VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, October 14, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 5A
America isn’t yet, but will be
n 1986, the year of the first Martin Luther
King Jr. holiday, I was teaching in a small
rural Oregon high school. The students
and I had talked quite a lot about “the
American Dream,” since that was the title of
the first unit in their literature textbook.
I said I thought the dream meant more
than economic opportunity—owning your
own home, or doing a bit
better financially than your
parents. It meant trying to
live up to our ideals, those
words they repeated every
time they recited the pledge
of allegiance: Liberty and
justice for all.
Equality was not so wild
a dream, I thought. A few
days before I had left for
college, Martin Luther King
Jr. had spoken from the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial: “I have a dream that one day
this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths
to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal.’”
My friends and I were growing up and
our nation was maturing too, I remember
thinking. Ending racism, sexism, even
classism — that would be the work of our
generation. It seemed natural, inevitable.
I was an American Dreamer, all right.
Many of us were, we children of the Sixties.
But even by 1986 not everyone was ready
to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King.
I
Our principal wanted to avoid controversy.
“Just mention it briefly,” he instructed
faculty. “Don’t change your lesson plans.”
How could I help students understand this
holiday? I read them a timeline, the major
events of King’s life.
The silence that followed seemed
profound, but I couldn’t be sure until the
next day, when a boy in the
front row raised his hand.
“Can we talk about it?
Please?”
Why had no one told them
this stuff? they wanted to
know. Riots in 23 cities after
the assassination? It was hard
for them to imagine.
What happens to a dream
deferred? We turned to
Langston Hughes’ poem near
the back of our literature book. “Does it dry
up / like a raisin in the sun? / Or fester like
a sore— / And then run? / Does it stink like
rotten meat? / Or crust and sugar over— /
like a syrupy sweet?”
Heads were bent over books. “Maybe it
just sags / like a heavy load.” Then that last
line. “Or does it explode?”
We looked at another Hughes poem,
too. “Let America be America again—The
land that never has been yet—and yet must
be—the land where every man is free.”
That’s the American Dream, I told them.
Maybe your generation can make it happen.
Now, in 2017, Dreamers are in the
Equality was
not so wild
a dream,
I thought.
Quick takes
Stanfield still stinks
I was in Stanfield today, visiting my
parents, and I couldn’t believe the stench.
What was once a welcoming smell of
mint fields or freshly harvested hay (that I
refer to as “the smell of my childhood”) is
replaced by the smell of rot. Why so close
to a residential community? Why not out in
the middle of nowhere?
— Linda Thompson
Shut it down. I am so sick of gagging in
my own back yard. It has been like this all
summer.
— Chloe Harding
Every time I go out there they have done
something new to help. They are at least
trying.
— Justin Heller
Horrible smell! Definitely not a
welcoming odor to have in your hometown.
— Brian Faro
Last season at BMCC pool?
Grateful for another season for the swim
team and their families. I hope the commu-
nity figures our a permanent solution to this.
It would be a shame for the swim athletes
to not be able to swim as a school sport any
longer.
— Becky Cecil
Too bad Hermiston planners couldn’t
understand that we should have built an
indoor pool, instead of one can use only two
months a year.
— Tina Dreher
There seems to be a pattern in this town of
deferring maintenance until the infrastruc-
ture becomes unusable, and then wanting
a bailout bond or just shutting something
down. They did it with the grade schools,
streets and the fire station. It is happening
with the Vert. Now the BMCC pool.
— Mike Navratil
Crazy Mike’s video closes
Sorry you have to close but there will
be more like you with people demanding
higher and higher wages.
— Jim Garrou
Yeah, for sure higher minimum wage
killed a video store’s business. Couldn’t
have been Netflix, Hulu and the million
other streaming services.
— Nicholas Lee
One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is
that much can be summed up in just a few words.
Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours
@Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.
com, and keep them to 140 characters.
news. The president has rescinded DACA
— Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
— and the “DREAM Act” (Development,
Education, and Relief for Alien Minors) still
hasn’t passed. Will those 800,000 young
people be allowed to define and pursue their
own American dreams?
When I hear about the Dreamers, I
think about another group of Dreamers,
the followers of Smohalla. We can read
their story in “Drummers and Dreamers”
— Native Peoples whose descendants still
worship in Northwest longhouses. They
were also considered a threat, though their
dreams were spiritual and of course they
were already here.
I wonder: Are they kindred spirits, these
two kinds of Dreamers, both wanting and
needing home? But I’ve been reading
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s “An Indigenous
People’s History of the United States” and
despite of the ideals of America’s dreams, I
know that settler colonization is an ongoing
and painful reality.
Sometimes, with questions like these
spinning in my mind late at night when
I can’t sleep, I think about my former
students. Do they remember that day in our
classroom? Did they grow up to believe that
Black Lives Matter? Did they vote to Make
America Great Again?
“Oh, yes, I say it plain,” wrote Langston
Hughes in the poem I showed them.
“America never was America to me, And yet
I swear this oath—America will be!”
B ette H usted
FROM HERE TO ANYWHERE
I find it hard, in these dark days, to hang
on to such optimism. Maybe it’s the teacher
who needs to return to the lessons of that
classroom moment.
■
Bette Husted is a writer and a student of
T’ai Chi and the natural world. She lives in
Pendleton.
