LEGAL BUT LOCKED UP
An immigrant’s arrest story winds through allegations of government overreach, cruelty, and a private company’s push for profi ts.
SHARA CLARK Editor-in-Chief
ABIGAIL MORICI Managing Editor
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Legal but Locked Up
An immigrant’s arrest story winds through allegations of government overreach, cruelty, and a private company’s push for pro ts.
PHOTO: MICAELA WATTS
p12
Sports Talk
Why big games are no longer so big. p10
PHOTO: WES HALE
SNAP Out of It
Americans are going hungry so that others can a ord to live the American dream. p31
PHOTO: NATHÁLIA ROSA | UNSPLASH
NEWS & OPINION THE FLY-BY - 4 POLITICS - 8 VIEWPOINT - 9 AT LARGE - 10
COVER STORY
“LEGAL BUT LOCKED UP” BY ERIKA KONIG, INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE REPORTING - 12 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
WE RECOMMEND - 16 MUSIC - 17
AFTER DARK - 18 CALENDAR - 19
NY TIMES CROSSWORD - 21
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METAPHYSICAL CONNECTION - 25 NEWS OF THE WEIRD - 26 ASTROLOGY - 27
FILM - 28 NOW PLAYING - 29 CLASSIFIEDS - 30 LAST WORD - 31
THE fly-by
MEM ernet
Memphis on the internet.
MEMBERS ONLY
A TikTok video — viewed 5.3 million times at press time — allegedly shows a Germantown Baptist Church leader refusing to help a mother to get a can of formula to feed her baby.
e call is part of a social experiment by Nikalie Monroe, a TikTok creator with more than 374,000 followers whose bio reads “testing your church to see if they would feed a hungry baby.”
In the Germantown Baptist Church video, the creator apparently reaches an unnamed pastor. She asks if they are able to help her feed her imaginary baby.
“We are not,” the person on the phone said in the video. “We have a benevolence program, but it is for our members.”
Ja Morant said he lost his joy playing for the Grizzlies amid a shooting slump and suspension last week. is brought an onslaught of YouTube videos titled, “ e Ja Morant Situation Just Got Weird Again …,” “Ja Morant Has Become A Major Problem For e Memphis Grizzlies And It Is Time To Move On,” and “ e Memphis Grizzlies Failed Ja Morant.”
CREEPY
Central Gardens neighbor Phil Roebuck thought a 7 p.m. ice cream truck was “a little creepy” last week.
Questions, Answers + Attitude
Edited by Toby Sells
{WEEK THAT WAS
By Flyer staff
SNAP, Task Force, & Overton
Park
ousands le in limbo here, Nashville gets federal force, and the fence is coming down.
SNAP
Legal wrangling over the federal food assistance program still le many here uncertain about how they would buy groceries.
A seesaw battle last week had bene ts ordered to resume by two courts, ordered to pause by the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), resumed under an appeals court in Boston, and paused again in the SCOTUS ruling. President Donald Trump was ordered to signal how he would proceed on Monday.
Trump said his administration would not be able to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in November amid the shutdown of the federal government. at meant that more than 152,000 in Shelby County would not have any money loaded onto payment cards by the government for food in November. ese bene ts typically total around $33 million each month in Shelby County.
OVERTON PARK CONSERVANCY
PHOTO:
Since the ’80s, a chain-link fence has closed o 17 mostly forested acres of Overton Park’s pristine woodland. Now, it’s set to come down to return the land to public use.
TASK FORCE CRIME DATA
Late last week, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced he would direct $5 million in state funding to food banks.
e move came a er Lee repeatedly said the state could not help because it did not have the right funding mechanism, despite a $2 billion rainy day fund.
TASK FORCE LAWSUIT
e Tennessee Attorney General’s O ce argued last week against removing the National Guard from Memphis, claiming the governor has authority to mobilize it even without action by the legislature or local government bodies. No decision was made on the suit yet.
e claims countered a challenge in Davidson County Chancery Court by Democratic state lawmakers and Memphis o cials who say Tennessee Governor Bill Lee violated state law and the constitution by mobilizing troops for police work as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force.
DOWN WITH FENCE
e fence was set to come down in Overton Park’s Old Forest this week. Leaders said the barrier was to come down ursday with a ceremonial “ rst cut,” attended by state, local, and park leaders. A er that, park-goers were to get a rst glimpse of a new, half-mile loop in the new section of forest.
Memphis Crime Beat, a nonpro t dedicated to help citizens better understand crime in Memphis through data collection, wanted better and quicker crime data from the Memphis Safe Task Force last week, saying the force’s success cannot be measured on arrests alone.
A “FUNERAL” FOR x AI
Tigers Against Pollution (TAP), a student-led organization vocal in its opposition to xAI, hosted a “Funeral for the Future” comedy performance and funeral march on Saturday at Robert R. Church Park.
NASHVILLE’S OWN TASK FORCE
Federal o cials announced last week the formation of a Nashville-based Homeland Security Task Force to combat gangs, drug tra cking, and transnational crime across Middle Tennessee. Similar task forces were announced last week in Indianapolis, Dallas, and Little Rock. e task force was convened at the direction of the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and is among the rst in what is expected to be a widespread federal presence in communities nationwide.
Tennessee Lookout contributed to this report. Visit the News Blog at memphis yer.com for fuller versions of these stories and more local news.
By Toby Sells
{ CANNABEAT
THCA Is Back (For Now)
A new agreement extends smokeable ower sales until July.
Smokable cannabis ower is back on the market, at least for a little while longer.
A new law passed by the Tennessee General Assembly this year banned THCA products in Tennessee. ose products would have been pulled from store shelves when the new law takes e ect on January 1, 2026.
However, state o cials and the Tennessee Healthy Alternatives Association (TNHAA) entered into an agreement on October 23rd that allowed for those products to remain until June 30th. Members of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) voted to approve the deal in a meeting this month in Nashville.
“ is agreement provides critical clarity and stability for Tennessee’s hemp industry during this regulatory transition,” said Sam Oechslin, president of TNHAA. “Our members can continue operating under the existing regulatory framework they know and have invested in. We consider this outcome a signi cant win.”
Businesses now selling cannabis ower got their licenses from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. ey were set to expire at the end of June 2026.
commercial venture in our state, and then, two years later, we’re going to turn the lights o ,” Vaughan said. “Understand that even if we take [THCA out], these stores will still be in the business of selling intoxicants.”
e THCA ban in the new legislation came as a surprise to lawmakers, including Vaughan, who had worked with the industry for years to ensure a legal, safe environment for businesses and customers. is included House Leader state Representative William Lamberth (R-Portland). Yet he agreed with others who then said when they approved hemp sales years ago, they were told the products would not get anyone high.
“We consider this outcome a significant win.”
Sales were supposed to stop in January by state law.
e new law put the TABC in charge of regulating the growing cannabis industry here. e TNHAA convinced leaders to allow those with existing permits from the Department of Agriculture to sell THCA products until those permits expire.
e original legislation was considered a “hemp killer” to many in the industry. e ban puts at risk Tennessee cannabis companies that have said that smokable ower sales can sometimes total 60 percent of their total revenue. It was a huge change that came quickly.
Because of this, state Representative Kevin Vaughan (R-Memphis) spoke on the oor of the House this year to keep THCA legal in Tennessee.
“I have a hard time that this body has told [businesses] that this is a new
“We were all told when we voted for hemp that it’s the nonintoxicating cousin to marijuana,” Lamberth said last April. “You don’t have to worry about anybody getting high. Well, that horse has le the barn.
“What this bill does is ban THCA, that when you light it, it turns into marijuana. But that’s one product. ere’s hundreds of other products out there [that will get people high].”
e extension of THCA sales will, of course, keep sales owing until the middle of next year. But it may also leave the door open to new legislation during next year’s Tennessee General Assembly that could keep smokable ower on store menus permanently.
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POLITICS By Jackson Baker
In the Spotlight
As the state/federal intervention continues in Shelby County, looming issues relating to local jail facilities have gotten worse.
and from a standpoint of addressing cultural realities.
And, even as recent e orts to address the need for starting over with a new jail, newly conceived, have collapsed under the weight of political opposition to a prospective New Chicago site, construction estimates in the vicinity of $1.4 billion threaten to burden the county with $100 million in annual bond payments for 30 years.
For all that, the jail matter, as Jones stresses, is the issue that won’t go away.
Overcrowding, already a problem, has been exacerbated by an in ux of arrestees. Some of the over ow has been taken care of via some neighborly help from nearby jurisdictions — like Haywood County, which for some months has been housing surplus inmates from the county.
