Why WV needs immigrants

For pretty much every year since 2008, I've worked with the WV Center on Budget and Policy on a report called The State of Working West Virginia. Each year, there's a different focus. This time around the spotlight was on the state of West Virginia's immigrant population, which is tiny in comparison to most states but contributes greatly to our economy and culture.

We released the report last week as part of an event launching Many Roads Home, a new social media effort that highlights the stories and contributions of the state's immigrants.

We have a working agreement on the division of labor for these projects: the folks from the policy center, such as this year's co-author Sean O'Leary, do the hard parts with numbers and graphs. I do the easy parts.

It was pretty easy to point out why WV needs immigrants. Here's an excerpt with the punch line:

In 1950, the US population was over 1,50 million. West Virginia’s population that year reached its all-time high of slightly over 2 million.

Fast forward to 2019. The US population has more than doubled from the 1950 level to over 329 million. West Virginia’s population has declined by around 200,000 over the same period. A 2002 analysis by the West Virginia Health Statistics Center found that, if nobody had either moved into, nor out of, West Virginia for the 50 years between 1950 and 2000, the normal rate of population increase would have resulted in a state with 2,605,345 residents. That number would have been much higher today. 

The state and its communities are facing some serious demographic problems:

*West Virginia is among the oldest states in terms of median age.

*It has the lowest workforce participation rate, which hovers around 50 percent of its eligible population. The national average is around 63 percent.

*As of Dec. 2017, 73,879 West Virginians of all ages received Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI) for a disability.

*By 2018, 26.3 percent of West Virginians, or 475,744 individuals, received Social Security or Social Security Disability Insurance.

*Between 2010 and 2018, there were 19,000 more deaths than births.

*According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, West Virginia has the highest age adjusted death rate from opioid overdoses.

*Between July 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018, the state lost 11,216 people, a rate of over 30 people per day.

*Public school enrollment declined by 4,122 students in the last year.

These trends indicate a serious downward spiral. If not reversed, they could spell a more or less slow death to West Virginia’s communities. To thrive—or even to survive—West Virginia needs to be, and be seen as, a welcoming place for new arrivals from around the world. West Virginians have done this before under tough conditions in the days of industrialization, bridging differences and forging bonds of solidarity in ways that enriched our culture and contributed to the world at large. We need to build on that tradition.

Two roads diverged

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. ...” So begins Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”

Ever since ancient times, people have been fascinated by the power of crossroads. They have been the subject of poetry, song, myth and folklore.

Examples range from Robert Johnson’s classic blues song of the same name back to the days of ancient Greece, where they were sacred to Hermes, god of boundaries, borders and exchanges, and to Hecate, a witchy goddess associated both with magic and the home.

The image shows up in both the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) and the gospels. In Jeremiah 6:16, the prophet says, “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.”

In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus says “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Metaphorically, I think most of us have come upon crossroads where a choice must be made that can have lifelong consequences.

I think West Virginia is at a major crossroads now, one that will have a lasting impact on its future. It has to do with the face we present to the world: will it be one of narrow-mindedness, fear, hatred and bigotry or one of openness, hospitality, solidarity and basic fairness?

Let’s just say that if the West Virginia Legislature is any indication, the jury is still out. We’ve had one delegate embarrass the state by comparing people who identify as LGBTQ to terrorists ... and worse.

The leadership of the majority Republican Party has condemned these remarks, yet they refuse to move legislation ending discrimination — and some have even attempted to pass legislation that would undo local anti-discrimination ordinances.

Still other lawmakers have sought bills that would keep out refugees and immigrants in a state largely composed of the descendants of refugees and immigrants that is also rapidly aging and losing population.


That kind of thing sends a message loud and clear both to young West Virginians who feel they have no place here and to other bright and energetic people who will think two or three times before moving here.

It discourages the kind of employers and investments that would provide good jobs while promoting a good quality of life.

That degree of closed-mindedness says that education isn’t valued here and that we are proud of what — and who — we don’t know.

That kind of thing sends a message that we should continue to be nothing but a sacrifice zone for extractive industries, whether they are those that take away our natural resources or those that strip-mine our public schools.

It doesn’t have to be that way. To paraphrase the last lines of Frost’s poem, we could take the road less traveled by, and that could make all the difference.

(This appeared as an op-ed in today's Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

How did that get in there?

I've been known to take (occasionally extensive) breaks from reading the Bible but lately I've tried to follow the daily readings from the Episcopal lectionary. Today's reading from the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament is from Chapter 10 of Deuteronomy, verses 17-21.

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

I guess that would be classified as fake news these days

Want to do something?

If you live near the Charleston WV area and want to do something, please consider coming to the West Virginia Welcomes Refugees rally tomorrow Nov. 15 at 5:00 pm at the corner of Court Street and Kanawha Boulevard.

You can find news about the event here. There's also this op-ed by Rabbi Victor Urecki and this Gazette editorial.

This won't take care of everything, but it might help "break the freeze" some of us have been feeling.

More on the whole it's-not-all-bad thing

This rally in support of Syrian refugees last night in Charleston shows that there are limits to mean-spiritedness.

Hillbilly health club, revisited

Our latest exercise equipment.

From time to time, this blog highlights offerings from the Goat Rope Hillbilly Health Club, which features such high tech exercise equipment as chain saws, sledge hammers, splitting mauls, dirty barns, pitchforks and wheel barrows.

On display now is little Edith Ann, one of our aerobic training devices. Longtime viewers of this blog will recognize her but may not realize that a dog might be better than a treadmill when it comes to exercise. A study in Great Britain found that dog-owners who regularly walk their beasts get more exercise in than the average gym-goer.

(Besides, I have a theory that it is an offense against whatever gods may be to use a treadmill on a pretty day.)

In little Edith Ann's case, it's two miles early in the morning and two more at night. At a year old, Edith is pretty high energy but we also have Arpad, a slower model for beginners:



It is not recommended for the same person to walk both at the same time as this can overstretch the arms.

"THE IDIOCY ABOUT UNEMPLOYMENT" is shown no mercy here.

TAKE OUR JOBS, PLEASE! The United Farm Workers union, responding to immigrant bashing, is urging Americans to take some of these low wage, back-breaking jobs. Not too many takers have taken advantage of the opportunity.

ONE NATION. A new umbrella group hopes to counter the Tea Party.

SPEAKING OF WALKING, did bi-pedalism give early humans the edge they needed?

GOOD PARENTS/NOT SO GOOD KIDS. The author of this article suggests some unpleasant personality traits may be more a matter of genes than parenting.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED