As Others See Us

Seattle Times Photo by Erika Schultz

They keep coming!  Copies of Nina Shapiro’s Seattle Times article “A Washington county that went for Trump is shaken as immigrant neighbors start disappearing” have arrived by email and on FaceBook from friends throughout Western Washington.  (Thank you, all!)  I’m not clear whether the article appeared only as a digital report (there are videos imbedded in the copies I received) or if it also appeared in the hard copy of yesterday’s Times.  My friend on Bainbridge Island had not seen it in yesterday’s paper but he is having another look.

Overall, I think it was a good article.  The photographs by Erika Schulz were spectacular and the story, itself, brought the plight of our Hispanic neighbors into the spotlight on a bigger stage than our local paper can manage.  That’s a good thing, I think.

Seattle Times Photo by Erika Schultz

I was disappointed, though, that Ms. Shapiro did not interview any of the ICE ‘victims’ beyond those who were featured in my “Stories from the Heart.”  Though their stories had probably not been available to most of her audience, I felt that she was piggy-backing on work that had already been done – probably sour grapes on my part.  But there you have it.

Too, I was surprised at the political spin that the article took.  For starters, I didn’t know what Nan Malin’s comments about Obamacare had to do with the ICE arrests; if the reporter tied that together, I missed it.  But most bothersome, was the part that Ms. Shapiro missed.  While Pacific County voted for Trump (as she stated), the Peninsula did not.  This was the one pocket of the County that voted Democratic in the November 2016 presidential election and it’s where ICE began its deluge of arrests – for months before it began to focus elsewhere in the County.

Seattle Times Photo by Erica Schultz

Perhaps Ms. Shapiro will do a follow-up article and take a closer look at the political situation on the Peninsula.  It would also be great if she got our ‘rural character’ right.  Her comment about the photographs in Flint Wright’s Long Beach office, (father and grandfather on horses — capturing the rural lifestyle of Pacific County) didn’t quite reflect what our rural character is like – at least not to me.  Boats, piles of oyster shells, old wooden buoys, maybe, but horseback riding, not so much for most of us. I think in the great scheme of surf and turf, we’re more about the sea.  But, maybe that’s not how the outside world sees us.

To read Nina Shapiro’s article for yourself:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/fear-regrets-as-pacific-county-residents-go-missing-amid-immigration-crackdown-police-chief-neighbors-kind-of-in-shock-after-immigration-arrests-in-pacific-county-immigration-crack/

2 Responses to “As Others See Us”

  1. Cyndy Hayward says:

    At the end of the article online, an Editor’s note reads: “Due to the number of comments on this story that violated our Terms of Service, the comment thread has been removed.” That is ominous.

  2. sydney says:

    I imagine it has to do with negative, racist comments and the newspaper’s policies regarding such comments.

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