Caring for our neighbors

hungering for justice

Good morning bread friends, 

I believe I’ve shared before that the name of my bakery was inspired in part by an ancient prayer that I once learned. It goes like this:

O God,
to those who have hunger
give bread;

And to those who have bread
give the hunger for justice.

Amen.

I am delighted to use my hands each week to make bread that feeds my community. Equally so, it is a joy to help those of us with the means for bread to reflect on ways to develop and nourish a hunger for justice in our communities. 

This week I’m writing about a particular injustice and cruelty being leveled against our neighbors who are immigrants to the United States.

I mentioned last week that our profits for the month of November are going towards Centro Hispano of Dane County (aka: Centro). Centro is the leading non-profit serving Latinx in Dane County. On their website, they describe their mission as becoming a County where Latinx families can aspire upward to reach personal and professional goals while feeling engaged and strengthened with the tools for success. The nonprofit offers immigration services, youth and family programming (including afterschool and summer programs) and workforce training, and it serves as a cultural hub. Each year they serve thousands of individuals in our community. 

Donating our profits to Centro this month is an intentional choice in this moment. 

During the presidential campaign, Sean Hannity gave Donald Trump a softball question to reassure Americans that his authoritarian tendencies would be reined in if elected. Trump evades the question directly and then voluntarily said to a live audience, “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’” (video here)

One week before the majority of voting Americans choose to vote for him, Donald Trump described our country as an occupied country (video here), and promised that as part of his day of dictatorship, “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail and to kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.” Throughout this speech, he did something that several other guest speakers that day were doing from his stage. He routinely conflated references to immigrants, immigrants who are in our country illegally, criminals, and violent criminals.

Sometimes people suggest that Trump just “says stuff”, but other people who he appoints end up acting out the spirit of his goals but without the hard edges... or something to that effect. As an example of how that is nonsense - the person who President-elect Trump just named to be his “Border Czar” said at the National Conservatism Conference just a few months ago, “We are going to have a historic deportation operation, because you’ve got a historic, illegal immigration, crossing the southern border.” [video of him going on later in the same speech] “No one’s off the table. If you’re in the country illegally, it’s not OK. If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder. ... The bottom line is: Every illegal alien is a criminal.” 

So… with the incident rate of hate crimes being 3x higher today than they were in 2014… and while president-elect Trump and his people are encouraging all immigrants to be looking over their shoulders… let's discuss who it is that the president-elect is pointing white supremacists at when he talks about "our southern border" and stokes "great replacement theory" type of fears.

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In Wisconsin, the immigrant and refugee communities are composed of approximately 300,000 (foreign-born) immigrants. That accounts for about 5% of the Wisconsin population. In Dane County, about 9% of our population is immigrants, with a population total of about 48,000 people. The most common countries of origin for Wisconsin immigrants are Mexico, India, China, Laos, and the Philippines. Of the entire Wisconsin population, 43,300 children are legal United States citizens living with at least one undocumented family member. (source)

I am not in a position to speak for those in our Madison community who are immigrants or the children of immigrants… but my heart breaks when I think about the fear that the president-elect is intentionally striking into the lives of those 43,000 children in Wisconsin.

I can hardly imagine how vulnerable our immigrant neighbors must feel knowing that:

• the president-elect has stoked such contempt for them

• the president-elect has publicly declared that he plans to act as a dictator the likes that our country has never seen to deport as many of their loved ones as possible

• 75 million Americans voted for him one week after he said those things about them. 

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And so... I hope you'll join me in continuing to go against the grain in a society that seems to be committed to making more space in our culture for cruelty.

In the face of all this fear... I'm just going to continue to use my hands to work towards justice.

Bread & Justice will be donating 100% of our profits to Centro this month and supporting their work to build a strong, health and safe Dane County. This includes supporting their immigration support services for people seeking to go through that process.  

If this is the sort of thing that resonates with you - this is a great week to order bread, and maybe tell a friend to order some too! 🥖

Cheers,
Mo
community baker

P.S. Last week I forgot to summarize the total that we gave to last Beloved Asheville in October. Because of your support, we were able to donate $373 to that organization. Thanks for being a part of supporting that community response to Hurricane Helene.

P.P.S. If you already ordered bread last week as a part of bread club - no need to order again this week unless you want more than 1 loaf. If you do want to order this week… and you missed the button at the very top of this email - here is a link to order bread for pickup this Saturday.