A Good Provider is One Who Leaves by Jason DeParle **** (of 4)

What irony to finish a book about families that leave their homes, spouses, relatives, languages, foods, and often their children for the dream of coming to America on the same day that the President of the United States signed an executive order forbidding any foreigners (except important laborers supported by business interests) from crossing our borders.

Jason DeParle personalizes global migration by following three generations of a Philippino family he has lived with and befriended for more than 30 years. No country has adopted the export of its citizens with more national zeal and national policy than the Philippines, supplying many of the world's nurses, ship hands, and laborers, both skilled and unskilled. The remittances of emigres fuel the Philippine economy. But that is macro economics.

Micro economics becomes painful as DeParle follows his friends as they battle homesickness and isolation in order to make enough money to lift families from shanty-dwelling poverty. Mothers release their children to their sisters back at home. Husbands and wives go years without seeing one another. Grandparents die with their grown children scattered around the globe. Yet, these Philippinos are economic migrants. What about the millions upon millions of people uprooted by war, abuse, gangs, religious extremists, hunger, or climate change? They, too, are mothers and fathers whose children who would rather be in school and whose primary wish might be a full meal taken from a Hello Kitty lunchbox.

A Good Provider has the ability to make us see the invisible before our eyes: the Chinese restauranteur, Korean grocer, Mexican dairy worker (yes, farms in Crawford County, Pennsylvania are operated by Mexican laborers), and Indian physician. All must be working as hard as they can without the support and comfort of their home cultures, or if their families are with them, passively observing as their children adapt in ways they cannot.

Despite the fear-mongering of our leaders, the added race-baiting arising from Covid-19, and anti-LatinX sentiment of Republican leaders, A Good Provider concludes that the United States is still an aspirational  melting pot. The children of immigrants become American. They speak English and do as well as their peers in all subjects in school. For decades crime statistics have shown that immigrants commit crimes at lower levels than natives. Economically, they contribute more than they take. Most Americans believe in immigration, more so, of course, if it is legal, and harbor few ill will toward immigrants themselves.

Regardless of nativist agendas, global immigration has exploded and will continue to do so. Wise policies for managing flow and integrating newcomers makes utmost sense. Opposing migration of people desperate for a better future is impossible.