We all have triggers. One of mine has been triggered far too often lately, and it’s time for me to speak out.

I moved a lot as a youngster. During my formative years, I lived in a rural, agricultural part of California. As an early adolescent, I worked in the fields alongside a lot of migrant workers. In fact, I was the only American-born citizen in my cohort. Almost all of my coworkers were Filipino — they didn’t talk much about how they made it to this country, but they did share that the journey was horrendous for them. Others came up from Mexico.

We lived near the coast. Left over from WWII was a primitive notification system among farms originally created to warn everyone of a (potential) Japanese invasion. It still worked in the 1960s and was used for warnings about impending border patrol raids.

I worked for John Dias and Sons in Pescadero, California. One day, John received a warning and the entire crew went into action. We all gathered in “the factory,” a huge Quonset hut where the flowers John grew were sorted, wired, laid out on trays, dried, bunched and packed for shipping. The packing boxes were cardboard and referred to as coffins. As the product was so light, even when the boxes were full, workers would just toss them into the center of the Quonset hut and stack them up nearly to the ceiling. It was a disorderly mess.

When the warning came, the undocumented workers on the crew were all hidden. Some climbed into the cardboard coffins and others curled into crates, and we covered them with fresh, wet flowers. Every U.S. citizen had to be busy “working” when the patrollers came — this meant the owners, their relatives and I hustled around the edges of the Quonset hut. I was laying flowers out in trays, sorting by color and trying hard not to uncover a man who was laying under my workbench, literally at my feet.

I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

The border patrol team burst into the Quonset hut all dressed in black and wearing face shields. This was in the days before SWAT teams, and I had never seen anything like them. I thought they were the most frightening men I had ever seen. They carried long, sharp knives. Moving quickly, quietly and with brazen determination, they started poking and slicing whatever they felt like.

I was completely terrified that someone would be severely harmed right in front of my eyes. We were lucky. We were all so lucky. None of the patrollers struck actual human beings, and they left as fast as they had stormed in, with nothing in hand, hoping to surprise another farm and haul in a lot of “illegals.”

I still haven’t recovered. My heart races and my body tenses to this day, just at the thought of it. Fifty years after the fact, it still makes me cry.

Now, we are living again in a time when fear of immigrants is becoming more dominant.

Immigrants are often seen as threatening though most are hardworking, law abiding, loving of their families and trying desperately to “make it,” while working at menial jobs for low wages without compliant.

We need to respect these individuals. Whereas some Americans may like to argue about what rights undocumented immigrants do and don’t have, I urge you first to consider all of them as fellow human beings. One of the reasons they came to America is that we are a land living under the “rule of law.” This is a value that they value perhaps more than we do. I, for one, cannot fathom how we can deny basic human rights to anyone nor can I fathom how or why border guards — paid for with our taxes — can trespass, assault, threaten and potentially harm this country’s citizens with impunity.

Perhaps our border guards don’t do this today. If so, let’s make sure they don’t start. The fear my trigger carries should be a fear that no other individual should have.

We need to protect our citizens and one way to do that is to protect everyone within our borders. We need to make sure our laws are implemented fairly and without prejudice. We need to be sure that irrational emotions never outstrip the wisdoms of thought, care, deliberation and rational decision-making.

I read nonfiction for the most part, but every once in a while I yearn for a good yarn.

Last month I picked up the book, “The Last Dickens” by Matthew Pearl. It’s a “literary mystery,” and I learned a lot from it. Pearl specializes in historic biography, meaning the writing is luscious, and the plot is deeply researched. His characters are well-developed in the style of Charles Dickens!

The book is about the last five years or so of Charles Dickens’ life, but the reader also learns what daily life was like in the U.S. shortly after the Civil War. Pearl also explores the back-story of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood and how different the life trajectories were for the poor versus the better-educated middle and upper classes in the U.S and London.

Oddly enough, there is a tantalizing story line about the British opium trade in India and China as well. Put it all together and it’s creepy. The parallels with what is happening today in rural Ohio and our cities with opioid addiction, a strained economy and a changing job market are uncanny. Big egos, plotters and suspicion abound.

The book does not provide any answers about today’s dilemmas, but it will leave you with a richer understanding of the expression, “What goes around comes around.” 

The issues of hope and hopelessness; being born in poverty; having a life ravaged by drug addiction; and the business interests that control drug distribution have not changed much in the last 150 years. America survived the 1870s, and America will survive its challenges today relying always on the ingenuity of its people.

But we simply have to do better!

A friend of mine gave me the book Dreamland, written by Sam Quinones, and told me that I have to read it.

The summary on the back of the book recommended that every American should read it. By the time I got to page 30, I had to agree!

By the time I finished the book, I added it my “Best Book List” for the quality of its writing, the depth of its content and its pertinence to the lives of all Americans today.

This book is nothing if not timely.

It is a book about us, as in ColumbUS. Dreamland explores the OxyContin, black tar heroin and opioid epidemic, which impacts countless small (and large) cities around our nation.

Additionally, the book covers:

• immigration and rancheros in Mexico,
• the history of Portsmouth, Ohio,
• small business startups,
• the big “pharma” industry,
• the treatment of pain and addiction,
• Denver’s role in all of this, and
• some of the most important issues discussed in our current Senatorial and Presidential campaigns

Even if you keep up with the news every day, I’ll wager that you’ll wonder how all this issues could be going on around us without all of us knowing!

Sam Quinones is a wonderful writer. He expertly weaves multiple story lines through a series of snappy, short chapters. You can read a couple of those over lunch every day, but you won’t want to put it down.