But there are other complications, as well. Relations among Sheri Floyd Bonner, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, and the county commission remain strained because of an impasse over funding during budget season.
And this week saw the posting online of a scathing analysis of the sheri ’s o ce in general and jail operations in particular by Tom Jones, on his Smart City Memphis blog, in a piece entitled “Shelby County Jail Culture: A Death Sentence for Too Many.”
Writes Jones: “… Under [Bonner’s] watch, Shelby County Jail has faced mounting scrutiny for chronic mismanagement, inmate deaths, overcrowding, and failures in oversight that have drawn criticism from judges, jail inspectors and experts, watchdogs, and civil rights advocates alike.”
• Meanwhile, in Millington, a regime change dating from last year’s city election has resulted in various ongoing political con icts, scarcely noticed beyond that city’s limits, including a petition campaign to remove the city manager, Frankie Dakin.
Shelby County Jail has faced mounting scrutiny for chronic mismanagement.
Dakin, former chief of sta to Shelby County Mayor Harris, a Democrat, was selected by the Millington Board of Aldermen to become city manager a year ago, replacing longtime city manager Ed Haley. Dakin himself is a former alderman and is the son-in-law of Larry Dagen, who was elected the city’s mayor last year, defeating Cary Vaughn, who at the time was chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party.
And those are some of the mildest words in a point-by-point critique that notes Bonner’s recent decision to o er unbridled access to the jail and its inmates to ICE at a time when the agency “is creating distress and fear” as it “racially pro les Hispanics in Memphis neighborhoods.”
Beyond even the inadequacies of the current jail administration and its extraordinary death toll is the fact that, as former Sheri (and County Mayor) Mark Luttrell has observed, the current “fortress-like” jail was ill-conceived in the rst place, both physically
One prominent supporter of the petition drive is Terry Roland, a former two-term county commissioner who ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for county mayor in 2018. Roland was executive director of the Millington Area Chamber of Commerce before resigning last December in the wake of the election. Roland, who supported Vaughn in the mayoral election, told the Flyer, “ e petition is not my doing, but I’m in favor of it. City government is a mess right now.”
Dakin said the petition was “just politics” and was initially the work of a disgruntled former city employee. He denied that the e ort had any popular support and expressed con dence that he had, and would continue to have, the full backing of the Board of Aldermen.
PHOTO: TUJA66 | DREAMSTIME.COM
VIEWPOINT By
Bryce W. Ashby and Michael J. LaRosa
City Under Pressure
Trump’s army is undoing years of progress. We need to fend o this invasion.
Last year, during the wildly unpredictable lead-up to the November presidential election, we thought it would be relevant to publish a series of ve stories, focused on immigrants among us, in this paper. Our assumption? It would be helpful to explain the arrival (and in all cases, thriving) stories of ve individuals who live here but were born abroad, in Mexico, Honduras, Nepal, Russia, and Venezuela. We hoped to engender good-will and understanding toward our friends in Memphis’ wide, diverse immigrant community. And of course, with a Harris victory in November, the socio/political climate for immigrants would only improve, here and nationally.
Boy, were we wrong!
A year or so ago, we never imagined that our community — the city of Memphis — would be home to an unconstitutional, costly, and pointless National Guard deployment. e Guard deployment, however, is the least of our worries.
A surge of 13 federal agencies came at the request of Governor Bill Lee, and without a request by any elected o cial in Memphis. ose federal agencies have teamed up with the Memphis Police Department (MPD), the Shelby County Sheri ’s Department, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
While they have been useful in addressing a backlog in unexecuted arrest warrants, these law enforcement agencies have used pretextual stops to in ict a level of harm that will undermine the community for years to come.
For the past 30 years, the MPD and the sheri ’s o ce, through Republican and Democratic administrations, have been telling the Latino community that they do not enforce immigrations laws. Starting in the early and mid-’90s, the Latino community was reluctant to call the police, even when they became victims of violent crimes due to fear of being reported to immigration. As a result, Latino workers and families were o en the targets of crimes and gangs. Groups like Latino Memphis worked tirelessly with local law enforcement agencies to
build trust so that victims felt safe calling the police. at work brought down the crime rate against the Latino community, which made us all safer.
In a matter of a month, however, that progress has been tossed aside. It disappeared the moment MPD and the mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, allowed ICE to ride in an MPD patrol car. Although the city claims that ICE is only assisting in hunting down violent criminals, it’s clear from talking to members of the community that the bond of trust has now been broken.
Worse yet, this surge and collaboration with ICE is destroying a once thriving and vibrant part of the Memphis community. Back in 2017, a national study showed that 25 percent of all Hispanic children have at least one undocumented parent. at number is signi cantly higher in less established immigrant communities like Memphis. As a result, families are living in deeper and darker shadows than they were before “the surge.”
Children are not going to school out of fear. Even when they are attending school, parents are not participating in their children’s activities in the same numbers. For example, at a recent high school soccer game against Memphis East, a team composed of nearly all
ICE has broken the bonds of trust.
Latina student-athletes only had one family in the stands. It’s safe to say that this was not because of a lack of parent interest and that we will be dealing with the yet untold rami cations of this trauma on a generation of young Memphians for years to come.
We don’t envy the position in which Mayor Young nds himself. We understand that he truly believes that by maintaining a seat at the table, he is mitigating the worst excesses of Trump’s thugs. Maybe he is right. Or maybe he is deluding himself.
omas Je erson wrote, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” ICE now has a foothold in the city and with MPD.
Mayor Young is a gi ed orator who became the mayor of our city through a tireless campaign that saw someone with very little name recognition beat established and respected politicians. He has deep connections with business leaders who clearly have the ear of the president and the governor.
We’re not calling for performative press conferences or banging on a podium in front of the media. Mayor Young should exercise his extensive gi s and connections to advocate for those in our community who are largely powerless. We’re asking for someone to educate and rally a community under siege. We need a leader to organize our citizens, including those with connections to the administration, to take back their city from an invasion of Trump’s army.
Indeed, San Francisco has managed to fend o such an invasion by leveraging connections with the White House under leadership from Mayor Daniel Lurie.
We all su er when the bullies take over (and they have); our friends in the immigrant community who want to work, take care of their families, send their kids to school, and live here in peace deserve our special attention during this unprecedented period — a fast, national descent into dictatorship. Bryce W. Ashby is an attorney at Donati Law, PLLC. Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.
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AT LARGE By Bruce VanWyngarden
Sports Talk
Why big games are no longer so big.
hoo, boy! How about those Dodgers! What a series, eh? No? Yeah, me neither. In fact, I have to confess that I’ve pretty much lost interest in watching sports on television in recent years. It caught up to me the other night.
I was in a restaurant, sipping on a margarita and chatting with Del no, the bartender. Above his head, two college football teams were silently battling it out on bright green arti cial turf. I paid it little attention until I noticed that most of the players seemed to be wearing padded Capri pants that stopped well above their bare knees.
“When did football players stop wearing knee protection?” I asked of no one in particular. I got the “Okay, Boomer” side-eye from the young beard-o to my right, who said, “Several years ago,” and then turned back to his companion. I could see his eyes roll from the back of his head.
the next level. e basketball team is too o en one-and-done in the postseason, if they make it at all. And the football team manages to lose at least one or two games a year to patsies they ought to clobber, costing them a chance to get into the playo s. And now that college athletes are being paid and move from team to team each year, it’s much harder to sustain a rooting interest.
As for the Grizzlies, I watch them as o en as I can, but they traded away my favorite player and kept the injury-prone superstar who seems to be taking an inordinate number of seasons to “mature.” Given those developments, I’ve become kind of zen about the guys in Beale Street Blue — enjoying the good games and accepting the bad ones as part of the deal. I think maybe I’ve aged out of losing sleep over the fortunes of my favorite teams.
It wasn’t always this way. I used to be able to glibly sports-chat with random strangers as needed. I read the sports pages; I knew the standings for the major sports — which teams were good, which ones were hopeless — and could at least goose the conversation along with some trivial crap I’d read, or heard on sportstalk radio.
No more — an example being the fact that I totally ignored what was by most accounts the most thrilling World Series in years. Extra-inning heroics. Incredible individual performances. Clutch pitching. I read a bit about each game the next day in my morning news feed, but I really didn’t care who won and never tuned it in. If I don’t have a rooting interest in one of the teams, I have no interest in watching a game.
