that laborious and often dangerous work is to go outside of our borders. If you are from the Midwest like I am, you know that to this very day, the meat processing industry remains one of the largest employers of immigrants. Desperate and traumatized people come from all over the world because these plants open the door for them promising work and subsequent prosperity. 

While I was at work that year, I taught a day in a Special Education classroom. Several students came and went for individualized instruction in math and reading. Most of the students I worked with spoke the bare minimum of conversational English, just enough to be able to learn in an American school. It was a fateful day for me that utterly changed my perspective on the reality of what was actually taking place in our community. As someone who hadn’t been in the public schools prior to that year, I was sobered by the reality that what had been sold to us as a community as a fabulous opportunity and promised economic boom had brought with it a population of desperate and needy people the community was barely prepared for. 

As I went home from that experience I was reminded of a front page feature story was about a fabulous new development coming to our community the year before. The article was full of positivity as it reported on recent city negotiations with Tyson Foods. You know, Tyson. The behemoth meat producer that sells America its chicken nuggets, processed pork and beef in every American grocery store? It is one of several. 

According to our city leaders at the time, an agreement had been made with the company to open a new processing plant in our town. It was sold to the local people as an economic boom that would bring thousands, if not millions of dollars in economic revenue into the local economy. In the finer print it detailed that the agreement included a multi-year tax deferment. In other words, Tyson as a corporation would pay no property tax. Nada. Yes, economic prosperity would come as employees would spend their paychecks in town, but the elephant in the room that no one addressed was that because Tyson paid nothing in property taxes, there would be no extra money going into the local school district. It also did not say that the influx of a few hundred children from the Sudan, Somalia and other African country would require an abundance of resources from that very same school district. 

I taught children that day who barely spoke English, had been through traumatic events from war, some had likely experienced intense hunger and none had pre school health care. No vaccinations, hearing or vision screenings etc. Lovely, lovely children but in great need. After school I was asked to monitored kids being picked by parents. There were so many waiting parents who didn’t speak any English and it was awful not to be able to communicate with them. I witnessed first hand the burden that this particular elementary school staff had when it came to trying to figure out how to communicate to its non-English speaking parents whose children had picked up the bare minimum of the language themselves. The memory of that day of subbing is still so vividly imprinted on my mind. I can still see teacher after teacher, para educators and the principal out on the sidewalks personally handing off the children and attempting to communicate with those parents. It was striking to me that their normal end of school routine had been entirely reorganized to meet these kid’s critical needs. 

I would imagine that in Springfield, Ohio, where the Haitian community has grown exponentially, a very similar reality has landed on the local school district. A reality has also been placed upon all of its public resources. The strain on the community infrastructure has to have become severe. Midwest people are generally good people and I do not believe their push back is entirely about race or country of origin. Any system that has worked for 50,000 people that has suddenly been expected to work for 100,000 (my estimate only) puts everyone involved in a horrible place. It’s often impossible. The reality is that the Federal Government genuinely hasn’t dealt with this reality the way it should be dealt with…at all. Liberals will immediately head to the issue being bigotry and racism and of course, there will be ample example of just those things but they may not even be close to the main thing. The main thing is a system in overload and a populace who by and large had no idea it was coming their way. 

The outcry against immigration is in my mind coming from decades of experiences like those from my home community. I know the people there and I know that they are welcoming and kind people. I know firsthand that these people care deeply about the world and its future. BUT I also know that the immigration issue is not exclusively about racism or white preference. It is about corporations need for workers and their opening doors for immigrants without owning the added responsibilities that come with them. 

I’ve been saying this about Tyson Foods, JB Swift, Armor and other food producers since the day I experienced that small slice of reality in my Nebraska hometown. These companies have been recruiting immigrants from all over Africa and the rest of the world with promises of hope and prosperity for years. When a refugee population is approved for arrival in the US, they will be the first in line asking for the workers. BUT that is all they do. They employ workers. 

The Tyson plant in my home town brought a temporary influx of money into the community but what it cost the community can hardly balance the ledger sheet. The tax deferment ended, the company left town and with it the refugee population too. It’s citizens a bit shell shocked by the entirety of the experience, moved on. 

I believe that the immigration reality is one that will never involve and easy fix. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. The answers are going to be as complex as the issues are. What absolutely has to stop is the reduction of the issues to a binary all or nothing, in or out solution. That approach is increasingly proving to not be at all realistic. 

What the Trump/Vance ticket is doing in addressing the issue they way that they are is as debase and immoral as any human being can get. These two men and their base are more and more obviously made up of Americans who are not at all well informed or of a mind to find solutions that work. They are instead living in some kind of narrow space that keeps them from seeing anything other than they are as real or important. 

We have so much work to do as a country. We have to do that work better. But we will never do it living in a hall of mirrors. It will only happen as reality, whether we like it or not is faced head on. Working across the aisles and outside of our personal comfort zones is the only way to find solutions that are actually possible.