At the height of the Industrial Revolution, the mills of Merrimac Valley, shoe shops of Lynn and countless factory towns across the industrial north absorbed new labor from abroad and built systems to absorb and educate these new laborers. The American Woolen Mill president, William Wood, set up classes after WWI for their immigrant workforce to learn about America with English and civics. Italians side by side with Poles went to class and developed inter group relations as well as critical workplace skills for advancement.

Jump forward and we have a different reality today. We still have a constant flow of immigrants but foreign born labor is arriving in 22 states and going to work in vastly different settings. Small businesses are 99.7% of US businesses and employ half the non-agricultural workers! Today's immigrant goes to housecleaning or to a medical office, often with fewer than 20 employees and there is no benefits coordinator arranging English classes.  Given the shift size at a hamburger joint or a dental office, the immigrant's needs are not just secondary but totally beyond the pale; the immigrants not already prepared to be in that workplace are excluded from getting started. In Heartland farm towns or in newly impacted states, few provisions even exist and in the historic Gateway cities, employers look to government to prepare the workforce, even while asking for smaller government and fewer services.

If 75% of new jobs are with small business and these employers want a ready workforce, it is time for an employer revolution, building up the new Americans to be the workers of tomorrow.

Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference but where is the workplace story?  Where is the mill owner of today where business is committed to the future employees, let alone local patrons, who need human capital, education and a chance to move up the rungs from entry job to sustainable livelihoods?  We depend on vocational training programs, community colleges and non-profit providers who need partnerships with small business America and large business employers. And even when English is being taught, when jobs are offered, the need to gather, support, orient, foster understanding and increase the skills for advancement is the work of employers themselves. There are glimmers of promise seen when McDonald's connects to a community college to train operators and offer employees on-line ESL but the models are few and the need huge. A small a gesture, even a leader's welcome and a department gathering in which a person is invited to say hello breaks the ice and begins the process. 

The tragic events of Boston pointed out the need, yet again, for immigrant integration. The older of the Chechen brothers was not working and had written recently, "I don't have a single American friend, I don't understand them." We cannot avoid every threat but we can all understand that isolation is a deleterious environment for mental health, let alone social cohesion.

From Washington apple pickers to Maryland seafood packers, from construction workers to math teachers, America accepts help from abroad. But once the immigrant is hired, is there a consciousness of the journey still to be taken from stranger to neighbor, from struggle to success?

Westy Egmont, Director