For example, I had to think for a bit just now to remember who won the 2024 Super Bowl. I came up with the Kansas City Chiefs a er 15 seconds or so, but I couldn’t begin to tell you who they beat. And that’s because, even though I’m from Missouri and know lots of Chiefs fans, the team is just not on my emotional radar. I’m happy for my friends, but I was always more of a St. Louis guy. I can still remember the starting lineup of the 1968 Cardinals, though I couldn’t name a single player on the current team.
Nowadays, my only semi-avid rooting interests are the University of Memphis Tigers and the Memphis Grizzlies. e Tigers — in football and basketball — have been consistently decent in recent years but never seem to break through to
Part of that is because there are too many other things to lose sleep over. When millions of Americans are struggling to feed themselves, it seems incredibly privileged to be able to spend emotional currency on a Tigers loss. And when thousands of people around the country are being racially pro led and “disappeared,” it’s di cult to get overly worried about a multi-millionaire athlete’s fragile ego.
Sports have always served as an escape from the mundane aggravations of daily life. It’s why people wear jerseys of their favorite athletes, why they y their university’s ag on their front porch on game day. A winning team brings fans together, uni es a city or a school. But we’re in a whole new ballgame right now, one we can’t a ord to lose or we’ll nd ourselves on our knees without protection.
PHOTO: WES HALE Ja Morant
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COVER STORY By Erika Konig, Institute for Public Service Reporting
It was bright and cool that day in May when a team of federal agents knocked on Miguel’s door, shattering an otherwise idyllic spring morning in this hardscrabble Southeast Memphis neighborhood.
e armed agents would later write in reports that they were checking on the safety of immigrant children. But they soon turned their attention to Miguel, 22, who came to the U.S. with his father when he was 11, eeing the unforgiving poverty and violence of their native Central America.
Despite Miguel’s protests that he had legal documents, the agents handcu ed him. His mother too, distraught and crying, was cu ed.
ough she was quickly released, Miguel was arrested, spending more than a month in a crowded detention center run by a private company with political ties to the Trump administration. A judge later placed him on supervised release. Now, as he works to support his seven younger siblings, he wears an ankle monitoring bracelet owned by a subsidiary of the same company while his case winds through immigration court and a maze of uncertainty.
“Today, we’re here talking,’’ Miguel told a reporter. “Tomorrow you might hear that I have been deported. I am afraid.”
Miguel had no previous arrest history and was under no suspicion of
LEGAL BUT LOCKED UP
An immigrant’s arrest story winds through allegations of government overreach, cruelty, and a private company’s push for profits.
Editor’s note: Miguel is not the real name of this story’s central character, who asked to not be identi ed for fear of repercussions against his family. As a general practice the Institute for Public Service Reporting does not use pseudonyms but is doing so here because of the sensitive nature of this story, which shines light on the plight of many immigrants.
criminal activity, facts re ected in the arresting o cers’ reports.
His arrest and detention highlight a number of concerns about aggressive methods used in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and the motives behind it. Among those concerns, protections once a orded to vulnerable children and young adults like Miguel are now being pared back.
ough Miguel entered the country as a child without authorization, since 2022 he’s been enrolled in the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) program. It o ers a path to permanent legal residency to youths who have been victims of abuse, abandonment, or neglect. Critically, Miguel received a grant of “deferred action,” a legal protection that is supposed to inoculate him from deportation until June 2026 but is now being phased out by the Trump administration.
“It is pure harassment,” said Miguel’s attorney, Skye Austin, who fears the government will run out the clock on her client’s time-limited protection. He faces discrimination and possible violence if returned to his homeland, and should be granted asylum, she said.
Miguel is not alone. Nationwide, numbers of young people with deferred action are being arrested and deported as part of a sweeping enforcement e ort that immigration attorneys say is illegal.
“ is is part of a very concerted e ort to shoot rst — or break the law rst — and ask questions later,’’ said S. Ellie Norton, senior sta attorney for the National Immigration Project, a nationwide membership organization of attorneys, advocates, and community members.
“ e government knows that the only way that these kids can really challenge their unlawful detention is by bringing a federal lawsuit, which is just incredibly di cult for people to do if they don’t have the resources to hire a quali ed attorney who can litigate a complicated lawsuit like this.”
According to arrest reports reviewed by the Institute for Public Service Reporting, agents encountered Miguel in his driveway as they were conducting wellness checks on “Unaccompanied Alien Children” across Memphis. ose checks involve unannounced home visits by armed agents, nominally to ensure that immigrant children are safe
from abuse, tra cking, and other harm. But a growing number of immigrant advocates say the Department of Homeland Security is using wellness checks as a pretext to encounter and arrest as many immigrants as possible, including guardians who are undocumented.
“ ese wellness checks are not really to check up on the kids,’’ said Casey Bryant, executive director of Advocates for Immigrant Rights in Memphis. “ ey’re to see who and what status the guardians are in.”
Many critics see racism and cruelty as factors driving these actions. But some point to another motive: steering pro ts to the president’s friends and supporters.
Following his arrest by agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a division of DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Miguel was con ned for ve weeks in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana. e 1,160bed facility is operated by e GEO Group Inc., a private prison company that serves as ICE’s largest contractor.
Miguel was later placed on supervised release and tted with an ankle bracelet owned by BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of GEO Group.
To date, GEO Group has earned an estimated $6,500 in taxpayer funds for housing and monitoring Miguel, who is one of nearly a quarter-million
PHOTO: MICAELA WATTS
Miguel stands on his front porch overlooking the driveway where he was arrested.
immigrants currently in detention or under supervised release — functions ICE provides with assistance from private contractors. For GEO Group, the immigration crackdown has led to a surge in revenue. Records show the rm collected more than $600 million in the second quarter of this year alone, a 5 percent increase over the same period last year.
Critics say those pro ts are tainted by a series of cozy relationships between GEO Group and the Trump administration. For one, GEO Group’s executives, political action committee, and wholly owned subsidiary donated nearly $2 million to Trump’s campaign, inauguration celebration, and related organizations.
“ e increase in arrests, detention, and deportation of our neighbors [by] this administration is tearing apart hard-working families and harming our communities,” said Lisa Sherman Luna, executive
PHOTOS: ERIKA KONIG/MICAELA WATTS (below) Memphis Safe Task Force operation on Summer Ave. (bottom le ) With seven siblings to support, Miguel needs to keep up with plenty of shoes.
(bottom right) Miguel’s ankle monitoring device is seen as he works on a car in his driveway.
director at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. “Tennesseans don’t want to see families torn apart, but this cruelty on the taxpayer dime is happening because those in power know that if they can blame and divide the people they can continue to hold on to power and also help their friends and lobbyists make billions of dollars.”
Neither GEO Group, ICE, nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to a series of email and voicemail messages seeking comment.
QUESTIONS SURROUND ARREST
Miguel can’t get the images of his arrest out of his head. Standing in his driveway, with metal cu s on his wrists, he watched as federal agents restrained his mother, a diminutive woman who speaks little English. “Honestly, I felt anger as a son,” Miguel said. “Well, one gets angry.”
Miguel says the agents came to his home asking for his 17-year-old brother, who was in school at the time. Arrest paperwork shows the encounter happened as HSI agents were “conducting UAC checks in Memphis” — wellness checks on “Unaccompanied Alien Children”. In his brother’s absence, the agents interrogated Miguel and arrested him.
“Me sentí como que pues como un criminal,” Miguel said in his native
Spanish — “I felt like a criminal.’’
According to Miguel, when he asked why he was being arrested, an agent said only, “You are going to be removed from the country.”
Returning to his homeland could be very detrimental to Miguel, said Austin, his attorney. Miguel is a member of an indigenous Central American tribe that is marginalized and oppressed, she said.
“It’s very hard for anyone from his tribe to nd jobs and … the government doesn’t protect them,’’ she said. “ ere’s been murders of indigenous people.’’
Miguel and his seven siblings all have Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, or SIJS, a classi cation designed to protect undocumented minors from deportation if they have been victims of abuse, neglect, or abandonment. According to court records, the children’s father abandoned the family when Miguel was a teenager.
Passed by Congress in 1990, SIJS gives these youths a pathway to obtain a Green Card to establish permanent residency. Critically, a 2022 policy by the Biden administration allowed SIJS recipients to receive “deferred action,” a temporary form of prosecutorial discretion. Under deferred action, authorities delay taking any removal or deportation actions for a speci ed period of time. Deferred action gives an SIJS enrollee time to wait out the long backlog of applicants seeking a Green Card.
