OPINION: Powerful people are coming for our future

Like many, my family endured hard-working conditions daily to make a living, and I hardly heard a complaint. I spent years working hard labor jobs, and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would call myself a scientist. Those people didn’t exist in my circles, which were filled with dairy workers, handymen, construction workers and electricians. As a child, my grandparents had a small dairy farm that gave us a home, food, the things we needed and sometimes, what a little kid wanted. The bobwhite quails provided the soundscape to my childhood.

Then, large corporate farms began buying up swaths of land, larger heads of cattle, and began pumping milk at a price my family couldn’t compete with. The small family farm went under. I grew up angry at the people, banks and institutions with billions of dollars. They took everything my family had worked so hard for and they are taking our animals and nature with them. Quite frankly, I included scientists and universities up there with the billionaires that ripped away an industry from my hometown.

The removal of dairy farms from the “Dairy Capital of Texas” came with economic hardship, and with that came more drugs. It started with meth and over time became heroin and fentanyl. I watched as my family, friends and myself suffered while companies made billions of dollars. Again, I blamed the scientists, the doctors and their institutions. That was until I needed treatment for an opioid addiction. I distrusted all of these institutions and people, and then I got help.

The doctors, the hospitals, the psychologists, the nurses and the staff cared for me. I received treatment and continued working labor jobs. My wiser, elder coworkers began to curse me out for being on site and not in school. So, I went to school, thinking I could make money without using my body as the loan. That was the first time I met folks I would call scientists. I didn’t (and really still don’t) understand the culture of my fellow academics and scientists, but they welcomed me.

Right now, it is about all of us working people, scientists, farmers, plumbers, electricians and teachers alike, coming together to tell them they can’t take our quail, our family farms or our jobs, just so a few folks can get even more money. I grew up in rural America, where we care for our neighbors more than we care for the folks that own the banks. I care for the folks in my towns and in my streets, not the ones that make money off the labor and hard work of others. They never had a house near mine.

I write this today because I am a scientist, I am a construction worker, I am the grandson of a farmer who had his farm ripped away. I, like you, your neighbors and my colleagues, am a worker, even if I am a scientist, and I care about my neighbors more than I do the people in power. Right now, the people in power are coming for our jobs, our health care and our children’s future.

I want you to trust me, just like I trust the work you do each day to keep our society running. We will always have more in common with each other than we do with billionaires sitting behind desks with uncalloused hands and unburdened minds. I am working to stand up for science, and asking you to do the same. I trust you see the wrong that is happening to those around you, and I am asking for you to join us right now. Help us fight to keep our way of life, our quail and our families.