If you are like me, you will want to read it all night through!

When our Ohio State community recognizes the importance of diversity and inclusion, the entire university is able to tell an even more dynamic narrative of preeminence and equity in higher education.

The inclusion of everyone and having a diversity of people, ideas, perspectives and experiences enriches us all.

 Dean’s Diversity Dashboard

• 17.8% of EHE faculty and staff are composed of individuals from underrepresented groups, including those who identify as American Indian, Asian, African American, Hawaiian, Latino and individuals who identify with two or more races
• 25% of our college’s leadership team is composed of individuals from underrepresented groups
• 16% of EHE graduate and undergraduate students are diverse

In our college, diversity and inclusion are recognized and honored.

The DICE office leads the college in diversity and inclusion initiatives

EHE’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement (DICE) leads our commitment to advancing social justice and equity in an effort to support the entire Buckeye community.

Valerie Kinloch

Under the leadership of Associate Dean Valerie Kinloch, professor of teaching and learning, DICE supports dynamic programming, high-quality research, international partnerships, and community and school outreach efforts.

The office advocates for the social, civil and educational rights of all students, staff and faculty in EHE.

How you can join EHE in recognizing and honoring diversity

Our goal is the same as the university’s: to become a model for inclusive excellence. We want our college to be reflective of the community — and world — outside of our campus boundaries.

Let’s recognize, honor and support diversity and inclusion in our daily lives and on our campus by:

• Supporting the university’s Multicultural Center, which offers resources to all members of the Ohio State community and is led by EHE alumni Todd Suddeth, ’06 MA, ’15 PhD, and Bowen Marshall, ’MA 11
• Attending events hosted by EHE’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement
• Joining or learning more about campus organizations and resources that create an inclusive campus, including:

  • ¿Qué pasa, OSU? — The first stop for information about Ohio State’s Latino/a community
  • Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity — An interdisciplinary research institute with aims to create an inclusive society
  • Asian/Asian American Leadership Institute — A multi-week conference to deeply engage campus leaders in discussion and reflection
  • American Indian Council — Hosts events and programs for individuals who wish to learn more about the rich heritage of the American Indian/ Indigenous populations
  • Q*mmunity of LGBTQ Students and Allies — A group dedicated to creating space for LGBTQ and Allied students, faculty and staff
• Participating in conferences that directly address inclusion, race, disability, privilege and equity

I believe deeply in the importance and benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion — please join me in upholding these important ideals.

This month, I highlight an award-winning book by Valerie Kinloch, our new associate dean for the EHE Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement (DICE).  This is an ambitious book with an ambitious agenda; a book about the struggle of the urban underclass and the ways in which gentrification disempowered black young people in Harlem.

Kinloch’s book, “Harlem On Our Minds: Place, Race and the Literacies of Urban Youth,” also explores how learning to write re-empowered those young people and how teaching made that happen. Through her study participants’ eyes, we see the importance of place, strength, class, power, politics and identity formation spill across its pages. This book made me think about Weinland Park, Hilltop, the Near East Side and many of our other diverse neighborhoods in Columbus.

It also made me think about Frederick Douglass.

I was lucky to find a copy of Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, in a used bookstore this summer. It was marked down to $2. I hadn’t read it before but decided I should. Little did I know how his story paralleled the story that Kinloch tells. Though the books are separated by more than 170 years, they elaborate on many of the same themes. Both emphasize the value of learning, the empowerment of writing, and the role of education in creating identity, self-awareness and hope in young African American men.

These books made me gasp when I read them.

The stories of Hollywood have nothing on the realities that Douglass faced. In his book, he describes in detail how slaveholders “raised” children. Kinloch’s book also asks us to examine how we raise our children today. In both cases, words became the weapons of choice that the authors used to establish their place in society, physically, emotionally and intellectually. Both books make a strong case for literacy and good teaching and both give us insight into the burden (and strength) of being a person of color in this country. Both books instill a sense of hope, but hope is only realized out of understanding and action.

These books remind us of our mission in EHE and I hope they inspire you this academic year as well.

I like Fareed Zakaria’s television program, Fareed Zakaria GPS.

As the host of CNN’s flagship foreign affairs show, Zakaria is calm, articulate, deliberate and reasoned. He argues politics with grace and dignity.

Now, I’ve found that he has also written a brilliant and concise book that makes the case for a liberal education, entitled reasonably enough, In Defense of a Liberal Education.

I believe that this book should become an important handbook for revising Ohio State’s general education requirements.

In his book, Zakaria makes a strong case for the millennial generation, he mixes the practical with the philosophical, he bemoans the lack of knowledge about science and he emphasizes the importance of learning to write “cleanly, clearly and reasonably quickly.” He even cites our very own Bruce Kimball, professor of educational studies, and Kimball’s book Orators and Philosophers as an ideal resource to learn more about the term “the liberal arts”.

Zakaria is clearly a Yale man, but I still agree with him.

It’s more important to learn to think than to fill your mind with specific books or topics. What matters the most in our instruction is rigor, and requirements that stretch our students to work hard and to develop their intellectual skills.

His musings about meaning making were very similar to Kalanithi’s in When Breath Becomes Air.

Zakaria made me recall something that one of my favorite professors at Cornell University, Urie Bronfenbrenner, taught me:

To read you have to think,

To think you have to write,

To write you have to read.

There’s a lot in this little book. I liked his commentary distinguishing aristocracy from meritocracy and separating talent meritocracy from test meritocracy. And I am still chewing on his statement, “Culture follows power.”

It’s worth thinking about during this campaign season.