The "America's Refugee Capital" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Making a visit to one of the schools in the Manheim Township School District in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  My mission today is to take a few more candid photographs for one of the two yearbooks I produce for the school district that borders the city of Lancaster.  Made a visit to one of my favorite classrooms in the Intermediate School, the 5th grade artroom.  Asked the teacher if she would mind if I walked around the room to take a few candid photos.  In no time I was snapping away as they worked of a variety of projects.  I came upon one young boy and asked if he would mind if I took his photo and he looked at me with a puzzled frown.  Another student said he just came to the school from Puerto Rico and didn't speak English very well yet.  Snapped a photo as he wrote his name on a sheet of paper for me and then I thanked him for the photo.  Gave me a big smile as he went back to work on his art project.  Then it struck me.  This young boy has been displaced from his home in Puerto Rico due to the devastation of Hurricane Maria this past fall.  After arriving home from my photo shoot, I pulled out my yearbook from when I graduated from Manheim Township High School in the early 1960s and began leafing through it.  I found TWO faces that weren't Caucasian in the entire high school.  What a difference 50 or so years make.  The names in the school yearbook now reflect the many refugees that now call Lancaster County home.  Two months ago the BBC News Network titled Lancaster, Pennsylvania as "America's Refugee Capital."  Since 2013, Lancaster has resettled 20 times more refugees than the rest of the country.  I had to read and reread the story to take in all the information that I just didn't realize even though I live in the county.  The story that was in Newsweek told the tale of our small, historic city surrounded by fertile farmland that most people think of as home to the Amish, Conestoga wagons, farmer's markets and former President James Buchanan.  Within the city's borders there are now 18,000 U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico that make up 30% of the city population.  For the past 12 years the Mayor of our city has been J. Richard Gray who is a heck of a nice guy and a friend of mine from church.  The city has recently welcomed displaced people from the Caribbean who now call Lancaster home along with 1,300 people from Somalia, Burma, Bhutan, Congo, Iraq, Cuba, Syria and Ukraine.  Most are here as climate-displaced families that are creating economic and social struggles for the city of Lancaster.  The city school district is facing a population crisis. Since Lancaster is close to Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore and Washington D.C., Lancaster has become a receiving zone for those areas.  And, with sea levels rising due to climate threats such as drought, hurricanes and sea level rise, Lancaster will see many more refugees heading to our town.  We are being touched tremendously by our climate. Are we ready for it.  So far Mayor Gray has handled it well.  But his term recently ended and he chose not to run again.  I'm hoping our new city Major will be up to the task that she will certainly inherit.  Things such as lack of clean water, food scarcity, and even crowded hospitals will be with us soon.  And, I guess I should prepare to type many more names in the two yearbooks that I produce that don't end with Smith or Jones.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.