Immigrants are not the problem. Don’t believe the propaganda.

Editor's note: This op-ed first appeared in the Storm Lake Times Pilot, the local newspaper in a town not that far from here, and not that different from here, which has at least one of the same major controversies as here: immigration. Like your local paper's editor, their local paper's editor is descended at least partly from Irish immigrants. In my case, on my Mother's side, my earliest ancestor that can fairly be called an immigrant came here on the Mayflower. But the native American ancestry in my family tree goes back way before then. In his case, well, he has a Pulitzer prize. I'm still working on that. When you read "Storm Lake" in this article, I recommend you think Eagle Grove, when you read "Tyson", think Prestage and Daybreak, and when you read "Clinton, Keokuk and Newell" think Thor, Otho, Renwick, Dows, etc. With all this in common between our two cities, and ourselves, I thought Mr. Cullen's op-ed is worth giving some space to in our own local paper, with his kind permission.

My folks floated over the pond with the cattle down below in steerage. One was an indentured servant, another a prison guard, others were among an army of Irish who helped drive the Native people off the Mississippi River near Dubuque to claim the lead mines. Still another branch settled the sloughs around Emmetsburg about the time the last Dakota were being driven out.

Immigrants. Good and not so good. The Mulroney brothers were not a welcome sight to the existing indigenous people when Fort Dodge was still a fort.

It cannot be avoided. It’s who we are, a nation of immigrants determined to write a new story for ourselves: That we came by it all fair and square; we did not. That we earned it; we stole it. And now that we are in control, we would rather keep others out. Until we need the cheap labor.

Repetition is the key to advertising or propaganda. Immigrants are bad. Poison. Criminals. Diseased. Depraved. You forget your own story in the flood of lies about who we are. They take on a veneer of truth when the cable news reminds you 24/7 that aliens are overwhelming us.

So the facts bear repeating.

This is Storm Lake, rich with immigrants from around the world. The town builds new schools with strong voter support. St. Mary’s Catholic Church is revitalized by Latinos. Mexican artists are putting up another mosaic mural, this time at Buena Vista University. They work hard at Tyson, producing pork and turkey zipping past on a line that goes faster for your meat budget.

Lake Avenue is full with food fare that can sate any palate. Immigrants have built carpentry, electrical and plumbing businesses. Their children perform in the school plays, excel on the soccer and football fields, and hope to attend Buena Vista University. Immigrants are firefighters and nurses, school board and city council members, community volunteers.

A few get in bar fights, as if the Irish did not. Immigrants commit crimes at no greater rate than whites do.

Most of us in Storm Lake have grown used to the polyglot. Many of us revel in it. The City Beautiful is a more interesting place than it was when it was all-white. When I was a kid, the town was relatively more prosperous with union meat cutters and independent farmers. It is a richer place in that we now have a Buddhist temple. It was the system, not the immigrants, that cut the working man’s wages in half through the decades. Mexicans did not snuff out the independent pork producer.

Storm Lake is growing with immigrants while two-thirds of rural Iowa is shrinking and decaying. They say there is no room for more while vacant school buildings are razed and homes rot out. Look around. There is room in Clinton, Keokuk and Newell.

Nearly everyone around here knows that livestock production and processing simply would not happen without immigrants in the poultry barn and on the kill floor. They could not have built the transcontinental railroad that plundered the Native people without the Irish and Chinese. The railroad laid Storm Lake with the help of Abe Lincoln’s law firm. The packinghouses were laid by the tracks. The Irish and Chinese were relieved by Latinos and Lao and Africans. Poor whites were and are told, over and over, that the person who talks funny or has darker skin stole your franchise, in order for you to keep fighting them and not the money that has a gun to your head.

Donald Trump cannot claim that the economy is a wreck when wages are rising and interest rates are falling. He wants immigration to be the issue that stokes fear.

Storm Lake is a reality check. We have our problems, but imagine what they might be without our new neighbors. Perry is about to find out when Tyson closes. How much would you miss their money? They pay taxes and contribute to Social Security. Their cousins are not sneaking through — they present themselves as castoffs at the border and beg mercy from Lady Liberty.

Our governor keeps sending National Guard soldiers and state troopers to Texas ostensibly to keep refugees out. Yet we need them. We need their resolute determination to work — anyone who would walk from Ecuador to El Paso to find freedom is the sort of neighbor you want. The most patriotic people I know are immigrants. You love freedom when you have witnessed Communist or religious oppression first-hand.

Immigrants have been good for Storm Lake, for sure as it stands today. The Browns are Irish, the Dvergstens Norwegian and the Schallers originally hail from Alsace-Lorraine. Now they own three Storm Lake banks and help newcomers start a new life like their ancestors did. Someday, one of those people might end up owning a bank themselves. It really happens. That’s America. That’s Storm Lake. Amid the propaganda that you must fear the “other,” it bears repeating as much as the lies: The “other” is us.

Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot, where this column first appeared, as well as Art Cullen’s Notebook on Substack. It is republished here as part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please consider subscribing to the collaborative and its member writers to support their work.

©Copyright 2024, Iowa Capital Dispatch. Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Read more at iowacapitaldispatch.com.