Iowa used to be fetching for its wholesome charms. How do you do, neighbor? The index finger wave from the steering wheel. You could put up with the boredom for the honesty and trust. Bob Ray was an ambassador for ice cream, and it went down smoothly enough.
Okay, Iowa Nice.
Now we’re sending a different message: We’re Iowa Nasty.
Gov. Kim Reynolds has pointy-toed butt kickers so of course she answered Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s plea for soldiers and troopers to come to the border. She deployed 109 Iowa National Guard soldiers to Texas last week, and on Aug. 31 will send a contingent of state troopers to show the Texas Rangers how it’s done.
Reynolds will pay for the show by raiding federal pandemic relief funds. The last time she sent 28 troopers to the border a couple years ago it cost over $300,000 for 14 days. This will cost millions that otherwise could have been used for K-12 public schools or to buy ice cream for everyone. Iowa used to be known for being No. 1 in education. Under Reynolds we’ve fallen to about No. 18, according to the latest college test scores. (The Italians just gobbled up Wells Blue Bunny. Good Lord, send the troops to Le Mars before moral decay sets in!)
We are not the Education State.
We are the State That Does Not Want You Here.
Yes, that’s you, Mexicano or wherever you came from.
Except …
Agriculture is Iowa’s backbone. It could not survive because Gringo can’t hack it or won’t do it. Udders would ache aplenty without brown hands tending them. Our meatpacking complex is overwhelmingly Latino. They can’t get enough help. Nobody in rural Iowa can. Mexicans are rebuilding rural Iowa — literally, look at the shingling crew up on your roof if you are not blind. Were it not for Mexicans the rain would pour through.
Reynolds sends a clear message in any language: You are not welcome here.
Fonda does well by it. And Alta. So do Denison and Marshalltown and Storm Lake. Who will clean the hoghouses and dairy barns? Who is going to work in that new cattle plant in Mills County that few people could find on a map? Why do we lie to ourselves?
The governor was eager to order Latinos onto the kill floors during the peak of the pandemic without protection, and she is adamant that their kin shall not cross the border.
This is not about the realities of rural Iowa being ignored again. Reynolds likes the lights. She wants to be vice president. The deployment is entirely about messaging. It’s not about what is happening on the ground in Texas.
The surge at the border fizzled because the Biden Administration is just as nasty as Reynolds when it comes to refugees. The border is shut off. It has been for years. Arrests surged. Refugees are told by the U.S. to rot in Juarez, apply for asylum on your cellphone, and we might get back to you. Until then, do not attempt to cross the Rio Grande because Texas has put death buoys and razor wire there, and the yokels from Iowa are watching just in case because there is nothing going back home in the dog days of summer.
Here, the cultural highlight of the year is the Iowa State Fair and the governor’s charity steer show. And then the Clay County Fair. After that, it’s a losing season for the Cyclones and another lackluster year for the Hawkeyes, and then it is winter.
But you can shoot where you like. The queers don’t get too vocal. The burritos are big and cheap (made by Mexicans but I bet they all got here the legal way, and they don’t mouth off to me in English). And if you don’t like what we think about Blacks you certainly are welcome to leave. We won’t mind.
The message is that we are kickass.
Except we’re not.
We’re Iowa. Not really that attractive unless you, like me, are naturally sedentary. So when you’re kinda plain vanilla you had better be nice or easy. We can’t really afford to push people away. That’s what Reynolds is doing by playing cowgirl with Operation Lone Star, just so she can burnish her hick bona fides. They won’t catch any more Juans or interdict any more dope with a bunch of Iowans getting in the way wondering what they are doing there. She is spreading the message that Iowa is hostile to Latino immigrants. That’s not helping Storm Lake one bit. Why would she care? She needs to be a nasty for her homeys. Iowa Nasty. It’s the new us.
Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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It’s at the point where one is embarrassed to admit one is from Iowa to strangers. “Yeah, I’m from the ‘I don’t care about people state.’ “ We elect meanies. And I can’t figure what progress has been gained for this state as a result of having them occupy an elected office.
She being collateral damage from Trump election is the symptom that we see. The systematic awful is the people that put her and the majority in office. Iowa is an agriculture state but it has lost its culture. Yes you still see neighbors helping in health problems and deaths but day to day it is competition and certainly lack of empathy. So when people see a narcissist do and get what he wants without repercussions why not emulate it. Good needs to be revered selflessness needs to be practiced. The golden rule has been truncated to just gold.