The Brain Drain Problem
What happens when opportunity is weaponized? | Make it Make Sense 12
It’s no secret that Iowa has a ‘Brain Drain’ problem. For those unfamiliar with the term, one way to define it is, as IPR does in their article on Brain Drain in the Midwest, “…the (outward) migration of people with a higher education degree.” Which is a simplified way of looking at it. I appreciate this zoomed out definition from Investopedia, “Brain Drain is a slang term that indicates a substantial emigration or migration of individuals. A brain drain can result from turmoil within a nation, the existence of favorable professional opportunities in other countries, or a desire to seek a higher standard of living. In addition to occurring geographically, brain drain may also occur at the organizational or industrial levels when workers perceive better pay, benefits, or upward mobility within another company or industry.”
This is an issue that various states in our country have been grappling with for decades. I remember hearing about Iowa’s Brain Drain problem when I was graduating High School in 2003. This no doubt coincided with conversations I was having on what I was going to do with my life and where I was going to go. As a first generation student, the son of immigrants who came to this country but a few decades earlier, I was confronted with a question that seemed to carry more weight for folks like me. That question was, as so eloquently opined by Joe Strummer of The Clash: Should I stay or should I go? It makes me a feel a certain way because I ended up staying. But that has felt like more of a fight then it should have been. I stayed despite the lack of opportunities. I stayed even though there has been a contingent of folks in our state that has been doing it’s best to reduce those opportunities.
Here’s the question I’ll be grappling with in today’s post; Is it actually Brain Drain when there is a group that is so deliberately trying to push people like me out of this state? What happens when the place that I grew up in and called home all my life tells me, in so many different ways, that families like mine are no longer welcome here? Because I know more and more utterly talented, resourceful folks leaving, especially in the last few years. And these folks happen to be from marginalized groups. God just look at the U of I Division of DEI. (The unit I left is legit down to just two members.) It is no accident that those most championing DEI issues are also themselves marginalized. Unfortunately for the powers that be this just presents a two-bird-one-stone scenario. But who is welcomed after they successfully push the rest of us out? Who will be there to pick up the pieces? And who can we turn to to change the tide before it is too late?
A colleague and fellow Substacker Robert Leonard recently wrote a piece on our Iowa Governor and her effort to dismantle our state park system. Robert is a writer I deeply respect and has been amazing in his vocal support for my platform. Give him a subscribe if you haven’t already. I particularly appreciate this piece, as this effort to dismantle our state parks is something I’ve touched on, but Robert does a great job of doing a deep dive into the coordinated attack. This quote hit me, “So the general idea is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy by under-funding the institution they want to privatize, then claiming that the institution isn't doing a good job, and that the private sector can do better. Their unwillingness to properly fund the institution becomes the rationalization to privatize it.”
And if that isn’t a great way to look at the way Reynolds and Co. regards everything that stands in their way then I don’t know what is. The piece makes the connection on the privatization of our school systems. Can we really say it’s a coincidence that Hills Elementary, Johnson County’s most diverse elementary school, is also the first on the chopping block after the disastrously malicious voucher program further depleted already strapped resources? Or how about diverting funds from abortion access providers to run bogus anti-abortion centers masquerading as “pregnancy resource centers?” Of which they can’t find qualified contractors for but will fund regardless. Lately I’ve been seeing myself connect more and more dots on these “under-fund then slash” tactics. Because in so many ways, it feels like this place is trying to do the same thing to me and to others like me. Black and brown folks. Queer. Neurodivergent. We are underestimated, under-funded, undervalued, under-appreciated…then we are told “good riddance” when the load is too much to bear. Okay let’s do what I do best and make this personal.
Pop quiz time! 5 points to any reader that can correctly identify the white guy on the left without Googling. Yes, I know this is a tough one. Yes, I know he hits all of those vague Q-Rating marks for non-descript milquetoast white man running for office. No, don’t get distracted by my cheesy smile and untended to hair begging for a trim up (I figured if I made fun of guys look I’d also have to administer a self-burn…it’s only fair.)
Give up? That is Mr. Fred Hubbell, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2018, and the first Democratic nominee in a growing list to lose to Reynolds. The photo op happened as his campaign invited me and some other folks for a private town hall like session. Ask us questions, get our insights etc. I’m bringing up a niche, long forgotten candidate because we had an interaction right after this photo that I think is indicative of this fight against the marginalized, BIPOC brain drain our state is currently in.
Forgive me as I try to recall the finer details of the actual town hall. In traditional increments of time 2018 was six years ago but the COVID years have to add a decade on either side. I can recall that a lot of the things we brought up were the exact same dots I connected when reading Robert Leonard’s piece. We were begging the Democratic nominee to talk about the needlessly cruel attacks on Latino immigrants. To counter the way Reynolds has been beating the drum of xenophobia since she was aligned with Trump. (The latest percussive hit in said drum being her insistence on a bill that would allow state law enforcement to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.) We asked that the Democratic party stand up to the bubbling anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, specifically anti-trans hate that was bubbling up in the guise of “Free Speech.” We talked about championing those that are fighting the fight and doing the work to make this state welcoming to a diverse population of professionals, young and old, rural and urban, that call this place home.