Miguel was 17 when he obtained a court order declaring it was not in his best interest to return to his homeland, a critical step in obtaining SIJS status. He received SIJS status and a grant of deferred action a year later. A copy of his 2022 notice of deferred action shows he received protection from deportation for four years — until June 2026. All of Miguel’s siblings also have received deferred action.
Now, however, the Trump administration is moving to dismantle the Biden policy that granted deferred action protections for SIJS youth, citing widespread “fraud and abuse.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a 36-page report that it had
uncovered “signi cant national security and public safety concerns” within the program including the granting of protections to hundreds of “known or suspected” gang members.
e Department of Homeland Security announced in June that it was eliminating deferred action for new SIJS enrollees. e policy change isn’t intended to immediately a ect SIJS enrollees like Miguel who already have deferred action, according to immigration attorneys interviewed for this story. A June 6th announcement by DHS’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said that SIJS recipients with deferred action “will generally retain” that protection, although they cannot renew it once it expires.
Yet ICE/HSI agents appear to be making a di erent interpretation.
An HSI agent acknowledged in Miguel’s arrest report that he had deferred action yet said agents proceeded with the arrest because “no applications to adjust status have been lled at this time.” Adjusting status refers to the process of acquiring permanent residency through a Green Card. To do that, an SIJS recipient must le a separate application.
However, Miguel has been barred from doing so because of the long backlog of SIJS immigrants seeking visas. e date when Miguel can apply is believed to be months away though the exact period of time is uncertain.
Memphis immigration attorney Andrew J. Rankin likened the situation to a Catch-22.
“He can’t le through no fault of his own due to government visa backlog,’’ said Rankin, who has no connection to the case.
Deferred action has always been a form of “administrative grace” but has become extremely fragile under Trump, Rankin said. Grants of deferred action historically have been withdrawn only when the recipient did “something to merit revocation, like committing a crime,” he said.
“Prior to this administration it was honored. It meant something,” he said.
It’s unclear how many youths with
continued on page 14
SIJS protections have been arrested, but lawyers with the End SIJS Backlog Coalition say they’ve received about 50 reports from across the country.
“Not only are they unlawfully detaining and deporting [SIJS deferred action recipients]; they’re stripping them of their ability to ever get the permanent protection that this whole journey was supposed to be leading toward because a SIJS youth has to be in the United States to apply for lawful permanent resident status,’’ said Rachel L. Davidson, director of the national End SIJS Backlog Coalition.
DETENTION IN LOUISIANA
A er he was cu ed, Miguel found himself in the back of an unmarked SUV, heading to an immigration holding facility near the airport. Miguel said he continued to plead his case, telling the agents about his SIJS classi cation and protection from deportation. A er waiting three hours inside a cell, o cials from the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center picked him up.
“ ey cu ed me with chains around the waist, the hands, chains on my feet,” he recalled.
Miguel said he sat in shackles in the back of a minivan during the 319-mile drive from Memphis to the detention center in Jena, Louisiana. ere, he was stripped of his possessions, given a blue jumpsuit and toiletries.
Miguel said o cials then tried to get him to sign a voluntary departure that would have sent him back to Central America, an assertion con rmed in HSI’s arrest report. Miguel said the forms are in English and detainees are not always made aware of what they are signing.
According to Austin, this is becoming a common practice: “Unfortunately, being detained is inhumane, and I can very much understand why some people would just sign the paperwork just to get out of there.”
ere were 6,034 voluntary departures nationwide in August, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. In contrast, 943 were recorded in August 2024.
Miguel describes the detention facility as a large room with white walls, a few tiny widows, bathrooms, sinks, and pay phones. About a hundred men slept in bunk beds with the lights on throughout the night, he said. During his ve weeks at the facility, the beds were rarely empty.
SURGE IN GEO’S REVENUE
e center is one of about 100 detention or prison facilities operated by GEO Group, a publicly traded rm headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. e com-
pany reported $636.2 million in revenue for the second quarter of 2025, a 4.8 percent increase compared to the same quarter last year — a surge that came as the Trump administration began ramping up its immigration crackdown.
George Zoley, GEO Group’s chairman, said during an August earnings call that the need for beds increased at 21 of the rm’s facilities during the second quarter.
“[It’s] the highest level of ICE utilization in our company’s history,” Zoley said.
GEO Group’s “ICE utilization” involves more than just detention beds. It involves tracking devices, too.
A June 9th ICE memo suggests the 183,000 immigrants under the Alternatives to Detention program should be tted with tracking devices “whenever possible,” e Washington Post reported in July. Currently, Miguel and 24,000 other immigrants are wearing electronic ankle bracelets, a number that is expected to increase as national immigration enforcement intensi es.
GEO Group subsidiary BI Incorporated manufactures GPS ankle monitors and has been contracting with ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program for 20 years. According to ICE’s website, the daily cost for one of these devices is estimated at $4.20 per person.
For Miguel, living with one of these ankle monitors is a struggle.
“Walking with it is painful, and honestly it bothers me. It’s uncomfortable,” he said.
e stigma surrounding the tracking device has also taken a toll on Miguel. Out in public, people stare at him as if looking at a hard-core criminal, he said, reminding him he is still not free.
“I still feel tied up,” Miguel said.
GEO GROUP AND ICE’S PARTNERSHIP
As GEO Group’s revenues have surged, so have questions about ties between the company and members of Trump’s administration.
e Washington Post reported in May that Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan earned at least $5,000 in consulting fees from GEO Group in the two years prior to his January appointment as Trump’s border czar. “Ethics rules do not require any more speci c disclosure, and the amount Homan received could be far higher,’’ e Post reported.
In late August, three Democratic members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Homan inquiring about his ties to the company. e document alleges the border czar was in uential in the appointment of David Venturella, a former GEO Group executive, as one of ICE’s top o cials overseeing contract management for immigration detention centers.
e congressmen allege in the letter that Homan’s past consulting for GEO
Group and his involvement with Venturella “raise serious concerns about potential con icts of interest.”
e letter says Homan should be recused from “all matters that could directly or indirectly bene t GEO Group, including through the award, writing, and execution of federal contracts.”
Questions about Homan intensi ed earlier this fall when national media outlets reported that he was caught on tape in September 2024 accepting a bag lled with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen, allegedly to help them obtain contracts related to immigration enforcement if Trump was elected president. e Washington Post, New York Times, and other news media organizations reported that the Trump administration later shut down the bribery probe that was launched when Joe Biden was president.
Homan has since denied taking $50,000, calling the allegation a “hit piece.”
e Trump White House pushed back, too.
“ is blatantly political investigation, which found no evidence of illegal activity, is yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who ooded our country,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement in response to the reports. “Tom Homan has not been involved with any contract award decisions. He is a career law enforcement o cer and lifelong public servant who is doing a phenomenal job on behalf of President Trump and the country.’’
Congressman Jamie Raskin (DMaryland) says the government should release of any video and audio evidence to clear up the matter.
“We want those released to the public,” Representative Raskin told CNN. “If there’s no crime and they really think that the whole thing should be quashed, then they should not be afraid of showing that to the public.”
e Institute for Public Service Re-
porting reached out to ICE, the White House, and GEO Group for comment but has yet to receive a response.
LIVING IN LIMBO
It has been ve months since Miguel was released from detention on a $2,500 bond. e order of release by U.S. Immigration Judge Jamee Comans cited a “full consideration of the evidence presented,’’ which included documents showing he was protected by deferred action.
Since then, Miguel’s days have been lled with uncertainty.
“What is going to happen with me? What is going to happen in the future?” he asked, concerned that neither he nor his lawyer have received any updates regarding his case. “I am confused.”
Miguel and his mother are the nancial providers for the family of nine. ey work opposite schedules at local manufacturing companies. If he is removed from the country, the family would lose half its nancial support.
Attorney Austin describes Miguel as an “incredibly sel ess” person.
“Everything that he does is for his mom and his siblings,” she said.
But she realizes she is ghting against time to keep him in the country. Miguel’s deferred action expires next June, when he will lose his protection from deportation.
His next immigration check-in has been set for December.
As he waits, Miguel says he cherishes every moment he has with his family, “sharing conversations, meals, and laughter.” But he is aware that things can change at any given moment. He says family separations are painful and crippling.
“It’s as if they clip o one of your wings,” he said.
Erika Konig is an intern for the Institute for Public Service Reporting. A senior journalism student at the University of Memphis, she is a rst-generation college student and a naturalized citizen from Mexico. She graduated summa cum laude from Southwest Tennessee Community College before enrolling last spring in the U of M.
