it’s it’s also the title of my book and
my story begins in 1998 in Washington DC
I’m a journalist I’m an investigative
reporter and I’m working for a news
organization and I’m researching a book
on Congress and special interest money
and i’m working on a chapter on workers
safety issues specifically in the meat
packing and poultry processing
industries and one of the things that
I’m finding is that the industry is
recruiting workers along the border and
in some cases they were transporting
them to small little rural towns in the
southeast and in the Midwest and I
thought that was a great story I thought
that was a story that I wanted to write
about and a story with impact not only
at that time but also going on into the
future because i figured that these
communities would begin to change and
change forever and i thought that in
addition to those communities those
states would begin to change and from
there the country would begin to change
as well but unfortunately at that time
in 1998 i couldn’t convince a single
editor to invest in a story on
immigration nobody cared about that
issue today it’s perhaps one of the most
important issues facing our country I
ended up getting a fellowship and moving
to a smaller rural town in North
Carolina called Siler City about maybe
3540 miles away from here three chicken
processing plants a feed mill a hatchery
and thousands of poultry workers mostly
from Mexico and Central America had
moved to this tiny little town and I had
never lived in a rural community before
I’d lived in Los Angeles and Chicago and
Washington and I have to confess to you
that I was just bored out of my mind in
a small little town like Siler City and
I began to coach
a soccer team there and I met these
wonderful boys who were desperate to
create a team at their local high school
jordan matthews high school but each and
every time that they had gone to the
administration to create the team
they’ve been told no and what they
didn’t understand was that Siler City
my story my book is about immigration
and changing demographics there are two
demographic trends today one is called
the grain of America and this is the
giant baby boom population that invented
rock and roll that dropped out and then
sold out in the 80s and took over Wall
Street and is the dominant population
today and that population is aging out
and leaving us at the same time there’s
another demographic trend and that’s
called the Browning of America our
country is getting more diverse and
getting different and both these trends
are at play perhaps in everything that
we’re thinking about and talking about
in the country today and these were the
trends that I was seen in these small
rural communities in these proletarian
towns like Siler City this is the growth
of the Latin X or Latino community over
the past ten years and you can see that
most of that growth has happened here in
the southeast and this is directly
because of the food processing industry
and its recruiting practices this is an
industry that went out and saw cheap
labor a lot of people today like to talk
about this issue in terms of you know
this is the changing demographics this
is an invasion not so at all this was an
invitation by big business to bring
people in to work cheaply and you can
see this change over the past 20 years
here in North Carolina and you can see
both these demographic trends in the
green reges and in the yellow wedges
that we see here the Latino population
in North Carolina has
own and today it’s about eight point
four percent and it’s true in the United
States as well where it’s about
seventeen percent of the population and
on its way to maybe being a quarter
siler city itself has changed from a
town of 8,000 people a population in
1990 of maybe less than 2% today is at
almost fifty percent if not more this is
the majority community in Siler City and
it’s happened in the last 20-some years
and you can see the trend here in terms
of the generations this is a community
that has gotten younger this is a trend
that you don’t see in the United States
our communities get older they don’t get
younger but in a town like Siler City it
cuts against the grain it’s a community
that is getting younger and this is
because when you break it down by race
and ethnicity and you look at the median
age you look at white who are not Latino
coming in at around 56 years old and
african-americans at 43 meanwhile the
Latinos are at 23 years old that’s an
incredibly young population at 56 I can
guarantee you nobody wants to have
another child at 43 maybe doubtful but
at 23 that’s a community that is in its
prime childbearing years and will be the
future for Siler City and for that
county and will be the future as well
for our state and our country it has not
been an easy time for Siler City it has
gone through what I call like the five
stages of dealing with demographic
change it’s been depressed at times and
I’ve heard that from people it’s tried
to bargain the longtime residents have
said things like you know when the
poultry industry goes these people will
leave as well we’ll get our town back
and it’s also been through an angry
stage and in the year 2000 when I was
there it held this anti-immigrant rally
which featured David Duke and David do
got up there and talked for
two hours about the industry bringing in
these workers and how they needed to be
rounded up and sent back home and
deported sounds a lot like what’s going
on today back to the team I did
something that most journalists don’t do
I got involved and I took up their cause
to push forward this team and to get it
created at Jordan Matthews high school
and after a good deal of effort we were
able to successfully get the team
together our first season we went 14 and
to our second season we went 16 and 2
and I knew that this team had great
potential to go on and do better things
and for the boys on this team the boys
who had felt alienated who never really
feel connected to their school for them
to dawn these uniforms and to wear these
colors this was their first opportunity
to feel as if they belong to their
community as if they had a home that
field represented that to them I want
you to take a look at the center
character in this picture in the yellow
jersey this is a kid named fish when
fish first came to the United States at
11 years old he was brought here by his
family who worked in the poultry
industry he arrived on his first day at
school not speaking a word of English
his teacher asked him what his favorite
food was and the only word he knew was
fish and all the other kids made fun of
