Monthly Archives: June 2017

whose america are we living in?

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When you see photos like this they just make you happy. Obviously in love, on their wedding day, their whole lives ahead of them. Until ICE (immigration) shows up like modern day Nazis at the Septa train station in Haverford and arrests the husband.

I used to live in Haverford.  I used to work near Haverford Train Station.  I grew up in Haverford.  I just can’t imagine the terror this man felt.  I learned about his plight when a friend posted on Facebook:

 

I thought this possibly couldn’t be true, then I remember conversations I have had with people even locally in Chester County about ICE going into schools, ICE raiding restaurants and other businesses country and city, ICE rounding people up off the streets and throwing them into vans, asking for papers at SEPTA stops in Philadelphia (a supposed “sanctuary city”), tales of immigrants with “go” bags packed by their front doors in case they have to run, and does this seem crazy that we are living in a country that allows this?

We are a nation formed of immigrants.  Give us your tired, your hungry, your poor.  I have friends who emigrated to this country.  I thank God that all of them are legal citizens.

Jonatan Palacios is his name.  His lovely wife Lillie Williams has a You Caring Page up. I don’t know them personally, but what is being done to them is a crazy horror show at the hands of the US Government.

I am going to let HER words tell THEIR story.  Lillie pardon me for copying and pasting your message, but your words have power:

The Story

My name is Lillie Williams and early yesterday morning, on May 11th, immigration ripped me away from my husband. 

We are working with a lawyer to get him out and get him back home to me as soon as possible, but we need help covering all of the expenses, fees, and loss of income as we work to do everything I can to get Jonatan out and back to his home and family.

Why did we get caught in this mess? Because we were going through proper legal motions. We submitted an I-130 spousal petition for him in October. We were working with the system to correct his legal status from his case when he entered as an unaccompanied minor at the age of 16. 

Jonatan is my best friend and soulmate. I appreciate any help and support that you can provide to help us through this difficult time. 

Background:

Jonatan and I had went on our first date the summer before my Junior year at Bryn Mawr College, on May 24th, 2010.

My roommate at the time had been dating Jonatan’s older brother for about a year before we started dating. Always thinking herself the matchmaker, she had made several attempts at getting Jonatan and I together before it finally happened. The final straw that brought the two of us together was a mishap one night, where my roommate had accidentally locked me out of the apartment in my pajamas when she was late to a date with Jonatan’s brother. I called my forgetful Italian friend to please turn around and let me back in, but instead she sent Jonatan to my rescue. He then had my number and asked if he could keep it.We started dating only a few months later and it was as if there was a magnetic force that brought us together. We were inseparable. Then, several hard events in my life happened which brought us even closer together. We both became each other’s home.

We were legally married at one one of our favorite restaurants in Philadelphia, Amada on October 11th, 2014 and a year later we had our religious wedding ceremony with friends and family at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens on October 15th, 2015. 

The pastor from Jonatan’s church officiated with the service in Spanish and translated into English so that everyone there would understand. It was one of the happiest evenings of our lives.

When we were getting ready to get married, I learned about Jonatan’s case. I thought that it was something that we would be able to resolve with marriage– since I am a born United States Citizen and my ancestry goes back in the United States to colonial days I thought it would be a simple case of petitioning for him once we were married. I found out after that the case was a lot more complicated than either of us had thought.

It turns out that people don’t become citizens simply through marriage to a US Citizen Spouse. It is a long and difficult process and sometimes, if you are unlucky, things can go wrong with your case. 

More About the Issue:

If you would like to know more about the overall issue, there is a whole organization of families like mine that have gone through or are going through similar issues, American Families United. You can learn more by going to http://www.americanfamiliesunited.org/.

 

This is so unreal.  Their crime was being naïve and thinking they could trust the United States of America. They filed what they thought was the correct paperwork and instead of help, he gets arrested at the Septa station in Haverford with assistance by Lower Merion Police Department.  Ok, so let’s be fair, I am guessing Lower Merion Police Department did not have much choice in the matter when the Federal Government comes calling, but can you imagine the abject terror he must have felt along with anyone else who was around there on May 11th?

Ok so those of you who are die hard conservatives are getting ready to sharpen your keyboards and read me the riot act for this post, but please.

Don’t.

Stop and think about this for a moment.  This young couple were trying to right a wrong. They were not trying to be deceitful.  Now this guy is sitting in some jail facility in York, PA and do we even know if he has been able to see his wife? Or other family?  They were not hiding and they were punished anyway.

For every one of these stories I hear, the mental image of World War II come to mind.  The stories of Holocaust survivors and immigrants of another century telling the stories of Nazis demanding papers during World War II era Europe.  Tell me, how is this different? Because it is happening under the banner of the United States of America?