PHOTO: KAREN PULFER FOCHT Miguel (not pictured) was arrested along this street.
steppin’ out
We Recommend: Culture, News + Reviews
Art from the Heart
By Abigail Morici
e rst cowboys were Black Americans and Mexicans, José Valverde says over the phone, and this is a fact that resonates with him — a fact that’s o en forgotten, but one that carries a legacy of freedom and agency. As such, in his spare time, he teaches kids about this history through his mentorship with Southern Blues Equestrian Center’s BridgeUP: GiddyUP, which uses horseback riding as a tool for youth development. “Healing through knowledge,” he calls it.
is, too, is how he approaches his art: re ecting on his cultural past to assert his identity, as in his show, “Origins,” on display at the UrbanArt Commission. “You can’t really move forward until you go back to where you come from,” Valverde says.
Growing up as a Mexican-American in Memphis, Valverde says he searched for an identity his “whole youth and most of my adult life,” as he teetered between two cultural worlds, not truly rooted in either. But there was always art to hold him over, in some way. “I felt like if I didn’t have something in my hand and a piece of paper, I wasn’t really happy,” he says. “So every time I would just draw whatever, and I was able to grow.” ose black-and-white drawings carried him through most of his young life until about 2017. “A er some rough times, I felt like painting would be the answer for it,” Valverde says now.
PHOTO: COURTESY UAC José Valverde’s paintings brought color into his life.
Valverde needed color — bright, bold, shiny colors of sunsets, of indigenous headdresses with feathers and textiles, of luchador masks, of halos encircling the Virgin Mary, the colors of his Native and Mexican heritage. “[Painting] brought me back to my culture to understand where I come from, who I am, my ancestors, the people before me and everything they have fought for and done for me to be able to express myself and showcase the beauty of my traditions.”
When he paints these colorful subjects, he studies them, learns the histories, the legends, the folklore, the nuances. “I call my art ‘art from the heart’ because everything that I paint has a story to it. … I feel like that is my way of portraying the beauty of my life, the passion of my life, and who I have become,” Valverde says.
He wants his art to resonate with viewers, his story to encourage empathy and sympathy, especially in a time when the Latino community is under heightened discrimination. “We can use art as a medium of coming together and nding community,” he says. “People need to understand that at some point we were all part of that immigration.”
To celebrate his “Origins” exhibit, on Saturday, November 15th, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Valverde will host a community workshop at Southern Blues Equestrian Center to explore the connection Native Americans and Black Americans shared with horses before and a er the colonization of America.
“ORIGINS,” URBAN ART COMMISSION, 422 N. CLEVELAND, THROUGH NOVEMBER 17.
Shell Pantry Days
Overton Park Shell, 1928 Poplar Avenue, ursday, November 13, noon-6 p.m.
As the federal government shutdown, and rescission of SNAP bene ts, leaves many families facing food insecurity, the Shell team and the Neighborhood Christian Centers are joining forces to ensure essential support is sustained.
“Paper Moons”: Art Exhibition & Drag Show
O e Walls Arts, 360 Walnut Street, Friday, November 14, 6:30-11 p.m., free/art exhibition, $10/drag show
Begin at artist and papermaker Colleen Couch’s exhibition opening for “Late for the Sky,” featuring her new collection of illuminated paper pulp paintings inspired by the colors of the shi ing sky. en see the “Paper Moons” drag show hosted by Saint Mothi, Juicy Massacre, and Brinka Honeydew, with performances by Onyx Davenport, Hunny Blunt, Moxie Macabre, Demonica Santangelo, and the hosts.
musical experience in tribute to Earth, Wind & Fire. Expect music from a four-piece horn section and featured musicians from bands like the BarKays, Memphis Soul Shockers, and the Lucky 7 Brass Band. Tickets include hors d’oeuvres by Corinne’s Very Special Catering. Purchase tickets at tinyurl.com/mww3xx52.
LaZer Divas vs. e Sky Pirates of Destiny
Pink Palace Museum & Mansion, Saturday, November 15, 7 p.m. & 8:30 p.m., $30.75
e Mid-South community is invited to stock the stage with nonperishable, canned goods; household items; hygiene products; infant essentials; and more on ursdays, November 13th, November 20th, December 4th, and December 11th. ose who wish to provide hands-on support throughout the duration of Pantry Days can sign up for shi s at tinyurl.com/9dt5mh9t.
All About Love - e Music of Earth, Wind, & Fire
Esplanade Memphis, 901 Cordova Station Avenue, Saturday, November 15, 6 p.m., $75
Kevin & Bethany Paige present a new
Opera Memphis presents this groovy space adventure show of cloned superstar divas on an interstellar cruise ship who must repel a band of ruthless space pirates desperate to prove their vocal supremacy. High jinks abound. Purchase tickets at operamemphis.org. is production will include strobe lights.
MUSIC By Alex Greene
Memphian Joins the Rolling Stones!
New box set reveals how, for a few days, Robert A. Johnson lived the dream.
Did that headline get your attention? Full disclosure: is isn’t exactly breaking news. Rather, it refers to a magic moment in 1975 when ace guitarist Robert A. Johnson (no relation to the bluesman, and now a respected producer) was called to an audition seeking replacements for Mick Taylor, who’d been the band’s guitarist since the demise of Brian Jones. And that tryout involved recording tracks for the Stones’ next album. It was a dream come true for the then-23-year-old lad from North Memphis, dubbed “ e Frayser Flash” by some. Yet for decades, those tracks sat on a shelf.
at made it all the more galvanizing when it was announced that on Friday, November 14th, Interscope/UMe would release a “super deluxe” box set (in four-CD and ve-LP versions) collecting previously unheard tracks from the Stones’ 1976 album, Black and Blue. Today, perusing the credits of the soon-tobe-released collection, one can nally see Johnson properly acknowledged on at least one of the previously unreleased tracks, “Rotterdam Jam,” also featuring Je Beck and, of course, Keith Richards. Johnson had known Beck since he’d come to Memphis to record “ e Orange Album,” as 1972’s Je Beck Group LP is known, with Steve Cropper. He’d even sold Beck a guitar, later immortalized as “ e Oxblood” Les Paul that sold for $1,315,708 a er Beck’s death. But Johnson was not expecting to see him at a Stones audition.
Of course, this wasn’t your typical Stones session, taking place in Rotterdam while the band oated around Europe in 1974-75. During this period, they tried out a few guitarists.
At the time, Johnson’s reputation across the pond was growing. A er some years in Isaac Hayes’ band, he began visiting England, and in September of 1974, he was asked to audition for e Ox, bassist John Entwistle’s solo project when he wasn’t playing with e Who. At the appointed hour, the rehearsal hall, lled with e Who’s gear, had several other guitarists vying for the spot. Johnson walked in and addressed them: “Guys, y’all better go home because I’m getting this f*cking job.” He did.
At a recording session in December, Johnson, still in England, happened to be working with Nicky Hopkins, the legendary session keyboardist who played on classic tracks by the Beatles, the Kinks, and countless others. During a break in recording, Hopkins
approached Johnson. “He says, ‘Hey, Robert, Mick Taylor just quit the Rolling Stones. I want to give your phone number to Mick Jagger — do you mind?’”
Johnson gave his blessing, but nothing seemed to come of it. Meanwhile, says Johnson, “All you saw every day in the newspapers, all the trades, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, and Sounds, was ‘Who’s going to be in the Stones?’” Finally, while Johnson was in London, the phone rang and the voice on the line said, “Hey, Robby, it’s Mick. We want to know if you want to come over and have a play with us.” As Johnson recalls, “I was going, ‘Who is this?’ I thought somebody was playing a joke on me.”
As it turned out, it really was Mick Jagger, and by the next morning Johnson was on the rst ight to Rotterdam, Holland, where the Stones were holding court in a large orchestral rehearsal space. “I get to the hotel,” Johnson
explains, “it’s about 8:30 in the morning, and I buzz the room, and Jagger answers and says, ‘Hey, did you make it okay? How’s your room? Did you bring your guitar?’ Yeah, yeah, of course I brought my guitar. And then he says, ‘Okay, we’re going to bed now. I’ll call you about 5 or 6 o’clock in the a ernoon.’” at evening, Johnson, the band, and their entourage headed to “sort of a side room o this huge auditorium, like a banquet room. And it took me about an hour to nd an amp that worked. Of course, they were, you know, ‘partaking’ a little bit. Finally, we got down to a little bit of jamming, and then I look up at the back of the room and there’s Je Beck standing with a road guy holding two guitars. He’s got a big cigar in his mouth.”
