Regrowing West Virginia

 It’s no secret that West Virginia is facing some pretty serious demographic problems, even aside from our spiking COVID-19 spread.

For starters, we have one of the oldest populations, a trend to which I am contributing. We have long been at or very near the bottom in terms of workforce participation.

Not only do we have more deaths than births, but we’re rapidly losing population. Between 2010 and 2020, state population has dropped by about 3.2%, or almost 59,000 people. For comparison, the population of Charleston is about 48,000.

The population loss is more than the combined populations of Pocahontas, Webster, Gilmer, Pleasants, Pendleton, Calhoun, Tucker and Wirt counties. We’ve also been at or near the top in terms of overdose death rates.

According to the West Virginia Center for Excellence in Disabilities, the state has the highest rate of people with disabilities, at 1 in 5, although I’ve seen much higher estimates. We’ve also long been at or near the bottom in terms of median income and the top in terms of poverty rates.

Taken together, these are some pretty serious challenges.

If we’re going to survive, let alone thrive economically and culturally, one obvious solution is to be a welcoming place for new arrivals from around the world.

Welcoming immigrants isn’t exactly a new thing for West Virginia. One of the first acts of the newly formed government of West Virginia was the appointment in 1864 of Joseph Diss Debar, himself an immigrant from France, as commissioner of immigration, with the goal of encouraging people to settle here. Something of an artist, he is perhaps best known for designing the state seal.

In 1870, he published the West Virginia Hand Book and Immigrant’s Guide. Diss Debar’s efforts would eventually be far surpassed by agents from coal and timber companies who scoured Europe, often painting a rosy picture of life in the Mountain State that didn’t meet the reality.

Along with immigrants from overseas, the state’s population and workforce was increased by the internal migration of many Black Americans from the deep South.

According to local historian and longtime journalist James Casto, “Over the decades, countless Italians, Poles, Serbs, and Turks were put to work building railroads, cutting timber, and running sawmills. Other industries, too, benefited from immigrant labor. Even before the Civil War, German and Swiss immigrants traveling up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers found jobs in the iron works located in the Wheeling/Weirton area. English and Belgian craftsmen were recruited to work in the state’s glass factories. Germans came to brew beer. Talented Italian stonemasons crafted fine homes, buildings, and walls, many of which can still be seen.”

Ken Fones-Wolf and Ronald L. Lewis wrote, in probably the most complete single source on this issue, “Transnational West Virginia: Ethnic Communities and Economic Change, 1840-1940,” “In sum, it was the skills and the labor of these migrants that made modern West Virginia.”

It didn’t always go well for the newcomers. Some agents were deceitful and greedy. Some new arrivals were kept in virtual peonage or wound up working and living in appalling conditions. Of course, it was the coal mines that would be the biggest consumer of immigrant labor — and sometimes lives.

A 1911 report to Congress breaks down mine employment by ethnicity in detail for the Fairmont and Elk Garden, New River and Kanawha, and Pocahontas coalfields. Aside from native-born Americans of European and African origin, among the “races” of immigrants identified as working in the mines in the early years of the new century are, in no particular order and using the original terms and spelling:

Russian Hebrew; Hebrew other than Russian; Italians; Poles; Slovakians; Russians; Magyars (Hungarians); Slavish; Lithuanian; English; German; Litvich; Greek; Welsh; Irish; Scotch; Swedish; Belgian; Danish; Syrian; Bohemian; Bulgarian; Austrian; Slovenian; Ruthenian; Montenegrin; Herzegovinian; Dutch; Macedonian; other Slav races; and other southern or eastern European races.

(It’s interesting to note how slippery the socially constructed notion of “race” is and has always been.)

Under tough and sometimes brutal conditions, this mixed multitude managed to bridge differences and forge bonds of solidarity in ways that enriched our culture and contributed to the nation at large.

Given the recent 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, it’s good to remember that many of those who marched for the rights of workers to organize were immigrants from overseas.

And in modern times, immigrants punch above their weight class when it comes to contributing to West Virginia’s economy. According to the American Immigration Council, while they make up only 2% of the population and labor force, their households accounted for $628.7 million in after-tax spending power in 2018. The 1,200 or so immigrant-owned businesses in West Virginia generated $36.2 million in business income. Plus, adult immigrants are about twice as likely to have college degrees as native residents.

West Virginia’s immigrant population also paid over a quarter-of-a-billion dollars in taxes, to the tune of $185 million federal and $72.8 million state and local. While there weren’t many more than 100 people eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status in 2018, they paid an estimated $270,000 in state and local taxes.

These are the kinds of economic and cultural contributions that could slow — and eventually reverse — our steady decline. Various immigrant groups have added much to West Virginia’s history, and they could add much more in the future, but only if we put out the welcome mat.

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

A little good news...for real

These are pretty dark days, but here's a bit of good news about the closing of a huge child detention camp in Florida that people all over the US, including WV, worked on:

 MIAMI, FL (August 3 2019) – The last migrant children in the detention center in Homestead, FL have left. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – a Quaker organization that has worked for immigrant and refugee rights for over 100 years – has led a campaign along with organizations in Florida and across the country to shut down the detention center and work to end the practice of detaining migrant children. 

