Imagine

In the debate about labor shortages due to deportations people reference farmworkers, housekeeping workers, lawn services, i.e., low skilled labors and entry level jobs. We forget these people had lives before arriving in America. Some worked the farms and some had their own farms. Others supervised their own housekeeping businesses built up from their own entry level jobs. Some put themselves through school with a lawn business. And then there are other employments left behind.
Imagine a life that is so challenging in terms of future hopes for your children that you would give up a microbiology career or a dental practice or your paralegal work to start over with nothing. And the place where you were willing to make those dreams come true, no matter the cost was in your town, where 3 churches closed, most store fronts are boarded up on mainstreet, and walmart and dollar general forced the closing of several of your friends’ family businesses; where no one’s children want to live and the kids who remain are warned constantly of the dangers of a quick high.
Imagine a town filling up with people of dreams, people of endurance, people of an inner strength you remember in your own grandparents. Imagine if we actually worked as hard to import these good people as we do to ship them off and spent as much money supporting their new start as we do kicking them back to the old hopelessness. Imagine!
Or just introduce yourself to them. They’re right next door. Build your community back with hope and courage instead of hate and fear. Go on. You got this! Make joy. Make a way.