Summer in the City

With two weeks to go at my internship and classes starting in just about a month, now's as good a time as any for me to reflect on this transformative summer. This has been, in many ways, a summer of firsts — my first summer living in a metropolitan area, my first summer of legal work, my first summer on the East coast and my first summer away from Iowa and all the family and friends I love back home.

I'll start with Iowa because it's been on my mind a lot lately. So many of my friends out here have asked about the floods and what effect, if any, they have had on my family. My brothers and their families, and other family and friends of mine, live in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. A flood of unprecedented proportion quite literally swamped both cities last month. Though the flood waters did not reach their homes, thank goodness, both my brothers' workplaces were substantially affected. I've posted a picture that my brother Mike took at his office, then sent in an email with the subject line, "Oh, the irony ..." According to a city plan, my brother Dan lives two blocks outside the 500-year flood plain and last month, the flood waters came within about, well, two blocks of his house. These floods, brought on by two solid weeks of rain in late May and early June, were like nothing our state had ever seen. Just as they always do when times are tough, Iowans pulled together and made the best of what for so many was and continues to be an awful situation.

The official nickname of Cedar Rapids is the City of Five Seasons — winter, spring, summer, fall and time to enjoy the other four. (It's a quality of life thing.) But many locals know Cedar Rapids by another name, derived from the presence of an Archer Daniels Midland corn sweetener plant and other odorous industry like General Mills, Cargill and Quaker Oats: the City of Five Smells. Unfortunately, I'm told that in the weeks after the flooding, a different kind of smell — a stench — overtook the others. But this is probably the least of Cedar Rapids' troubles at the moment. FEMA trailers made their way to the area, temporarily, and now there's a hefty cost to remove them. Damage to the central fire station has doubled response times. And down I-380 a few miles in Coralville, mold and mushrooms are still the norm in at least one less fortunate neighborhood. Of course the Iowa floods didn't come close to the same number of casualties as Hurricane Katrina, nor have people been displaced on the same scale. But for a state where agriculture accounts for about one-fourth of total economic output, and when about one-sixth of the people in the second-largest city had to evacuate, these floods are an awfully big deal. Keep the good people of Iowa in your thoughts. They're certainly in mine. They'll persevere, of course. Life is never bad for too long in Iowa. There are just too many good people around.

Good people abound in Virginia, too, and I have met my fair share of them this summer. The group of people I work with at the NoVA CDO are absolutely wonderful. I have made professional connections there, to be sure, but also personal friendships that will last for many years. I have discovered that death penalty defense is human rights work, and the people who do it care just as deeply about the families of the victims as anyone, as well as their clients' families, who suffer from the effects of these tragic crimes in their own sad ways. This line of work takes a special kind of person, one who has great compassion, patience and a willingness to build bridges and establish relationships where they are so desperately needed. I wish I could tell more specific stories, because they are powerful, but doing so could put our clients at risk.

Living near D.C. has afforded me a great many opportunities. I have walked along Georgetown's bustling, chic M Street; watched fireworks on the National Mall; cheered the Washington Nationals at their beautiful, modern new park and done the same for the Baltimore Orioles at their older, classic one; strolled Baltimore's inner harbor and enjoyed the view from its World Trade Center (see photo); laughed at comedians at the D.C. Improv; heard concerts at Wolf Trap and the Nissan Pavilion; applauded Hillary Rodham Clinton at her concession speech; toured the many monuments, memorials and museums of D.C.; even climbed a small, beautiful mountain called Old Rag. I am so grateful to my new friends for getting me acquainted with this wonderful area, which has so much to offer.

This summer has been a time for me to hone both my legal writing and racquetball skills. In each case, one lesson is clear: the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. It's a familiar lesson that I first encountered nearly a decade ago, when I started studying philosophy. So long as I challenge myself, it's a lesson that endures, wherever life takes me.

I have learned this summer that although I'll always be a small-town kid, the big city is nothing to fear. I love writing in my journal as I take the Orange Line from Vienna to Capitol South, catching a nighttime glimpse of the Iwo Jima Memorial on the way through Arlington, and running up and down the hills of Old City Fairfax. Wherever I go from here, this is one summer I won't soon forget.

A community, broken

The federal government raided a meat-packing plant in the northeast Iowa town of Postville on Monday, arresting more than 400 people, the biggest such raid in U.S. history.

The AP has the basic story here.

Postville, located 35 miles from where I grew up, is an atypical community in our corner of the world. The meat-packing plant is the largest producer of Kosher meat in the United States and from what I've read, produces the only meat that Israel will import from the U.S. As a result of the plant's existence, immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Ukraine and Israel have all made Postville home. It is a fascinating intersection of cultures in a mostly white state; several years ago, a University of Iowa professor wrote a book called "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America."

The raid has dominated local newscasts this week and everywhere I go, people are talking about it. For those who believe that Iowa is just another one of those bigoted states where people just want to "round up all the illegals and send 'em back where they came from," think again. While that sentiment surely exists, it's not the dominant one I've heard expressed this week.

No, most people are talking about how much damage the federal government has done to Postville. They're also talking about why in the world the company that runs the plant, Agriprocessors, is not being charged with any crimes. Our governor, Chet Culver, and the local U.S. House rep, Bruce Braley, are both inquiring about that as well, which hopefully will produce some results. The immigrants have also filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, which you can read about here.

For every person who was arrested on Monday, there is at least one heart-wrenching story to be told. Perhaps the most telling story, though, about how damaging the raid has been, is about one person who wasn't arrested. It's the story the Postville superintendent of schools is telling, about how his top student had to go into hiding because while the boy's father is a legal immigrant, his mother is not. The Gazette published the story earlier this week.

The superintendent's primary frustration is with Congress, for not doing something about immigration. The strange thing about this issue is that the three remaining presidential candidates and President Bush all basically agree on what needs to be done, though the Democrats' plan would make the pathway to citizenship less difficult for immigrants than the Republicans' plan, by not forcing them to return home after their time as guest workers is over. Regardless, the problem here is clearly people like Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs, who would rather see us build a giant wall around our country and fence out the Americans who welcome our Latino neighbors.

People who spout anti-immigrant hate always fall on the wrong side of history. We are a nation of immigrants. A wise woman once told me that our willingness to recognize the humanity of all people, to bestow individuals with unprecedented freedom and to open doors to the American dream, is what makes this country so great. She's absolutely right. Let us not forget it.