One of those guitars was e Oxblood, and, as the evening wore on, all of them jammed. Some tracks were recorded with a mobile studio, engineered by Glyn Johns, and then every-
one “went back to hotel and proceeded to take over the bar and drink till the wee hours of the morning,” Johnson recalls. “And I was told that night that they’d already chosen Ronnie Wood. ey were just trying to get tracks cut and play the eld and play with the newspapers and spread rumors, but really they were just trying to get Ronnie out of his contract with the Faces.”
Yet there was more in store for Johnson. e next day there was more jamming, then Beck returned to London and Billy Preston showed up. Johnson stayed into the night as the band worked on the prospective album track “Built at Way.” It was not destined to be included on Black and Blue, nor is it on the new box set, but will likely be in a future compilation of outtakes from the band’s middle era. “We want you to have a blow,” Jagger said to Johnson. “Mick says, ‘We’re dying to get you to have a blow on the track because we know you’re the lead guitar player and more like the Mick Taylor kind of thing.’ And so I put some headphones on and just played that solo. en Keith said, ‘ at’s great!’” Upon playback, Johnson told them, “I can de nitely do it much better.” But the Stones weren’t having it. “ ey go, ‘Man, you’re not touching that!’ And then I had to get back to London because I was in John Entwistle’s band, and we were getting ready to be on e Old Grey Whistle Test.”
While the jams and “Built at Way” have since been leaked on bootlegs, the new box set is the rst o cial release of Stones material featuring Johnson. And, he says, they didn’t even get those credits right. In addition to “Rotterdam Jam,” on which Johnson solos and contributes choppy funk guitar, “Freeway Jam” also features three guitars (Johnson, Beck, and Richards), with Johnson’s Memphis soul licks clearly audible, while Johnson also identi es his guitar, muted but bleeding through, on “Blues Jam.”
Today, Johnson, who’s traveling to London this week for a VIP listening event centered on the new box set, is both delighted and “frustrated.” He nally has that credit on one Rolling Stones track, yet he knows he was on two others. “Of course, I was just a young kid when this was all happening,” he re ects. “But hey, man, I’d have been super bummed if I wasn’t on [the box set] at all. I’ll take it, and if I am on these other tracks, I’m just gonna say [to the Rolling Stones], ‘You can make it up to me by letting me play on one song at one of your concerts.’”
PHOTO: COURTESY ROBERT JOHNSON
John Entwistle and Robert Johnson, London, 1974
CALENDAR of EVENTS: November 13 - 19
ART AND SPECIAL EXHIBITS
Amy Hutchison Exhibition
“Through biomorphic and geometric visual language, I dismantle and reconstruct the world around me.” Through Dec. 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
“Bettye’s Bin: The Personal Archives of Stax Songwriter Bettye Crutcher”
Crutcher’s rediscovered archives now return home. Free. Through Feb. 22.
STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC
Brantley Ellzey –
“Reflection + Ritual + Refuge”
The spiral turns through this exhibition like a silent logic. Through Jan. 25.
CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE
“From Paris to the Prairie”: The George H. Booth II Collection
Eleven spectacular prints by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Peter Ilsted, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and Rockwell Kent. Free. Through Jan. 11.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
“Her Star is On the Rise”: New Works by Leanna Carey
Magical realist landscapes wrought in vivid colors. Through Dec. 15.
BUCKMAN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Judy Nocifora and the Hue Gurus Art Exhibit
The Hue Gurus work regularly with Nocifora. Through Nov. 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
“Last Whistle:
Steamboat Stories of Memphis”
Featuring detailed model boats and original steamboat artifacts. Through June 26.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
“L’Estampe Originale: A Graphic Treasure”
This rare 19th century portfolio features 95 works of graphic art by 74 artists. Free. Through Jan. 11.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Mary K. VanGieson:
“Chasing the Ephemeral”
Prints, sculptures, and installations made with alternative materials. Through Dec. 31.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Master Metalsmith
James Viste: “Let Me Tell You a Story” Filled with whimsy, humor, memories, and smithing techniques of the past. Through Feb. 1.
METAL MUSEUM
“Navigating Knowledge” Viewing vessels and navigation as metaphors for the transmission of knowledge. Through Oct. 31.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
New Works by Rebecca Chappell
Encaustic and cold wax paintings by this explorative artist. Free. Through Nov. 26. WKNO
Nick Canterucci Exhibit
An adventure in brilliant colors and graphic flourishes. Free. Through Nov. 21.
MEDICINE FACTORY
“Redemption of a Delta Bluesman: Robert Johnson”
A painting series reimagining the story of the mythical crossroads in blues lore. Through June 30.
GALLERY ALBERTINE
Sean Latif Heiser: “Time Is a Hearer”
Imagined landscapes and architectures, using symbolism. Through Jan. 9.
BEVERLY + SAM ROSS GALLERY
“Speaking Truth to Power: The Life of Bayard Rustin”
Illuminating Rustin’s innovative use of the “medium” to communicate powerful messages of nonviolence, activism, and authenticity. $20/Adult, $18/senior, college student, $17/children 5-17. Through Dec. 31.
NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM
PHOTO: DAN BALL
Cori Dials stars in Cigarette Girl, Mike McCarthy’s dystopian vision of a Mid-South on the skids.
U of M Graduating Seniors: “Odds and Ends”
Students from U of M’s department of art and design in studio arts and photography reveal the artists they’ve become. Friday, Nov. 14-Dec. 2 THE UGLY ART COMPANY
ART HAPPENINGS
Art History 101
Come travel through time with this lecture series surveying western art, beginning with prehistoric art and focusing on a new period each week $12. Thursday, Nov. 13, 6-7:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
ARTrageous
A one-of-a-kind night featuring live music, interactive art, captivating performances, and unforgettable surprises. Thursday, Nov. 13, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
CROSSTOWN ARTS AT THE CONCOURSE
Like Really Creative Junk Journal Jam with Yo Breezye
Choose your favorite art supplies and create mixed-media collages in your journal. With DJ Yo Breezye. Thursday, Nov. 13, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Opening Reception for “Odds and Ends”
Meet the latest artists from U of M’s department of art and design in studio arts and photography. Friday, Nov. 14, 5-7 p.m.
THE UGLY ART COMPANY
Paper Moons: Art Exhibition & Drag Show
First, an opening for artist and papermaker Colleen Couch’s exhibition, “Late for the Sky,” featuring her new collection of illuminated paper pulp paintings. Next, the Paper Moons drag show. Opening free, $10/ drag show. Friday, Nov. 14, 6:30-11 p.m.
OFF THE WALLS ARTS
The Memphis Potters’ Guild Holiday Show and Sale
With ornaments, mugs, cups, plates, pitchers, platters, bowls, and so much more.
Opening reception, Friday, Nov. 14, 4-8 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 15, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 16, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
ST. ANN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND SCHOOL
BOOK EVENTS
David Wesley Williams: Come Again No More
Meet Charley Hull, erstwhile newspaper reporter, the voice of David Wesley Williams’ most personal and poignant novel yet. Thursday, Nov. 13, 5:30 p.m.
BURKE’S BOOK STORE
Harmonia Rosales on Chronicles of Ori: An African Epic
Following her 2023 exhibition which reimagined European Old Master paintings through an Afro-Cuban lens, artist Harmonia Rosales returns to the museum. Wednesday, Nov. 19, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Thomas Dann: Midnight in Memphis
In this Southern noir, two detectives strive to bridge racial divides and catch a killer. Tuesday, Nov. 18, 6 p.m. NOVEL
CLASS / WORKSHOP
Beginners Casting: Playing in the Sand
No experience necessary. $450. Saturday, Nov. 15, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 16, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
METAL MUSEUM
Charmayne James Barrel Clinic
Learn barrel racing and good horsemanship. Thursday, Nov. 13-Nov. 16.
AGRICENTER INTERNATIONAL
Country Swing Dance Lessons
No partner required. Friday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m.
WHISKEY JILL’S
Send the date, time, place, cost, info, phone number, a brief description, and photos — two weeks in advance — to calendar@memphisflyer.com.
DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, ONGOING WEEKLY EVENTS WILL APPEAR IN THE FLYER’S ONLINE CALENDAR ONLY. FOR COMPREHENSIVE EVENTS LISTING, VISIT EVENTS.MEMPHISFLYER.COM/CAL.
Figure Drawing (Clothed Model)
Artists of all levels can practice their skills drawing the human form. $12. Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Floral Design with Marianne Smith
A fun, all levels workshop on floral arrangements. $110. Tuesday, Nov. 18, 6-8 p.m.
