"Danny in the back seat wants a cup a water": Musings on America, Steinbeck, and the Child

Cheryl K. Chumley of the Washington Times reported that “the July cover of Time Magazine will show a picture of a stern-faced President Donald Trump staring down and towering over a little crying migrant girl, . . . in white letters against the red-colored cover: ‘Welcome to America.’ Seriously,” Chumley opines, “it’s a magazine edition that would make the Kim Jong-uns of the world very, very proud. Time announced its July edition on Twitter this way: ‘time’s new cover: A reckoning after Trump’s border separation policy. What kind of country are we?’” The answer is troubling. With refugee children dying from improper care on our southern borders; others separated from their parents, often with slim hopes of being reunited; detained children reportedly held in cages or “tent cities” with no books or toys; and a president more bizarrely fixated on building a wall of questionable value than on the plight of human beings—more appropriately designated refugees rather than migrants—who flee from oppression, war, and persistent and unrelenting poverty in their countries of origin. One image is particularly bothersome: a reporter for the Associated Press in McAllen, Texas, “said she . . . saw officials at the facility scold a group of 5-yearolds for playing around in their cage, telling them to settle down. There are no toys or books. But one boy nearby wasn’t playing with the rest. . . . He was “Danny in the back seat wants a cup a water”: Musings on America, Steinbeck, and the Child