“We are immensely relieved and overjoyed that our community will no longer be home to a detention center that has traumatized and harmed children,” said Mariana Martinez, an organizer with AFSC and a resident of Homestead. “And it is time for our community to heal and to invest in jobs that bring sustainability and resources.”

“We are incredibly grateful to the hundreds of thousands of people who signed petitions, wrote to their congresspeople, and took to the streets across the country to close the prison camp for children in Homestead,” said Kristin Kumpf, Director of Human Migration and Mobility for AFSC. “Thanks to their help, we were able to deliver over 128,000 petition signatures to the Department of Health and Human Services to successfully shut down Homestead detention center and say never again to the use of facilities like these to imprison children.” 

The campaign to shut down Homestead detention center also included actions outside the center with community members, elected officials, and faith leaders, and a letter writing campaign to send messages of hope to the children inside. 

The campaign called on the leadership of the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to close the detention center and stop using emergency influx facilities – instead ORR should work as quickly as possible to unite children with their sponsors. The campaign also called on these agencies to stop collaborating with the Department of Homeland Security to criminalize and intimidate sponsors for migrant children.

HHS has said that most children were reunited with sponsors, but some have been transferred to other facilities. AFSC is working to end the practice of detaining migrant children. 

“As the school year resumes here in Florida, it is time for these children to be in schools and homes instead of prison camps. It’s well past time to end the abusive practice of detaining and deporting migrants seeking a better life for themselves and their communities,” said Lis-Marie Alvarado, community organizer with AFSC. “Closing Homestead detention center is a massive victory in this struggle. We will continue to work to end child detention for good.” 

More information will be shared as it becomes available. 

To learn more about the campaign to shut down Homestead detention center and end child detention, visit: https://migrantjustice.afsc.org/ 

Just don't call it normal

I’ve often heard that if you slowly heat the water in which a frog is sitting, it won’t notice anything until it’s too late.

I like frogs, so please don’t try that at home. But I think there is at least a metaphorical truth there. Sometimes we don’t notice how much things change until it’s too late. And we sometimes tend to accept unacceptable things as “the new normal.”

As one of Dostoevsky’s characters observed in “Crime and Punishment,” “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel.”

I think the mere fact that many Americans are debating the meaning of the term “concentration camp” in the context of the Trump administration’s treatment of migrant and refugee children is a sign that things are not cool.

Whatever term one might prefer for these facilities, they should not become the new normal and we shouldn’t get used to it.

The AP recently reported that “A traumatic and dangerous situation is unfolding for some 250 infants, children and teens locked up for up to 27 days without adequate food, water and sanitation, according to a legal team that interviewed dozens of children at a Border Patrol station in Texas.”

In the Homestead detention center near Miami, around 3,000 migrant or refugee children, most of whom came to the U.S. fleeing violence and poverty and hoping to exercise their legal right to apply for asylum, have been separated from their families. They live in prison-like conditions, sometimes sleeping in dorms that can hold up to 250 kids. They can’t leave the compound and are closely monitored by guards. A strict no-hugging policy is in effect, even between siblings.

So what do you call places like that?

I understand the outrage some people expressed when they heard the term “concentration camp” applied to current U.S. policy. When most people, myself included, hear those words, the first image that comes to mind are the Nazi death camps where millions of Jews, Soviet citizens and POWs, gays and lesbians, Romani, political enemies and other conquered or “inferior” people were exterminated.

Obviously, it would be wrong to equate conditions in migrant detention facilities, however deplorable, with vast industrialized mass killing facilities.

But concentration camps have a history that predates the Holocaust and, while death camps are a type of concentration camp, not all concentration camps were designed with the explicit purpose of mass murder, even though most have caused mass suffering and deaths were common results.

According to Merriam-Webster, part of the definition of concentration camp includes “a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard ... .”

One could well argue that the precursors to modern concentration camps could be found in the ways that indigenous peoples were displaced and crowded together into confined spaces or in the treatment of African slaves. Slave ships in the “Middle Passage” have been referred to as “floating concentration camps.”

In the modern sense of the term, concentration camps first showed up in the Cuban struggle for independence in the late 1800s. Spanish general Valeriano Weyler implemented a “reconcentration policy” which ordered rural residents to report to detention centers within eight days or else face execution. Conditions in the camps were as bad as you’d expect, with scarce food, bad housing and unsanitary conditions. Hunger and disease caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The U.S. intervened in that conflict in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Ironically, however, the U.S. wound up establishing similar camps in the Philippines after acquiring the islands from Spain to keep rebellious and independence-seeking islanders in check. One U.S. Army officer recoiled from the site of one such camp, describing it as “some suburb of hell.”

According to the Smithsonian magazine, during the Boer War in southern Africa in the early days of the 20th century, British soldiers rounded up 200,000 Dutch-descended Boers and Africans into concentration camps (by that name) surrounded by barbed wire. Deaths in the camps far outstripped combat deaths.