HEIRLOOM HOUSE
Holiday Wreath Making Party (21+)
Kick off the holiday season with creativity and cheer! $45. Friday, Nov. 14, 6-8 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Homeschool DayQuilts and Textiles
Learn about the geometry of quilt patterns by making your own paper quilt squares. Thursday, Nov. 13, 10 a.m.noon.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Intro to MIG Welding: Quirky Candelabra
All welding classes are taught as introductory and hobby classes. $240. Saturday, Nov. 15, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
METAL MUSEUM
Kambo Frog Medicine
Facilitator Gillian Riley
Lepisto will present Kambo, a traditional Amazonian wellness practice. Sunday, Nov. 16, 10-11 a.m.
LUCYJA HYGGE
Pieced Together: Collage and Quilting
Workshop
Includes a guided viewing of the exhibition “Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilters in the American South.” $45. Sunday, Nov. 16, 12:30-3:30 p.m.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Planting Bulbs
Get your hands in the soil and learn the secrets to spectacular spring blooms. Free. Sunday, Nov. 16, 1-3 p.m.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Rhythm & Roots
A free program offering high-energy music and dance lessons for youth ages 6–17. Wednesday, Nov. 19, 6 p.m.
MEMPHIS YOUTH ARTS INITIATIVE CENTER
Super Saturday - Food in Art
Food in art and as art. Saturday, Nov. 15, 10 a.m.-noon.
MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART
Writing Workshop: Mansion Mysteries
Creative writing competitions for grades 4 to 8. $30/student, $25/MoSH member. Saturday, Nov. 15, 1-4 p.m.
MALLORY–NEELY HOUSE
COMEDY
Comedy Night With Ben and Bush. Sign-ups at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19, 7 p.m.
BAR DKDC
Open Mic Comedy Night
A hilarious Midtown tradition, with John Miller. Tuesday, Nov. 18, 8 p.m. HI TONE
Who Wrote That?! Comedians pair up to write each other’s jokes, then must perform them, with hilarious results. Sunday, Nov. 16, 8 p.m. HI TONE
COMMUNITY
Like Really Creative Inspiration Salon: Zip Code Zine Mixer
Meet with and make with your neighbors. Saturday, Nov. 15, 1-3 p.m.
MEMPHIS PUBLIC LIBRARIES
ORANGE MOUND BRANCH
Literacy Mid-South’s Leading in Literacy Awards Luncheon
Featuring the National Leading in Literacy Honoree, Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar. $200/individual ticket. Friday, Nov. 14, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
HILTON MEMPHIS
Lupus Support Group Connect, heal, and rise together. You’re not alone. Saturday, Nov. 15, noon-2 p.m. EAST SHELBY LIBRARY
Orpheum Soirée
Enjoy a time-hopping night to support the arts. $150. Friday, Nov. 14, 7-11 p.m.
ORPHEUM THEATRE
Plug In & Go: Memphis Electric Vehicle Experience
Meet local EV owners, explore electric cars up close, and enjoy games, prizes, and community fun. Free. Saturday, Nov. 15, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
CROSSTOWN CONCOURSE
Trash Cat’s Birthday Party
Celebrate the life and times of Memphis’ favorite Trash Cat. Drink specials, games and prizes. 21+ Free. Wednesday, Nov. 19, 5 p.m. HI TONE
EXPO/SALES
Daffodil and Amaryllis
Bulb Sale
Get ready for a glorious spring. Just in time for fall planting, the Dixon and the Mid-South Daffodil Society will host an in-person sale featuring the best bulbs to grow in the Mid-South. Saturday, Nov. 15, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
continued on page 20
Gifts of Green
Tropical and unusual plants, stylish pots, and other botanical novelties that make perfect gifts. Through Dec. 30.
MEMPHIS BOTANIC GARDEN
Punk Rock Flea Market
With clothing, art, vintage oddities, and more, not to mention great food and drink as you browse. All ages. Saturday, Nov. 15, 5-10 p.m.
HI TONE
Vesta Home Show
A cornucopia for the homecurious. Thursday, Nov. 13Nov. 19, closed Monday.
HIDDEN CREEK
FAMILY
Pre-School Story Time
Enjoy stories, songs, art activities, and creative play that connect with Collierville history. Friday, Nov. 14, 10:3011:30 a.m.
MORTON MUSEUM OF COLLIERVILLE
HISTORY
Sightseeing Cruise
A great way to see and learn a bit of Mississippi River history while visiting Memphis, Tennessee. $29.13. Friday, Nov. 14, 2:30-4 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 15, 2:30-4 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 16, 2:30-4 p.m.
MEMPHIS RIVERBOATS
CALENDAR: NOVEMBER 13 - 19
Special Story Time Event: Junie B. Jones with Circuit Playhouse
Figuring out the ups and downs of first grade is not always easy, but Junie always manages to get by with help from her friends. Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:30 a.m. NOVEL
Story Time at Novel
Recommended for children up to 5 years, Story Time at Novel includes songs and stories, featuring brand-new books in addition to well-loved favorites. Wednesday, Nov. 19, 10:30 a.m. NOVEL
FILM
Beale Street Monster Club: Phantom of the Opera Centennial
A masquerade celebrating the 100th anniversary of Phantom of the Opera (1925). Saturday, Nov. 15, 1-3 p.m.
A. SCHWAB
ELISABETH VON TRAPP
Elisabeth Von Trapp
Black Holes
This planetarium show gives an overview of black holes, how they form, and what would happen if you fell inside one. Thursday, Nov. 13-Nov. 19, 2 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Cigarette Girl
Director Mike McCarthy’s vision of a future dystopian Memphis, filmed in the Sears Tower, is all too recognizable today, as it’s being revived 15 years later. Also with opening short “Midnight Movie.” $10. Thursday, Nov. 13, 7 p.m.
MALCO STUDIO ON THE SQUARE
Cities of the Future 3D
Imagine stepping 50 years into the future and finding smart cities designed to be totally sustainable. Renewable energy and space-based solar power provide energy. Thursday, Nov. 13-Nov. 19, 4 p.m.
CTI 3D GIANT THEATER
Forward to the Moon
A planetarium show about the Artemis program, NASA’s project to return to the moon, from landing humans on the surface, to building a space station in lunar orbit, to establishing a human lunar base. Thursday, Nov. 13-Nov. 19, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Memphis Skies: What’s That in Our Night Sky?
Hop through constellations, learn cool star names, and groove to space music in this full dome planetarium experience. Thursday, Nov. 13-Nov. 19, 4 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet
The main characters are a herd of large, frilled, plant eating dinosaurs — Pachyrhinosaurus. Follow the youngsters through the seasons and the challenges they face. Thursday, Nov. 13-Nov. 19, 3 p.m.
CTI 3D GIANT THEATER
FOOD AND DRINK
Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market
A weekly outdoor market featuring local farmers (no resellers), artisans, and live music. Saturday, Nov. 15, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Downtown Beer Run at South Point Grocery
Join the Downtown Beer Runners for a free group run in Downtown Memphis, beginning at 6:30 p.m. on the South Point Grocery patio, then stay after for a beer with the group. Tuesday, Nov. 18, 6:30-8 p.m.
SOUTH POINT GROCERY
Left Right Center
An easy-to-learn, fast-paced dice game. Grab a drink, roll the dice, and let the good times roll. Sunday, Nov. 16, 2 p.m.
DRU’S BAR
“Papa Bear Trivia” with Shawn
Bring your brainpower and your crew for a night of free trivia, testing your knowledge across a variety of topics and competing for bragging rights. Thursday, Nov. 13, 7 p.m.
DRU’S BAR
Yokai Sushi Pop Up Cuisine crafted by Darren Phillips. Thursday, Nov. 13, 6 p.m. HI TONE
CALENDAR
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14
CAMERON BETHANY
MUSIC | 7:30 PM | THE GREEN ROOM
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 18
KEIA JOHNSON
MUSIC | 7:30 PM | THE GREEN ROOM
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 21
KATHY ZHOU & ABYIL: “REVERIE”
MUSIC | 7:30 PM | THE GREEN ROOM
CROSSTOWN ARTS
PHOTO: COURTESY MEMPHIS BROOKS MUSEUM OF ART Harmonia Rosales will promote her new book.
