I live about 25 minutes south of Carlisle, in a rehabbed one-room schoolhouse. I think it’s an incredibly beautiful area, and it’s just what you picture when you picture the good side of rural America: either a cliche or a paradigm, or both, a country song or a Wyeth painting. What’s most interesting about the whole region – Bendersville to Dillsburg to East Berlin to Gettysburg to Biglerville, with York Springs in the middle – is that it’s half white and half Latino, more or less. It is a fascinating and functional and developing multi-ethnic culture, blooming like an orchard in what was once the Waterloo of the Confederacy. Now it’s being devastated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who are literally hauling people away.
I’ve been writing about my region for awhile, in appreciation, but now also in anger. These are human beings that they’re doing this to: full participants in our culture, revivers of a dying economy. Adams County went for Trump; I’m hoping people are really re-thinking that. Honestly, this is liable to plunge us into a depression that is both economic and spiritual.
You can read more of my writing about Adams County
Americana, Straight Outta Zacatecas, Splice Today, December 12, 2016
Fiestas and Apple Orchards: Small-Town Life Before Trump, Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2017
For a different view of immigration and agricultural labor, read Senator Mike Regan’s editorial in the Sentinel.