Somewhere along the winding course of history, our country provided the world’s perceptually weak and unwanted individuals with a place to proudly call home; where they could not only survive, but thrive at the behest of their own will. This unprecedented approach to embracing the poor, the tired, and the huddled masses longing for freedom paid out in dividends for a healthy period of America’s relatively short life to this point.
These “poor and tired” folks worked harder, fought tougher, and adapted to situations unlike their more affluent counterparts ever could. It gave us innovation beyond our wildest dreams, and allowed us to create industries that, to this day, define how the world at large operates. Our willingness to not only welcome, but to embrace these individuals as assets to our shared mission of Freedom was our greatest strength. And then the bubble burst.
We got too big for ourselves, lost direction, and pushed when we should have been pulling. We lost ourselves somewhere along the crooked path to “evolution” in industry and manufacturing. We got greedy. We bore weight that our shoulders weren’t strong enough to carry. Now, the country that once took the world’s poor, tired, huddled masses longing for Freedom, has their own internal population of poor, tired, huddled masses longing for Freedom. We are now a microcosm of the world we once took in.
What do we do with that? I have a few thoughts on it…surprised?
I’ve long extolled the Rust Belt – and my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio – for our many great contributions to the world, our ingenuity, and our people. I highlight as many of the nooks and crannies as I can, while trying to make the broader case for our continued success as a region. But there’s one area that I think our postindustrial Midwest excels at without need for my obnoxious soapbox-ing: Acceptance.
Where the United States as a whole is struggling to find its way through this recession, the Rust Belt now stands ready to take on the nation’s old promise. We’re able to do this, in part, because we’ve been living this recession for nearly 40 years now. The “new” pains of our country are the pains that have come to define my generation; a generation that has never known differently here in the Midwest.
When a struggling artist from New York needs a place to create without losing their shirt, Cleveland offers them shelter, safety, and a community that – regardless of their varied backgrounds and skill sets – is genuinely happy to have you here. Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Akron, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Gary, Indianapolis, and the countless other cities, towns, and villages across this region offer the one truly important – and too often overlooked – ingredient for success: Belief.
We believe in people here. We trust that they have value, even when that value is hard to see. It’s so engraved in who are now that it’s almost second nature. I think that’s because, at some level, if we chose not to believe in people it would be like giving up on ourselves (and if the country can seemingly agree on anything about our fine region, it’s that we are unbearably stubborn). So, you see: we will never give up on people, or ourselves. It’s just not in our blood.
We create projects and programs and opportunities to aid these newly struggling individuals in their journey to find their new purpose, and in doing so we find ours. So, America, send us our poor, our tired, and our huddled masses longing for freedom; the Rust Belt will gladly accept them with open arms.