Dear restaurant: Please tell me the story of my grass
fter a tour of his ranch, Lon
learn about the role of grass in this process?
helps to show how they contribute
Reukauf sat restlessly at
When it comes to imparting a message of
to the quality of the final product.
the front of a banquet room
sustainability, isn’t it better for a menu to
He could talk about which
in Terry, Montana, waiting for the
say that a certain steak is nurtured by, say,
conditions make the grasses thrive
panel discussion to start. He was
western wheatgrass than by the individual
and which leave them vulnerable
surrounded by experts from the
rancher who manages
to invaders.
Montana Stockgrowers Association
that grass? And likewise
He seemed
and the World Wildlife Fund. The
for vegetarians, that these
particularly
groups had combined to give Lon
particular lentils are
pleased
that
the
John
an environmental stewardship
nurtured by soil tillage,
Clayton World Wildlife
award and then invited a bunch of
phosphorus levels, and —
Fund
had
endorsed
Comment
us here to see why.
at the risk of completely
well managed
Lon knew that most eyes in
turning the menu into a
cattle grazing,
the room were on him, and — like most
dictionary — Rhizobium
because for decades some
microsymbionts?
ranchers I know — the attention made him
environmentalists have
Such a strategy would
uncomfortable. He’s not a public speaker,
clashed with ranchers over
also keep the spotlight off
doesn’t seek the spotlight and prefers to
public-land grazing. At this
a bunch of agriculturalists
spend most of his time surrounded by cows, get-together, though, all
who would rather people
with their heads down and grazing.
agreed that good grazing
— Lon Reukauf, knew about their struggles
“Sitting here in front of 50 strangers, I’m can promote good grass.
Rancher than recognized their
certainly out of my comfort zone,” he said.
As he talked about
names.
So he concentrated on what he knew best.
grass, Lon relaxed. The
After Lon and some
He spoke about grass.
spotlight was no longer
others talked, they asked for feedback, and
It’s the native grasses, in a healthy
shining on him but rather through him —
variety, that make for the best beef, he said.
onto the complex systems that he spends his a chef on our tour summarized how the
day had changed his thinking. “We tend to
The soil does better by them too, he added,
life observing and nudging.
focus on the animal,” he said, referring to
as do other species, especially the grassland
“The grasses and other plants are the
his buying process and the qualities he tries
birds that have been declining in population. foundation of everything we do,” he said.
Western wheatgrass, blue grama grass,
to convey to diners, “but I’m learning that it
The cattle were just harvesters, and he was
green needle and the needle-and-thread
goes back much farther and deeper.”
just trying, in one corner of Montana, to
grasses growing on his ranch offer a better
That was what I had learned as well, and
make that process a little more productive.
spectrum of nutrients than exotic species
what I wouldn’t mind learning from the
He didn’t seem to care much for the word
such as crested wheatgrass, which was
menus of farm-to-table restaurants.
sustainability, but his humble view of that
widely planted during the 1930s as a way to large process certainly brought the concept
■
fight erosion.
John Clayton is a contributor to Writers
to my mind.
Like a chef showing off the qualities of
on the Range, the opinion service of High
Indeed, his talk reminded me of those
marble in a steak, Lon could compare the
Country News. He is a writer in Montana
menu listings: What’s on your plate is part
characteristics of various grasses, noting,
whose new book is Wonderlandscape:
of a larger process here. Let’s push the
for example, how they differ in the timing
Yellowstone National Park and the
credit upstream.
of their period of fastest growth, which
Evolution of an American Cultural Icon.
But why did I have to go to a ranch to
A
“The grasses
and other
plants are the
foundation of
everything we
do.”
Trump must support rural voters who elected him
By DAN JOYCE, DON HODGE
AND LARRY WILSON
Malheur County
W
atching the national news
networks, it’s still fairly easy to
see why so many political elites
were caught off guard by the election results
last year.
The topics that seem to grab and hold the
attention of national leaders are chronically
disconnected from the kitchen-table issues
facing middle-class families outside of a
few major cities.
In contrast, President Trump nurtured
his relationship with rural communities and
vowed to unleash the economic productivity
of America’s great agricultural heart. He
was rewarded. Pundits in Washington called
it the “revenge of the rural voter.”
Leaders from both parties should take
note, especially in states like Oregon, where
so many of our communities rely on and
benefit from ranches, farms, biofuel plants,
and forestry operations.
According to the Department of
Agriculture, U.S. farm income has fallen for
three straight years. The
latest forecast, released
in August, shows that
2017 might finally mark
a turning point, with
incomes beginning to
tick back up.
But progress is far
from certain, and we
need leaders who will
keep Congress and the
White House focused
on opening new markets
for U.S. farm goods,
lifting needless government restrictions, and
promoting investment in rural economic
growth.
And we need to protect proven policies,
like the 12-year old renewable fuel
standard, which ensures that U.S. farmers
can compete at the gas pump, offering
homegrown biofuels made from agricultural
feedstocks in states like Oregon.
Competition from American-made
biofuels not only provides a vital market for
surplus grain, it reduces
emissions, and it protects
drivers from efforts by
Russia and others to jack
up the cost of gasoline.
The biofuel industry
alone supports about
16,000 Oregon jobs.
As one might
expect, special interests
are working hard to
undermine the RFS.
We’re thankful for
Oregon champions like
Congressman Greg Walden that work hard
to represent us and that we can count on to
push back and ensure that rural America
continues to benefit from new growth
opportunities.
■
Judge Dan Joyce, Commissioner Don
Hodge and Commissioner Larry Wilson
represent Malheur County.
According to the
Department of
Agriculture, U.S.
farm income has
fallen for three
straight years.