Storm Lake is a launchpad for the pursuit of happiness

Storm Lake is a portal for refugees in pursuit of happiness, whatever that may be.

Lao. Sudanese. Karen. It ain’t easy trying to be free.

That’s an immediate impression after a sneak preview of a new film by Los Angeles documentary cinematographer Hyunsoo Moon titled “The Americans” that follows four refugees on their search for liberty.

The labor is hard. Sam Khamphavongsa couldn’t read after burning four years in a Thai refugee camp but he could work. He believes he gave everything to America and to the company cutting meat til his hands went numb. Then he got canned after 23 years during the Covid shutdown when his mother died. He curses the company. They might have done him a favor. He has a little plot outside of town and farms. He jokes with folks at the farmers market. His fun is in the dirt. He believes he won.

Jephthah Sayhtoo is a Karen refugee who had to get out of the pack. He worked long enough to split town and get a job at a Wisconsin Walmart. He wanted to get an education. He had to support his family so the education is waylaid.

Ehlermoo Taw is another Karen refugee who made her way to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she studies psychology. She wants to help her people after college who have been traumatized by war and displacement.

Anna Pirdot supports several relatives from Sudan. She got fired from Tyson when family matters forced her to miss too much work. She attends nursing school. It has been a long haul getting there, running Door Dash with a child at home.

Moon followed these folks and their families for seven years. The film screams softly.

Donald Trump would just as soon they all went back to where they came from, damn the consequences.

You see swinging carcasses all day and dream of home where the Thai onions grew. Lao people saved the seeds in their wallets so they could plant them fresh in Iowa. He dreamed of growing things while trimming loins. If the ICE man were to come, where would he take old Sam after ripping him out of the garden? Thailand doesn’t need his onions. He is a patriot who can feel betrayed.

Trump called Somalis garbage and Haitians scum. He is trying to revoke temporary protected status for refugees like these. They fought for us in our dirty wars. They flee persecution. They pray just like you. The Karen people love Jesus, whose family lived on the run as persecuted Jews in what is now bomb-strafed Holy Land.

Iowa PBS supports Moon’s film, and we hope it is broadcast because the message is urgent. Moon, a Korean immigrant, is trying to raise money. You can find a trailer and pitch for the film at theamericansdocumentary.com. Donations of any size are welcome.

Notable by absence in the documentary are Latinos, who are not necessarily refugees. They face almost all the same issues without any of the protections, fleeting as they may be. Focusing on refugees forces us to set aside some of our biases (as if Mexicans could choose to walk back into a war of terror in their native Jalisco).

Moon himself had better watch his Ps and Qs or he might get a knock at his door. The goons are still in LA.

It leaves me frustrated with a story we know well.

Sam tells the young people to leave Storm Lake, there is nothing for them here. Get an education. The machine will chew you up. He loves the farm. He never wants to leave. That is the irony. The young Karen people are trying desperately to be American while accommodating their families’ old ways. They bring seeds with them.

Moon does not dwell on the politics. I do. Trump was deporting employed Cubans from Ottumwa while shutting off the lights and starving out the people in Havana. The governor and our congressman have made careers defaming immigrants and stoking fear.

You should see how they work, how they care for their parents, how relieved they are to be free of terror. Moon gives us a glimpse. The people who need to see it won’t. They generally avoid Storm Lake. It is easier to weave a false political narrative — that they are welfare cheats, when in fact they are hacking away at hams — when you have no clue what it is like to be Black or Brown or just different in a white-bread Iowa.

Jefferson wrote of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. That’s all they’re after. It’s tough in Storm Lake. Meatpacking gives people a foot on the ladder. Some climb out, some climb up, some stick it out on the line for a steady paycheck cutting pork for your plate. Americans all the same. If only we treated them as such.