Last summer husband Mike and I drove to Maine on a last minute mission to help our granddaughter move from one place to another. She had worked as an intern for the city of Topsham and lived in an apartment provided by Bowdoin College where she is a student. With no car she was planning to move from the summer housing into her residence for the school year using a borrowed bicycle. Somehow that sounded like a rather difficult situation so we decided to quickly plan a little trip to help her manage things more easily. 

We enjoyed a lovely drive through the south and then headed north toward Maine, a two thousand mile journey that gave us a sense of how vast and interesting our nation is. Once we arrived in Brunswick Maine we enjoyed several days of getting our granddaughter settled into her new digs while also learning about the work she had done during her summer job. 

She told us that she had been tasked by the city government of Topsham to survey businesses to determine how the mostly older population of Maine was affecting them. It seems that the state of Maine needs more young people than presently live there. Once our granddaughter alerted us to the over abundance of older residents we realized that wherever we went there were few young people and very little diversity. While that might not sound like such a terrible thing, the imbalance in the population is creating problems for the economy in Maine. The state is in need of a young workforce to work in and run its businesses and industries. 

I was fascinated by our granddaughter’s study of the area and the evidence of an aging demographic that I encountered everywhere. I went into social scientist mode and realized that the motel where we were staying was filled with young workers driving trucks with Texas license plates. I watched them leaving each morning wearing work boots and returning late in the evening after quite obviously laboring all day long. Most of them spoke Spanish and only nodded at us as we passed each other. I guessed that they were migrants or immigrants who had somehow learned of the need for able bodied workers in a state where the young are outnumbered by the old. 

Last week I encountered an article in the New York Times addressing the problem of an aging population in Maine. It spoke of the same issues that my granddaughter had uncovered during her internship. The state is struggling to fill jobs with workers willing to tackle difficult tasks in industries like harvesting and processing lobsters. Even at a rate of sixteen dollars an hour there are not enough native residents to maintain the economy so they have happily turned to immigrants from places like Cambodia, the Congo and Venezuela to do work that keeps the economic forces of Maine operating. 

The article pointed out the need for workers all across the United States that can potentially be met with immigrants willing to learn new skills and work at jobs that are often being ignored by American citizens. There are tasks in farming and industry that require more and more people at the same time that there are immigrants eagerly awaiting a chance to earn wages to care for their families. Maine is a kind of microcosm of the needs across the nation that might potentially be relieved by ready and willing groups of people coming to the United States. 

As more and more Baby Boomers leave the workforce there is an imbalance in those working and paying into the programs that support the retirees and those using the programs. With a reliable and fair supply of young workers everyone benefits. Sadly our current system is not using the potential labor force in the most effective ways. Governors should be helping each other to find places where immigrants are actually needed rather than vindictively busing them to large cities with no plan. Our Congress should enact immigration reform that moves immigrants more quickly from detention centers into productive lives. Instead of only seeing immigrants in a negative light all of us should be urging our leaders to create systems that align them with opportunities to work and educate their children. It can be done if we quit arguing and finally decide to cooperate in creating constructive and humane blueprints for success. 

I have taught recent immigrants from Central and South America for most of my career as a teacher. More often than not the parents of my students have struggled with English but have always wanted the very best for their children. Many worked multiple jobs to provide for their families. They worked at back breaking jobs to insure that a son or daughter would be the first in the family to graduate from high school and attend college. They sacrificed with great courage and pride so that the next generation would enjoy lives that they had only imagined. They continually inspired me with their devotion to the American dream and to their families. 

We would do well to step back from the political rhetoric and consider that immigrants are a gift to our nation rather than only a problem. The glass is truly half full. If we maintain our optimism whether than constantly carping with pessimism we may soon unraveled the knotty mess that we have made by refusing to work together to solve the problem. It would be a welcome change for everyone.