Eat up, Talk up, Meet up

John Crabtree helps build solidarity with our valued immigrant community members...

Jen Sinkler, Antonia Rivera, Bob Mulqueen and I piled in together in Annie’s car in Des Moines to head for lunch at La Chozita about an hour and a half away in Hampton, Iowa.

When Jen introduced Bob and me to Antonia, I joked that with just one more Bob, we could all be “Bob, Bob, Bobbing along,” which I now realize that the phrase might not hold any meaning to the young women, but welcome to my life.

Jen is the creative director with Progress Iowa. She’s also a long-time fitness writer, organizer, and communications specialist. She also has the very important job of “being there” where people gather to make the world a better place. I see Jen everywhere.

Antonia is also with Progress Iowa and has been an organizer with the Grassroots Law Project, a field organizer for the Bernie Sanders for President campaign, and a fellow at the Iowa Writer’s House. It was a pleasure to meet her.

Bob is a former policy analyst and lobbyist with the Capitol Group, with many years of experience with city, county, and state governments, as well as with many campaigns. Bob’s a legend.

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We were heading to Hampton to honor an invitation from fellow Iowa Writer’s Collaborative member John Crabtree, who writes Though the Heavens Fall... by John Crabtree. An invitation to lunch, for sure, but also an invitation to stand strong with immigrants in our communities who are increasingly facing discrimination in the no more but once-great state of Iowa.

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Our conversations on the way to Hampton and back were wide-ranging, including everything from the landscape around us, Iowa history, politics, and much, much more. Jen is leaning into Bob to try to talk him into creating his own Substack column, which I think would be fantastic.

We discussed the important stories the Progress Iowa Substack Rural Routes is sharing, including the soul-crushing: After The Place I Call Home No Longer Calls Me One of Its Own; What happens when the place you love stops loving you back, by Progress Iowa Press Secretary Parker Williamson. Parker, who is trans, shares his anguish at the discriminatory anti-trans legislation Governor Reynolds just signed into law. One of Iowa’s best journalists, Doug Burns, crossposted it at the Iowa Mercury.

We also talked about how happy we are that our friend, fellow Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member, and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen is on the mend after heart surgery. We also discussed the power of his most recent column Lake Avenue Nearly Dead on a Warm Wednesday Morning; Lean, Anxious, Times for Immigrants in The City Beautiful, and how Trump’s draconian immigration policies are hurting the welfare of our communities.

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When we arrived, John made us welcome. I was happy to see my friend Julie Duhn with Iowa CCI had come for lunch too!

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When most of the people in attendance had settled in and placed our orders, John stood behind me to address those who had assembled in response to his invitation. Being an old radio guy, I do what I do, and turned my phone recorder on, because it’s habit, and recorded John’s welcome. A transcript follows the recording, but please listen to capture a sense of the moment.

Here’s John, lightly edited:

These are Latino-owned businesses that have experienced some hate and racism that places should never have to tolerate. And I think the thing that's really interesting about what these businesses in Hampton have done is the manner in which they responded. They didn't hide, they didn’t stand down. They stood up.

They’ve taken actions recently like about a month ago, they, this restaurant (La Chozita), La Frontera, A to Z Liquor, and maybe one or two others participated in a national action by Latino-owned businesses to close for the day to express their frustration with people's attitudes towards immigrants, mass deportations, all of those things. These businesses all participated.

And I thought it was a courageous and dramatic show. They talked about it in the media publicly. They said we're doing this because we feel we're important to the community. You know, most people in the community value these businesses and they wanted to make a show of it. They've been to the city council, they've done other things like that.

And so I started this conversation by saying, "I'm going to go and have lunch at these businesses and show my support and then I said, if anybody wanted to join me, that'd be really cool." And from that, two weeks ago in a blizzard, myself and four other Hamptonites, local folks, told everybody else to stay away if they weren't in Hampton, but my brother Larry, my sister, Kenny, and my niece Melanie.

We all went to La Frontera and we did this, but on a smaller scale. And the roads were pretty bad and it wasn't a good day to be out but we did it nonetheless. And then we said in two weeks we're going to come here. We're going to hope for better weather. We got it. And we're going to hope that we get more people and we got that too. Because I started the conversation with the people want to come.

I don't want to foist a formal meeting process or anything like that on anybody. I just wanted people to come, meet each other, talk to each other, share some fellowship, and tell the owners of the business we're here to support you and we're proud of what you did and proud of how you stood up. And I already talked to the owner to tell him this.

He doesn't speak English, but with the help of a staff member, at translation, he seemed to be very happy, but what I was telling him that a number of people were going to gather. There were two of us sitting down here so he might have been skeptical. I don't know. But it looks it looks better now. Yeah, so again, don't feel like you need to stand on any formality.

I don't have, not going to make you wear name tags or I'm not going to do any of those things. But what I do want you to do is, don't feel constrained to your end of the table either, okay? There are other people here, people that came, some of them are my family, some of them are locals, friends from long ago, some of them are people I just met today. But you know, meet each other because if we're going to---and some more cousins.

Hey. Come on in. We got we got chairs yet. We got seats yet.

But please do that--like meet each other. That's the only thing I ask, and so eat up. Eat up, talk up, meet up.

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And so we did. I mostly listened, but when I learned that the man at the other end of the table was a retired professor in some kind of Peace and Justice program in Colorado (if I remember correctly) who had moved to Cedar Falls, I had to ask him about how we attain peace and justice. He stressed non-violent resistance and working locally, person to person, in your community.

Just like what John is doing.

We talked about what’s wrong with our country, what’s happening in the immigrant community, and what we are going to do about it, among other stuff.

We were all warmed up and just getting comfortable with each other when lunch was over. And it was SO good.

Near the end, one woman originally from New Mexico and now from the Waterloo area said something like:

“I’m 73 years old. I thought I could just relax into my retirement, but not now. I’m going out fighting with my boots on.”

So am I, I thought.

As will John Crabtree, Antonia, Jen, Bob, Julie, and all of the rest of the people sitting at the tables at La Chozita, in Hampton, on Saturday.

With respect, appreciation, and in solidarity with our immigrant friends and neighbors.

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Thanks to John Crabtree for bringing us together to break bread (tortillas). Here’s John’s story about Saturday. Please consider subscribing to his work as well as Progress Iowa’s Rural Routes.

Please also consider supporting in any way, including financially, the important work being done by Progress Iowa, Iowa CCI, the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, or any other group you know working to make the world a better place.

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I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please check out our work here. Subscribe! Become a paid subscriber if you can afford it. Please and thank you. We need you. Thanks for being part of the team! Want to buy me lunch or a cup of coffee? Venmo @Robert-Leonard-238. My friend Spencer Dirks and I have a podcast titled The Iowa Revolution. Check it out! We can get ornery. And have fun! I also publish Cedar Creek Nature Notes, about Violet the Dog and my adventures on our morning walks at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in Mahaska County, Iowa.

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