A story from our former suburb of Boston… (not quoting it because it would be tough to read in italics)
Sally is the mother of four kids – lives in Chelsea.
She is beautiful and speaks well but cannot read and has a 2nd grade education.
Her husband, small gentleman with a major speech issues, hit her over the head with a hammer when her boyfriend came over to the house. The father went to jail.
There was a lot of stress in the house. Both parents during the pandemic lost one of two jobs. The father was experiencing major mental health issues. The kids were “learning at home” The kids at the time where 3, 8, 10 and 11…..learning? How? Both parents were working their one job and desperately trying to find a second job.
The father worked for 18 years at Bed Bath and Beyond making $15.50 an hour. The mother continues to work at Whole Foods making $17 an hour.
Because the father is in jail the mother is responsible for all the bills which she cannot handle. Feb 1 she was evicted and went to stay in a hotel because all shelters were filled. She and the kids will stay there until housing becomes available- maybe 2 years? There is nowhere to cook or do laundry.
The father is in jail and has been for three years without bail or a trial.
Just another day at work.
What is [South Sudanese Enrichment for Families]’s response?
We are writing letters to the fathers’ public defender to try to get him a trial and bail in March. We have facilitated the father instead of the Nashua Street Jail to be at the Recovery Center in Worcester. He gets therapy and tutoring.
A volunteer is working with the mother to try to have some stability in their life. Many Sudanese are helping getting the kids to school etc.
We have another woman with two kids going into a shelter in March and we have one child taken away from her mother. Very very sad. Two Sudanese families are going to take the child in.
….
We have 8 families that are in our Financial Fitness Program where we assess where they are financially and what they need to do to meet their financial goals. There is a waiting list.
We are getting there ……all with your help. Thank you…the need is huge.
(Although my heart is warmed by the above, I’m confused by the story. The mom of 4 had a boyfriend (perfect adaption of a migrant to the American lifestyle, despite having only a 2nd grade education!) and the father went to jail. But also the story implies that the father was at home during the coronapanic lockdowns in Maskachusetts. Yet he has been “in jail” for three years and the lockdown began three years ago. Maybe the boyfriend is the new “father” who has the Bed Bath & Beyond job and was at home during the lockdowns and pretend-learn-from-home-scheme? Also, why do the nonprofit say-gooders (maybe even do-gooders?) want to get the hammer-wielding father out of jail? So that he can attack the mom with a hammer again? So that he can copy the undocumented immigrant David DePape and attack Paul Pelosi? Isn’t jail the safest place for anyone who cannot be trusted with a hammer?)
Most of us would be as illiterate as the Sudan mother if we lived in the world’s largest economy China.
Maybe the housing situation would be better in China. They sound better off than the typical San Francisco resident.
What was that? Did someone have a stroke? If you’re saying that all seems incoherent, I’m with you, but where’s it from? Is Sally Somali? Is that a Somali name?
SuperMike: I cut and pasted it from a town-wide mailing list from our former town (not too rich in Somalis due to the 2-acre zoning minimum that for some reason can never be relaxed no matter how much residents of the town yearn for social justice and intimacy with Black Lives).
Now that you’ve highlighted the unusual nature of the tale, I wonder if ChatGPT could write something similar: “Write me a story about a migrant with a 2nd grade education who comes to America in order to have sex with a lot of different guys.”
@philg In my experience chatgpt will balk at anything sex-related, and probably also at anything that casts immigrants in any kind of unfavorable light. If you ask it to do this, you’re probably going to get lectured about how such things are not funny and probably not true.
It’s a sad story on many levels, one of scores that I’ve read (prior to COVID from Psychologist-in-Training case notes) and of course, COVID exacerbated the situation.
But the United States has an unofficial, unwritten policy of ceaselessly importing poverty as an electoral demographic tool. In fact it is the most important implement of that policy.
So yes, there is indeed a “lot of need” and that’s a feature, not a bug.
I also wonder why the NP is working so hard to get him sprung? To assist a traditional heterosexist notion of family and marriage? Haven’t the Sudanese learned that isn’t how we do things in the United States?
You have to wonder why the US imports people who are unable to support themselves here both now and for the foreseeable future. So for about a decade various members of a family cleaned my place and other apartments and offices. The all worked “off the books.” The mother came over on a tourist visa, overstayed the visa, and eventually received political asylum. There is nothing about this woman that is the least bit political. She then brought the rest of her family over. They are all both uneducated and low IQ. Their English language ability is limited and my guess is that their ability in their native language is not a lot better. The mother after a time got too old to work — her life had been hard and I was concerned that she would fall off a chair and break her neck. So her daughter in law and then her daughter took over. They are both in their late 20s. The daughter worked four days a week a couple of hours a day. She said that that met her needs since presumably health care and food were provided by Uncle. When Covid arrived the daughter stopped coming to work. I called her a few times afterward but she said she was too scared to take public transport. So I started doing the cleaning myself and realized that what took her 3 hours i could do in about 45 min and that I didn’t really need her. A month ago she called and said she was ready to come back to work — I assume she was living off of government benefits over the period and that some of the benefits had run out. I said i didnt need her but that I would help her find a job. She said it wasn’t feasible for her to take a job on the books because she would lose her Medicaid coverage. I told her that a Whole Foods had opened nearby, that they were hiring and that I would help her get a job. She had some convoluted explanation as to why she did not want to do that. Presumably because what she was receiving from the government was more remunerative than what Whole Foods would pay.
So what is the take away? On the one hand none of us would probably want to change places with these people. On the other hand they contribute nothing and milk the system. Since the are all low IQ and the women are not particularly attractive what The Son Also Rises teaches us is that this situation will likely remain for many generations. How common is this? Is it really worth thinking about? Who knows?
This family and its offspring will never integrate into American life style. They will continue to be a burden on taxpayers and not add any value to American. Talk about the “melting pot” that America was suppose to be.
Also, last I checked, any immigrant, legal or illegal, who is not yet a citizen, by law is deported if s/he commits a crime. So why is the father in jail and not deported? Once the father is deported, the mother can have her boyfriend and an American Apple Pie.