Erie, Pennsylvania, is home to more than ten thousand refugees, fully 10 percent of its population. They have come from Bhutan, Bosnia, Somalia, the Congo, Iraq, Sudan, and, yes, Syria. My students and I have had the honor of getting to meet some of them and to record their stories through Gannon’s refugee oral history project. The people we have met, and the experiences we have heard about, and the lives that have been built here—out of grief, out of nothing but sheer will—bear no relationship to the discourse wielded like a blunt instrument in this most recent presidential campaign. Erie was a stop on that campaign’s bitter trail, and along with so many, including the feisty Benedictine sisters, we brought our signs to protest. Ultimately we snuck in to listen firsthand. The candidate told a poisonous tale in which refugees—all refugees—were compared to a frozen, half-dead snake. The heroine in the tale took in and nursed that snake back to life. The snake then bit her and killed her.
I was grieved not so much by the tale itself but by the wild applause with which it—and the message that America needs to be purged—was met.
There are many organizations that serve refugees in our communities. I hope that you will consider becoming involved. Donations are one thing, but how much better to tutor, to mentor, to share meals, to learn someone else’s story and find in it the human connections that bind us to each other? In the years that come, we will need to care for each other more, be gentler, more patient, more alert to infringements on our human rights—the better to weather the storm together.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees: www.unhcr.org/en-us
Office of Refugee Resettlement: www.acf.hhs.gov/orr
Catholic Charities: www.cccas.org/refugee-resettlement/