An angry migrant motel reaction

Usually I let reader comments stand without my two cents, but not this time

In response to a column I posted Friday morning about a Yarmouth Board of Health hearing to discuss how migrants living at a motel on Route 28 are faring, (Reports from the migrant hotel, three months in), I’ve heard many supportive comments but also an angry response from Cheryl Ball, a leader of the small group protesting the existence of these migrants among us.

Most of the time if someone takes issue with my reporting or thoughts, and the language isn’t flat-out libelous, I’ll share the disagreement and move along without comment. But in this case, response seems in order.

Ms. Ball’s comments, in full, also posted to accompany the article, appear below. My reactions are interjected.

CB: Honestly, Seth, how do you sleep after spinning your lies?

SR: First, thank you for reading what I wrote, Cheryl, and that’s meant sincerely. I love having people with many and competing viewpoints check in. I’d be happy to offer you a free subscription to A Cape Cod Voice if you would like to continue. You might find other subjects I explore also to be of interest.

I know you didn’t mean to actually inquire about my sleeping habits, but I’ll say that some nights I sleep well, other nights I toss and turn but not about the quality of my reporting or whether I’m telling lies. There are no lies in this.

CB: I strongly encourage anyone who just read your fiction to listen to the recording of the meeting posted on the Yarmouth town website. I spoke of safety concerns saying how dangerous it is for children to be playing in a parking lot on a busy main road and how dangerous it is for the residents of Harborside to be crossing Rt. 28 without a crosswalk. I also mentioned that items such as cabbage and potatoes are not items that are easy to cook in hotel rooms that lack kitchens.

SR: Yes you did address these matters at a public hearing of the Board of Health, saying that Yarmouth officials should do something about them. That is what I wrote, and went on to say how ironic it is that people who rail against big government suddenly demand that government intercede in ways they happen to want, real or symbolic.

This article also reported that every public health person involved, plus the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, refuted every concern your group has expressed about the possibility of tuberculosis infection at the motel. Is that “fiction” as well? If not, when will you apologize for this unfounded scare tactic?

CB: Did you hear about the hotel fire at the shelter in Sutton? Apparently, not. Somehow, your lunatic filter heard that I want to "control how families allow their children to play in the motel parking lot, how they walk along busy Route 28, whether they should buy heads of cabbage in the supermarket that they must be cooking somewhere — perhaps in their rooms!"

SR: According to the Yarmouth police and fire departments, there has been no need to respond about fires or anything of that kind at the motel. We were told that the rescue squad was called once because a child fell off a bike, and there was one other verified call since September 10.

Motel fires and accidents happen; we had one recently in Wellfleet. What does “Sutton” have to do with Yarmouth? If there is an accident or problem somewhere, does that mean government should halt or crack down on all activities elsewhere?

As for the quote you note, a few sentences earlier in this response you offered the very same perspective again. That makes it hard to see a “lunatic filter” here.

CB: YOU, Seth, are what is causing the divide in this country. You spit out slurs like racist and xenophobe, proving that YOU are the one filled with unchristian hatred, not me.

SR: I am not dedicating my life and energy to trying to remove these people, so I don’t think I’m the one fearful of immigrants and trying to keep them out (that’s the definition of xenophobia), or dividing this country. Neither am I invoking a phantom fear of tuberculosis to justify that.

And yes, unfortunately I do believe skin color has something to do with this. That’s not new in our national history, nor here; in all the years immigrants have come to Cape Cod for summer work, often from Ireland or Eastern Europe (and yes, Jamaica), I’ve never heard this argument raised. Now, because these people were born in Haiti, it is.

Here’s my suggestion:

Spend time at this motel rather than observing people from a car across the street or in a supermarket. Get to know five families on a first-name basis. Understand where they come from, how amazing and difficult it has been to get this far, how living in a motel room hoping for a better life is an incredible moment on an arduous journey.

I’m sure the site manager, Linda Kimbell, would welcome you. If you’d like company, count me in. Perhaps I could convince my Haitian-born daughter to join us, she’s a great translator!

CB: Merry Christmas!

SR: Though you’re likely being sarcastic, thank you anyway. My family did celebrate the holiday though never in a full-tilt Christmas-tree way, more stockings on the mantle that Santa would fill while we slept, leaving a note thanking us for the glass of milk we left for him. We focused more on Hanukkah, lighting candles over multiple nights.

My Christmas story is altogether different:

My parents were two Jewish kids from New York who met when my dad, employed at the fledgling United Nations, was attending a conference at a resort in the Catskill Mountains where my mom was working. They hit it off, and when he was being sent to Europe on a UN mission he wanted her to come too, but in those days (maybe now too?) you needed to be married for that to happen. So they wanted to get hitched in a hurry.

Christmas Day was when a rabbi was available, so they got him to an apartment in the Bronx where my mom’s parents lived, to tie the knot.

Christmas was their anniversary.

Neither of them is alive, but of course I remember them at the holiday, which makes the moment both “merry” — and poignant.

So to you and yours, from me and mine (which by the way I take to include people living in that motel), happy holidays.