What is it that is carved on Lady Liberty? What is the exact figure of immigrants who came through Ellis Island and passed the Statue of Liberty between 1820 and 1920? 34 Million? This is the poem Lady Liberty wears:

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“”Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!”” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

There is a vigil planned for Jonatan Palacios on June 8th.  There is a Facebook event set up

If you care to contribute to the young couple’s legal expenses (immigration lawyers are not cheap), please visit You Caring Help Jonatan Palacios be reunited with his wife and family!

I am the descendant of immigrants.  I am descended from three nationalities which were once discriminated against and disparaged against – Irish, German, Italian.  I grew up with many tales including “Irish need not apply” and WOP jokes and disparaging German comments . I fear for my legal US citizen friends who emigrated here because some still have the lingering traces of the countries they were born in.  What could be done to them in error because they don’t have your typical American accent?

Whether you know this couple or not, if you can peacefully or peaceably help, help.  Attend the vigil, write elected officials (including all 14 commissioners in Lower Merion Township to ask WTF??,  essentially.)

Whose America is this? Whose America are we living in?  I am not sure  and I am so sad at this latest turn of events.

respecting small businesses and nonprofits

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Small businesses should be cherished and respected in any community. They give us our small towns or “small town feel” if we live in a larger metropolitan area.

Small businesses are the ones who actually remember their customers. You come in and they often greet you by name.  Small businesses are run by your friends and neighbors a lot of the time.

It is so hard for a small business to stay in business. If they are lucky enough to own the building, it helps but it doesn’t guarantee success. There is overhead no matter what – regardless if they are dealing with a mortgage payment or a landlord.

Small businesses are not like big box stores that have giant advertising budgets.
Small businesses depend on their customers and word-of-mouth as well as now in the modern era we live in, online reviews.  

What bothers me about online reviews with websites like Yelp or even Google, is sometimes a “customer” will just create an entire falsehood to punish a small business owner. I had it happen to a friend of mine and the reason that happened is someone came in to their establishment who basically had an out-of-control child. It’s a store full of breakables and after a while my friend who is a mother several times over nicely asked the person to basically mind her child. And as a result this person went home and wrote an online review that was completely false, for spite. How dare that store owner not love junior picking up and dropping everything in the store!

Then there are the people that like to take advantage of small businesses in other ways. And often they do similar things to nonprofits. You are just supposed to love the fact that they come into your establishment or attend your event. They actually expect carte blanche. Not only do they expect to attend eat and drink at your event for free, but if you own a small business they expect goods and services for free or the small business worries about them saying something not so nice publicly, and is it just me or is it wrong?

 How can you be a human being and do that to someone else? Yet it happens all the time. I heard another tale of it today which prompted this post.  Now often you will find cases of where a small business might do a partial barter on goods and services but it’s the exception rather than the rule. 

Then there are the folks who present themselves as publicists and social media experts. They want to charge you for their expertise and placement. Only are they truly experts? If someone places your business or your nonprofit only on their website is that media placement? I don’t think so.

If you then are paying someone for your social media and that someone just puts you on their Instagram feed or their Facebook feed are they doing your social media or their social media?  As a small business or nonprofit how exactly is that building your brand in particular?

I do not have a monetized website and blog.   So if I am writing about a small business, or a product, or a restaurant, or a nonprofit event it’s because I have patronized the business, bought meals in the restaurant, purchased the goods, and bought a ticket to the event.  

Sometimes as a blogger I am invited to cover an event as a member of the media even though I do not consider myself “media”. But if I am to wander around and take pictures and write up an event, I also buy tickets to cover at a minimum my better half who is escorting me and maybe other guests.  

But that doesn’t happen very often.  Usually I am covering something I would normally wish to attend. And when I occasionally cover a nonprofit event, the nonprofit has access to any photo I take at any time, and I don’t charge them for the photos. It is like an added donation with no time limits.

The flipside of that equation is as a blogger there are a lot of people that want things from you for free. They want you to cover something or they want you to write about something only they don’t like it if you say no. But a lot of times I do say no. It’s not what they have isn’t worth discussing it’s just not of interest to me.

When I cover a nonprofit event it’s because I support the nonprofit, have a membership to said nonprofit, and normally attend events of these nonprofits and when I cover them I am paying it forward so other people can discover the nonprofits I think are wonderful.  And I get permission from the event planners ahead of time to take photos. I don’t just show up with my camera and presume they are going to want me to take pictures. 

Small business owners are your neighbors, your friends. Treat them with respect and support them. Don’t take advantage of them. Treat nonprofits with the same level of respect.  You have no idea how little nonprofits actually receive compared to what they put out in effort.

Thanks for stopping by.