By the time of the First World War, concentration camps had become an established practice in many locations. The stage was set for worse things to come.

One of the more shameful events in mid-20th century America was the forced detention of over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom were U.S. citizens, in camps in the western US after the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

The sordid history of such “suburbs of hell” has been thoroughly explored in the recent book One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps by Andrea Pitzer. She came up with some interesting characteristics of such places:

“A concentration camp exists wherever a government holds groups of civilians outside the normal legal process — sometimes to segregate people considered foreigner or outsiders, sometimes to punish.”

“If prisons are meant for suspects convicted of crimes after a trial, a concentration camp holds those who, most often, had no real trial at all.”

“Concentration camps house civilians rather than combatants ... . Detainees are typically held because of their racial, cultural, religious or political identity, not because of any prosecutible offense — though some states have remedied this flaw by making legal existence next to impossible.”

Given all that history and controversy, what words should be used to describe places today where large numbers of children who have committed no crime are detained and traumatized in our name?

I think I’m going to keep it simple and stick with unacceptable.

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.)

On the border

Recently, more than 400 clergy and people of faith took part in a nonviolent direct action at the border in San Diego as part of the “Love Knows No Borders” Moral Call for Migrant Justice campaign.

Closer to home, here in West Virginia, Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Charleston opened their doors to a multi-faith vigil to express solidarity with migrants, refugees, and particularly with those now trying to exercise their legal right to apply for asylum in the United States at the US-Mexico border.

At the event, my colleague at American Friends Service Committee, Rick Wilson, led everyone in a thought experiment: Imagine your house, and everything in it. Imagine your neighborhood, your community, and everything that is familiar to you.

That part is easy to imagine, right? What is impossible for us to imagine is what degree of desperation would compel anyone to embark on a dangerous journey, for thousands of miles, knowing that the outcome is entirely uncertain, that you may not be welcomed, and worse you will be regarded as a criminal, or an invader, and treated accordingly with tear gas, separation from your children or incarceration.

Jackie Lozano, a young mother living here in Charleston, shared how, as an infant in Mexico City, she had life-threatening health problems. Her mother, desperate to pay for the medicine Jackie needed to live, made the treacherous journey from Mexico to the United States.

Her story reminds us that we cannot know the multitude of reasons people are seeking asylum or a life here in our country, but that all monotheistic faith traditions give us clear instruction about how we should regard the stranger.

Rabbi Urecki of B’Nai Jacob told the crowd gathered at St. John’s that, “You shall love the stranger in your midst” is repeated 36 times, more than any other commandment, in the Torah.

The rabbi went on to say, “To be a Jew means we do not see asylum seekers; we see the face of our ancestors. We don’t see migrants, we see us. We do not see ‘them,’ we see God’s children.”

The Christian faith also demonstrates how to regard people at our borders seeking a better life for themselves and their children. In Matthew 25:35 it says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

In Islamic tradition, according to Ibtesam Barazi with the Islamic Association of West Virginia, “We are taught to care for poor immigrants who are forced out of their homes and their properties.”

In stark opposition to any of these teachings, we instead see racist, nativist violence at the border today, all being committed by our government, in our name.

Whether these atrocious acts of violence continue in our name, or whether the “better angels of our nature” prevail, is up to each of us and the degree to which we are willing to speak out.

(This op-ed by Lida Shepherd of the American Friends Service Committee WV Economic Justice Project ran in the 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

O little refugee camp of Bethlehem

I got back from the trip to Palestine and Israel Sunday, but haven't had much chance to blog since then. This time, I'd like to share some images from the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. The camp was established in 1950 by refugees from Jerusalem and Hebron. According to the UN, there were around 4,700 residents there. The camp hasn't grown with the size of the population.

For the first few years, residents lived in tents, but gradually more substantial shelters were built. Sometimes people wonder why refugees stayed in the camps for so long. For one thing, there aren't a whole lot of places to go. For another, being a refugee or a lineal descendant of a refugee provides certain status and protections from the United Nations Relief and Work Agency.

Also, many people who live there dream of returning to their homes. Hence the frequency of the key symbolism.

Access to water and electricity is iffy. One way to spot a Palestinian home is the water tanks on the room. Sometimes the supply is cut for hours or days with no warning. And water is a big deal in that part of the world. One Palestinian father told our delegation that when his daughters are able to travel outside the area, they don't talk about scenery. Instead, they say "It was the best shower of my life."

The wall built by Israel around 2004 has made life, work, and mobility difficult, but at least it's a place for murals.

This is a particular sore spot for many Palestinians.

Narrow streets.

No comments necessary here.

This is a school for Palestinian girls. There are no windows on the side facing the wall. This is intended to keep out bullets.

One more anecdote. One man who had three daughters recently found out his wife is pregnant with a boy. Traditionally, this is an occasion for joy, but he says he prefers girls. Life is very dangerous for boys and young men, who can be swept up in arrests. Children as young as 12 can be tried and sentenced in military courts, albeit "juvenile" ones.