him and they laughed at him and that
became his nickname and to this day
that’s what he’s called that’s what he’s
known as is fish and fish became a great
goalkeeper he played all over he played
in the streets he played in la liga
‘he’s he played anywhere that he could
and he he expanded his skills and he
became an expert goalkeeper in his
junior year in high school he came to me
and he said guiadas I’ve got a problem I
said okay what’s up and he told me that
he needed to go back to Mexico because
his grandmother was dying and he told me
a story about when he’d left my
ago and he left feta crews that he
didn’t have the courage at seven years
old to to say goodbye to her and he
wanted to get that chance back and this
was his opportunity now I’ve been
coaching the team now for two years and
I was worried because we were just about
to go into a third season and with a
player like fish we had tremendous
chances of going on even further in the
state tournament and so I knew that this
was going to be a huge loss to the team
and I said well if you have to go then
go and I really thought in my mind that
I would never see fish again I really
thought that and so fish left and he
returned back to Mexico and after
spending a month or two months over the
summer time being with his grandmother
and getting that opportunity to say
goodbye to her he wanted to come back he
had left behind his girlfriend he had
left behind his friends he left behind
his school and he left behind his team
and the field that he played on and he
wanted to go home because Siler City had
become home for him he wanted to come
home and so he did something that many
people have done he crossed the border
he spent five days in the desert took
about three gallons of water with him a
lot of cans of tuna and tortillas and
crossed that desert by himself in a
group of people and his crossing was
tough he saw many things that kids
should not see and one of the things
that I realized in coaching the Jets is
that all the kids have been touched by
the desert in some way it leaves its
mark on that and it has when I’ve
coached the team they’re more mature
they’re more purposeful they are not
like other kids they have seen things
that other kids have not seen and been
through things that other kids have not
been through
he spent five days in the desert until
he finally he made it back to a safe
house and at that safe house he was able
to use a telephone and he called his
brother in Siler City and he asked him
some questions how’s his girlfriend and
then he asked them how’s the team doing
are the tryouts going on what’s going on
with the team and then he spent the next
two or three days traveling from the
border through the United States to
North Carolina and one day I think it
was the last day of eligibility that we
could actually sign up players to play
that fall I was in the athletic
director’s office my athletic director
and he asked me how the team was looking
this year and I i said to him coach well
we could be doing a lot better if our
goalkeeper were back and he said but
wait a second he’s here he got here
today and I said you’re kidding we got a
game tonight so I rushed over to fish’s
house and I saw him and I could see the
signs of the desert on him he was
thinner he had been dehydrated and he
had been through an ordeal you could
tell physically that he was not himself
and I kind of dusted him off and I said
hey fish it’s great to see you back we
got a game tonight do you want to play
and he said yes Quietus I want to play I
said well we got to get you a physical
so I drove him over to the near the
nearest doctor that I knew and it was
already after hours and I remember
pounding on the door until the doctor
came out and I said dr. we need this kid
to get a physical right now because he
wants to play tonight and he took one
look at fish looked him up and down and
said ok coach I’ll sign those forms and
so he passed his physical and after that
I took him over to Jordan Matthews high
school and we arrived there and he’s
changing in my car and he looks out
across the school in the field and the
field looks beautiful the field is green
and immaculate and the big lights are on
and he says to me cuadros this is
beautiful and I said you’re right it is
the next season fish led us to a state
championship the first all Latino team
to win a state championship in North
Carolina perhaps in the south and the
story of the Jets is really the story of
America in so many different ways the
desire to achieve the desire to make
your new country your home all those
themes are wrapped up in these boys and
their desire to be champions in Siler
City they had been seen as strangers has
trouble makers as kids who maybe get
into trouble but winning the state
championship redefined who they were
they went from being strangers to being
rooted for even by the longtime
residents who attended that David do
growling they had changed people’s minds
about who they were on the field is
about immigration but it’s really about
changing demographics and this is
something i’ve been ruminating on lately
the issue of immigration which today we
now know is a huge issue perhaps one of
the biggest stories facing our country
today is really about how our country is
changing how our homes are changing our
home is changing and the new people that
are in it and the idea whether or not we
can accept new comers and new people and
I think a lot of the issues that we face
today are directly related to this idea
of change and how that change is
impacting us one of the big lessons I’ve
learned from coaching the Jets for 16
years now because I’m still coaching
them is the idea that we have to learn
to share resources this is a big
sticking point with the football guys
they didn’t want to share that field and
when you’ve been in the majority when
you’ve owned everything
you know the whole culture revolves
around you sharing really means giving
something up and so they were reluctant
to do that but when they did great
things happened we were able to be
successful on that field we were able to
win a state championship from playing on
that field and we were able to change
and integrate into the society itself a
home can be anything for these boys and
for many of the boys that I’ve coached
it’s that feel it’s that ball it’s that
little piece of home that they brought
with them here that they’ve allowed to
be able to integrate in our society in
their own way I want to thank you for
letting me speak to you today and
sharing my story thank you very much [Applause]