One of my favorite flyspecks is the Tideland town of Swan Quarter, N.C., a tiny burg off the undulating marshes of Pamlico Sound. Years ago, I used to occasionally report from Swan Quarter for a small daily newspaper about an hour’s drive to the west. My late Dad, a urologist, got a fair number of patients from Swan Quarter, named for the thousands of migratory waterfowl that used to haunt its waters in winter.
So, I couldn’t help but note that The Virginian-Pilot had a story concerning Swan Quarter on April 20. Mattamuskeet Seafood, the story reports, had planned to open for crab processing season last week, but it couldn’t find any workers. Usually it gets 100 workers in season who commute up from Mexico for several months each year to do the smelly, dirty work of picking crabs. But not now.
The problem is on Capitol Hill where Congress hasn’t yet renewed a visa program allowing 66,000 non-farm, temporary workers into the U.S. each year. Thousands of foreign crab pickers and other workers are short in towns such as Vandemere and Columbia in Coastal Carolina. Frustrated employers have driven to Washington, D.C. to plead their case, according to the Pilot.
What’s interesting is that these workers, many from Mexico, are not the hated suspects often caricatured by Virginia’s Republican Party and others. These Latinos are not seen as messy, loud, unruly threats to national security as they seem to be in places such as Prince William, Loudoun and other wealthy counties in Virginia that are banding together to stem what is perceived as a flood of fearsome barbarians.
Just the opposite. In Columbia, N.C., a quaint spot just off the Albemarle Sound, Tara Foreman, general manager of Captain Neill’s Seafood, misses her 75 Mexican workers. She told the Pilot that some of the ladies have worked for her for 18 years. They became so close that when Foreman was engaged to be married, the Mexicans threw a shower for her and attended the wedding.
Zip up the coast a bit to Prince William County in Washington’s Virginia suburbs. On Sunday, The Washington Post had a story on its Metro section exploring just how controversial Supervisor Chairman Corey A. Stewart is becoming. Playing to middle and upper-middle class white fears of “illegal” immigrants, the Republican pushed a series of anti illegal immigrant measures. Stewart wants cops to check the immigration status of any foreigner (read: dark-skinned), they stop. The county must not provide any services to undocumented workers.
According to the Post, Stewart drew big fire when he scolded a police chief for having the audacity to meet with a consul from the Mexican Embassy. In most of the world, visits between foreign diplomats from friendly countries and local officials are considered a normal part of life. You get to exchange ideas. But in Prince William, it’s like meeting with a foreign spy.
Stewart’s antics are prompting some local activists and politicians to urge him to get off his illegal immigration kick. It seems to be dampening the county’s reputation as it looks for new businesses and residents.
Maybe the explanation is that Prince William is rich and mostly white and fearful — in other words, GOP country. Little places like Swan Quarter and Columbia are made up of several races and have among the lowest per capita incomes of any localities in North Carolina. Poor though they may be, the folks there have a sense of humility and humanity that is rare these days. They have something to teach Virginia’s well-to-do suburbanites.