Their fingerprints are on the food we consume, these men leave wives, children, parents, extended family and their communities to spend a minimum of seven months a year working in the U.S. guest worker program.
Considering the lilies and hard conversations
Their beauty is exquisite — the daylily blooms resulting from last summer’s sabbatical gardening. With coffee in hand, I journey each new day to see what surprise the garden holds. I count the blooms, marveling at their balanced symmetry, stunning…
Gun violence: An interview with Lorraine
It began as a normal day. After finishing breakfast Lorraine placed a peck on the cheek of her husband, uttered a quick “I love you,” before heading out to the grocery story to purchase milk to replenish the jug emptied…
When wielding power can be healing
“Money and power.” That’s what the gentleman who telephoned me from Mississippi said. The pressure on his home state and on my home state of North Carolina for recent legislative and gubernatorial actions, viewed widely as discriminatory, are all about…
Lessons in discrimination: You’ve got to be carefully taught
My first lesson in prejudice and discrimination occurred at the impressionable age of 5. I grew up in North Carolina as the daughter of tobacco farmers and devoted church-going parents in a community consisting of other family farmers, tenant farmers…