refugee

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“Welcome to America,” to belong once again

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On the nation’s 250th birthday, a member of our Leelanau community—albeit one who remains anonymous to protect her immigration status—shares her story of arriving in this land of immigrants. “Welcome to America,” an immigration officer told us at the Fort Lauderdale-Miami Airport. With those words, he stamped our papers, confirming that everything was in order with our process and that, finally, we could enter the country. He had no way of knowing the profound commotion his words had caused within me. That “Welcome to America” lingered, echoing in my ears as we walked down a narrow hallway toward the exit of the crowded airport. With one hand I pulled a small suitcase, and with the other, I held my daughter, who looked just as disoriented as I felt. A few steps ahead walked my husband, quickening his pace alongside our youngest son. I felt a whirlwind of emotions: peace, disbelief, confusion, fear, joy, solace, gratitude, and nostalgia.

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Life, liberty, beaches and pie—for our foreign-born workers, for us all

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July 4 has always been my favorite holiday since I was a young child running around Glen Arbor in the 1970s. I felt such pride being an American. Recently, our chef at the Cherry Public House told me that he saw a border patrol agent driving down M-22. He was miffed that they were patrolling Leelanau—200 miles from a border that happens to be the safest in the world. It is nerve-wracking for our foreign and local workers at Cherry Republic because we are a team and family and we don’t want to be broken up any more than the hard-working families we’ve seen on television torn apart in pools of tears these last six months. Cherry Republic is hosting a refugee family from Central America. The father has taken on the difficult job of stirring our four giant scalding jam and salsa kettles in our Empire plant. Unfortunately, because of the legal wrangling going on between the courts and The White House, our Central American refugees can no longer work. The pot stirrer in Washington shutting down the pot stirrer in Empire.

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Iranian Arya Khoshnegah recalls his escape to the Leelanau School

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The Leelanau School featured a special graduation speaker during its commencement ceremony on June 3. Alum Arya Khoshnegah, together with his sister Laila, left Iran as teenagers and enrolled at the private boarding school north of Glen Arbor, just before the 1979 revolution that changed the fortunes of their family and their country. Leelanau, which specializes in experiential learning and small class sizes in a beautiful setting, graduated 19 seniors who hail from 11 states. Distinguished alumni have included survivors of wars and natural disasters, children of statesmen and accomplished actors.

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One year later, undocumented immigrant children quietly settling in Michigan

Michigan has one of the largest long-term foster care programs in the nation for immigrant and refugee children, said Susan Reed, supervising attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. The Kalamazoo-based center and pro bono immigration law clinics at the University of Detroit Mercy Law School and Michigan State University work together with Bethany and Lutheran to represent undocumented immigrants.

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