James Brumbley Jr.

Let’s examine our own corners of the world. We need to take a moment and closely look at where we live. Put focus on the people around us. That includes more than the people we know. It also includes the people we don’t know. We don’t always know their names, but we see them every day, whether it’s in traffic or walking past us in a store. Who are these people and why are they here?

First, everyone starts out at home. To us, home is a very familiar and safe place. Many of us have never left our homes. We’ve lived our entire lives within a 50 mile radius of the place we grew up. Our identities are tied to these places and the formative experiences we have there. Even if we’ve left home, we know that we can return there anytime. We can return to our old stomping grounds and pick up where we left off. We can catch up with old friends and see how things have changed. When we’re ready to leave again, we can go and rest safely knowing that home will be there when we return.

Life isn’t kind to everyone. For some people, home isn’t so recognizable. They left their homes to find better opportunities. They left because their homes were upended and no longer safe places. Their homes were destroyed and their friends and families were killed. So they left and now they can’t go back. Even for the people who still have homes somewhere and have family and friends waiting, it’s not always safe or practical for them to return home. They’re not sure that they’ll see their homes again. Sure, they can get glimpses of home. A family member or friend may be able to reach them. Yet, they still can’t return home, because they have found a new home.

The people who move to this land of opportunity seek what that nickname implies. This shining city on a hill attracts people with a wide range of backgrounds. We asked that we receive the tired, the poor, and those yearning to breathe free. They came to this beacon of liberty with a dream. They dreamed of living a life. They dreamed of a life where they could raise children and grow old. They dreamed of following their goals and improving their new home. For hundreds of years, they’ve arrived at our home and made it their own home. They’ve built upon it, and this land is better because of their presence.

What about our own corners of the world? Where do the people who made our home their home fit here? In our hospitals, it’s doctors and nurses who care for the sick and the old and the poor. When we celebrate special occasions or gather with friends, we see them operating the restaurants we meet in and cooking the food we eat. They are the person behind the desk answering our questions and helping us find answers we need.

They are us. They are living with us, around us, and in every aspect of our day-to-day lives. Immigrants have made this land better because of their presence in our lives. We meet immigrants on a daily basis whether we know it or not. We all bleed. They bled for us at work. They bled for us in our wars. They bleed in the same ways that we bleed.

They’re bleeding now because of persecution. Certain people aren’t interested in sharing our home. Certain people want to hoard our home and everything in it for themselves. They know that if we saw them as they are, they wouldn’t get away with it. They needed a distraction. They use minority groups and culture to distract from the inequality between classes. Immigrants, the people who came here in search of a new home, are deliberately targeted in this persecution. They become the victims of raids on their homes and businesses. They are kidnapped and murdered.

It’s happening in our own corners of the world. We see local businesses impacted by it. We go to these businesses run by immigrants, we buy their products and services, we eat the food they make and buy the clothes they sell, and when the people running these businesses are targeted, it is our duty as citizens of this shining city on a hill to protect them. Our home is our family, and they are part of our home.

To sit idle and say nothing is no excuse. Evil is perpetrated, evil is supported, and evil is silent. Staying silent only condones the evil being committed. Evil is invasive and illegal. Evil is perverting our homes by turning us against our neighbors. We were taught to obey the golden rule in our beacon of liberty, to treat others as we’d like to be treated. We were told in scripture to treat the least of these with care and respect.

The people committing evil acts use fear to prevent us from understanding others. When we fail to understand our neighbors, we fail to find the common aspect in all of us. We fail to understand that we’re all human. We fail to acknowledge that we all have goals, dreams, work, life, and love. We fail to see that we all bleed.

James Brumbley Jr. is a writer who focuses on short stories and poems about current events, with his writing centering on systemic issues that impact people. He is a library worker and also organizes fundraisers for local nonprofits and community organizations. He enjoys reading and favors genres such as alternate history, dystopian, and thrillers. You can find him on Instagram.

James’s poems “It’s Real” and “A Nurse’s Sacrifice” appear in Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival, a free collection from The Chaos Section Poetry Project on immigration enforcement and resistance. You can read the full book online, download the PDF for free, or purchase a paperback copy here.