After the town hall I went up to Mr. Hubbell with a book in hand. In it contained my first published stories. As quick as I could, I tried to gave him what I call the “West Liberty pitch.” Talk about the town and what makes it unique. How it’s an amazing cross section that encapsulates, along with other towns like Storm Lake, Hills, and Columbus Junction, this fight for our states soul. I distinctly remember I told him, “Because you know who isn’t contributing to this states Brain Drain? Who are the folks that stay? Those immigrant families stick around. Look at the Mexicans. Look at Iowa’s Laotian community. Heck all three of my parents’ kids live within 20 miles of the hospital they were born in. For better or worse, we are staying. Because it is home.”
While I talked there was a small commotion by Fred. With him were three or four individuals. I remember they all carried I-pads or tablets. I got the vibe that they were the team. As in, they were the ones that actually knew what was up, the strategists and number crunchers, the corrallers. One of them flashed a map on his I-pad, “Oh yeah! You know West Liberty, Fred. Do you know how they voted in the last few elections?”
The way he asked it I felt like he was stressing the importance of this town and its demographic. Maybe it’s wishful thinking or naivety, maybe I’m over thinking this interaction. But it really did feel like there was a picking up of what I was putting down by this wrangler and his tablet. Then the Democratic nominee for Governor opened his mouth and in that instant I knew he had no chance of winning and that we were fighting a fight on multiple fronts. He looks at me while shaking my hand and goes, “Oh yeah I remember that town. Great Tacos!” And he went on to the next person in line.
Click the vid for another person I strongly suggest you follow, F.D Signifier writes essays on everything from black identity, masculinity in popular culture, to things like rap beefs and fighting game histories. (Sound like anyone you might be currently reading? Please check him out.) F.D hits at something I struggle with on almost every post I write in this column. It’s that whole business of who am I writing for? Some folks would postulate that I’m preaching to the choir. That my posts are a series of dunks on the right wing state of affairs we currently see ourselves in. But look closer. So many of those on the far right have entered escape velocity. They are the Q-anon conspirators. They are the ones actively slashing the things we hold dear. To them I am but a blip on the radar. This column isn’t for them.
No this column is for you dear reader. You that have gotten this far in this column with fear in your heart. That fear that we are losing our grip on our state. On our country. You who can empathize with the fact that the “immigration debate” is not only a discussion on empathy…but one that is fundamentally about the limits of capitalism (or the danger that it is working exactly as planned.) You understand that if we round up all the immigrants who work in our factories, if we cut the funding in our schools attended by their families, and we dismantle the DEI programs that support and champion those that claw their way through these systems…if we do all those things then there won’t hardly be anybody to pick up the pieces. Our towns will be ghost towns that used to be full of the hope that these immigrants brought to their communities.
Last Pop Quiz I promise. What do these bright eyed bushy tailed teens have in common with Mr. T? Give up? They were all part of a rag tag group called The A-TEAM. But unfortunately for these kids, this was a few decades before any mo-hawked strongman could pity the fool that put them in the migrant fields of America. Oh, were you like me and only recently heard of The A-TEAM program of 1965? When The U.S. Government Tried to Replace (Mexican) Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers. Spoiler Alert: It did not end well. “200 teenagers from New Mexico, Kansas and Wyoming quit after just two weeks on the job. "We worked three days and all of us are broke," the Associated Press quoted one teen as saying. Students elsewhere staged strikes. At the end, the A-TEAM was considered a giant failure and was never tried again.”
This would be so funny if it wasn’t so pertinent to our woes of today. What happens when that load is too much to bear for our immigrant populations? Will our state continue to loosen child labor laws so that more minors can work in factories? How far will it go until the right type of person can make a stink and properly get the powers that be to recognize that the writing is on the wall? Sorry yall but like I said the Pop Quiz section is over. That is, unfortunately, a rhetorical question that I’m afraid we’ll find the answer to in time.
So here we are again. At who posts like this are for. It reminds me of the discussion swirling around “White Rural Rage” the polarizing book released but a few weeks ago. Perhaps you are like another writer colleague I deeply admire, Art Cullen, who bristles at the over-simplification at the heart of this book. But if I may add a complication to the proceedings, because although I agree with the majority of Mr. Cullen’s counter argument. I’m here to affirm that white rural rage does indeed exist. It exists in the teenager that hurled slurs at me when I was a little boy. It exists in the swastikas scratched onto old textbooks that I internalized as a kid. BUT…and if I could add an extra layer of boldness to that ‘BUT’ I would…I do not fear that white rural rage. I do not write column after column to combat that rage. No what I’m afraid of is white cowardice. I’m afraid of the mediocrity that comes with the Iowa Democratic party and its failure to see the Brain Drain for the crisis that it is. I’m afraid that no matter how many times we ring the alarm all we’ll get is a handshake and platitudes.
-C
Another great, thoughtful piece. Thanks for the shout out. Let's meet and make some "good trouble."