HEALTH AND FITNESS
Puppies & Yoga
Warning: You may fall in love mid–down dog. Puppy yoga is coming to Sana — free with a $25 donation benefiting @bluescityanimalrescue. Sunday, Nov. 16, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
SANA YOGA DOWNTOWN
Taijiquan with Milan Vigil This Chinese martial art promotes relaxation, improves balance, and provides no-impact aerobic benefits. Ages 16 and older. Free. Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:30-11:30 a.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Yoga
Strengthen your yoga practice and enjoy the health benefits of light exercise with yoga instructor Laura Gray McCann. All levels welcome. Free. Thursday, Nov. 13, 6 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
Sana Social with Sana Yoga
A night to move, connect, and unwind, starting with hot yoga, then going to Rock ‘N Dough. Friday, Nov. 14, 5:30-8 p.m.
SANA YOGA DOWNTOWN
HOLIDAY EVENTS
Lantern Festival
A one-of-a-kind holiday light experience featuring more than 60 larger-than-life illuminated fixtures. Friday, Nov. 14-Feb. 1
MEMPHIS ZOO
PWB Breakfast with Santa at the Vesta Home Show
Experience holiday fun this fall at the Vesta Home Show. Saturday, Nov. 15, 9-11 a.m.
HIDDEN CREEK
LECTURE
Munch and Learn | Notes and Strokes: American Women Composers and Artists in Paris
With Ewelina Boczkowska, assistant professor of musicology, and Rebecca Howard, associate professor of art history, University of Memphis. Wednesday, Nov. 19, noon-1 p.m.
THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS
PERFORMING ARTS
Classical Comedies & Cocktails: Blithe Spirit
An entertaining reading of Noël Coward’s sophisticated farce launched by a surprising seance that results in one man’s two wives battling it out between this world and the next. Sunday, Nov. 16, 3 p.m.
TENNESSEE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
Freakshow
What’s your thing? Come show out. You’re welcome to perform or just enjoy the show.
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 8:30 p.m.
LAMPLIGHTER LOUNGE
LaZer Divas vs. The Sky Pirates of Destiny
Opera Memphis presents this groovy space adventure where cloned superstar divas on an interstellar cruise ship must repel a band of ruthless space pirates desperate to prove their vocal supremacy. Saturday, Nov. 15, 7-9 p.m.
PINK PALACE MUSEUM & MANSION
Mr. & Mrs. Hi Tone Pageant
Hosted by Pattie O’Furniture. Friday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m.
HI TONE
The Make-Up Show
The latest must-see event from the mischie-
vous minds of Friends of George’s and The Break-up Show. Free. Thursday, Nov. 13, 8 p.m. | Friday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 15, 8 p.m.
THE EVERGREEN THEATRE
SPECIAL EVENTS
Mah Jongg
Tournament League
The first Mah Jongg Tournament League is designed for intermediate players who are looking for a challenge, or just to have fun. $50/general admission. Saturday, Nov. 15, 1-4 p.m.
P.F. CHANG’S
Trivia with Damien
Damien creates approachable trivia that’s challenging and fun, with a laid-back atmosphere and plenty of trash talking the bar team. Saturday, Nov. 15, 5-7 p.m.
MFS BREWING
SPORTS
Memphis Hustle vs. Austin Spurs Saturday, Nov. 15, 7 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 16, 5 p.m.
LANDERS CENTER
Memphis Hustle vs. Rio Grande Valley Vipers Wednesday, Nov. 19, 10:30 a.m. LANDERS CENTER
Memphis Tigers vs. UNLV Sunday, Nov. 16, 4 p.m. FEDEXFORUM
THEATER
Chain Reaction: For Every Action there is a Reaction
A play with a message and music depicting faith, hope and life’s common reactions to events. Family-oriented for all audiences. $40/ general admission, $50/VIP admission/before show reception. Friday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m.
WEST MEMPHIS CIVIC CENTER AUDITORIUM
Junie B. Jones the Musical
Based on the popular children’s book by Barbara Park, this stage adaptation follows the energetic and outspoken first-grader, Junie B. Jones. With memorable music, funny kid situations, and a lively portrayal of a kid’s perspective while exhibiting themes of friendship, self discovery, and growing up. Thursday, Nov. 13, 8 p.m. | Friday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 15, 8 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 16, 2 p.m. CIRCUIT PLAYHOUSE
The Thanksgiving Play
This satirical comedy follows a group of four well-meaning but culturally insensitive white theatre artists as they create a politically correct elementary school play about the first Thanksgiving. They struggle with their own biases and the lack of Native representation to fulfill their goal of “appropriately” telling the story commonly reduced to stereotypes.
Thursday, Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m. | Friday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 15, 7:30 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 16, 2 p.m.
THEATRE MEMPHIS
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz, based on the book by L. Frank Baum, tells the enchanting story of Dorothy Gale after she is swept away by a powerful twister and finds herself in the mystical land of Oz. Friday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. | Saturday, Nov. 15, 8 p.m. | Sunday, Nov. 16, 2 p.m.
PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE
ACROSS
1 Too fast to be careful
9 Stockpile
14 Gaze at, as someone’s eyes
15 Tool used while on foot
16 Be heedful
17 “___ LANDS!” (headline of 1927)
18 Shoe brand that’s also a man’s name
19 Exact match
20 Euphemism for Satan, with “the”
21 Unctuous utterances
23 Prey for a heron
25 Short
26 TV series inspired by Sherlock Holmes
29 Someone glimpsed in a concert film, maybe
Crossword
31 Rum cocktail
34 Need settling
35 So-called “Grandmother of Europe,” born 5/24/1819
39 Boot
40 Reached out with one’s hands?
41 Inventor of a 17th-century calculator
43 One use for a tablet
48 La saison de juillet
49 Backpack and its contents, e.g.
52 What a football penalty may be seen in
53 Time being
55 Odds and evens, say
58 Do so hope
59 Pioneering rocket scientist Wernher von ___
60 Fictional land named in some real-life international law cases
62 Worshiper of the war god Huitzilopochtli
63 Opening of an account
64 Like the sound of an oboe
65 Some descendants of 62-Acrosses
DOWN
1 Patron of sailors
2 Horse-drawn four-wheeled carriage
3 Passions
4 Shade of green
5 By ___ of
6 Over
7 Bring discredit upon
8 Star of Broadway’s “The Lady and Her Music,” 1981
9 Didn’t stray from
10 Cartoon character often shown with his tongue out
Mass movement
Cold War opponent, informally
Not moved at all
URL element
Rickrolling or the Dancing Baby, e.g.
London or Manchester
Edited by Will Shortz No.
Priciest 1952 Topps baseball card
Shabby club
National Garden Mo.
Passes, informally 33 Part of un opéra
Portion of Alexander Pope’s work
Amenity at many a wedding reception
F.B.I., e.g.
Source for fine sweaters
BY STANLEY NEWMAN
PHOTO: COURTESY THE MEMPHIS POTTERS GUILD
Memphis Potters’ Guild Holiday Show
We Saw You.
WITH MICHAEL DONAHUE
See if you recognize any of these people or places. is is another special We Saw You edition of “Man and Woman — with the occasional Animal — on the Street.”
I shoot random photos of people just about wherever I go. So this week you’ll see people at Maciel’s Taqueria, Tonica Downtown; Zio Matto Gelato; Folk’s Folly Prime Steak House; South Front Antiques; A-Tan; Meat Me in Memphis; Mempho Music Festival; Tops Bar-B-Q and Burgers; Red Birds stadium; Dr. Bean’s Co ee & Tea Emporium; Erling Jensen Small Bites; Chuck Hutton Toyota; Monkeygrass Mayhem; Clancy’s Cafe in Red Banks, Mississippi; and Marshall Steakhouse in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
PHOTOS: MICHAEL DONAHUE above: Sipa Gabagouri below: (le to right) Ron Childers; Kitty Dearing; Tristina Wen and Madeline Gray bottom le : Dr. Ed Scott, Beth Wilson, Tim Duncan bottom right: Eric Nielsen and Dustin Brantley
right: (le to right) Manuel Martinez; Danielle Wilcox and Tucker Hurdle below : (le to right) Christian De Leon and Andrew Cavallo; Will Coleman and John-Paul Gagliano; Lacey and Tyler Clancy; Jacob Burns bottom le : Brett and Elizabeth Schubert
above: (le to right) Max and Madeline Martinson; Jack Simon and Savannah McCarter; Calvin Bell
FOOD By Michael Donahue
In God’s Hands
Daniel Pesce serves his popular Mi Paisan at his deli; (inset) Italian Sausage Sandwich Pesce’s Italian Deli serves heavenly fare.
Ihad to check out Pesce’s Italian Deli a er I saw a Facebook post about the new eatery. I’ve known the Pesce family for decades. en I saw a photo of the owner, Daniel Pesce, 54. For years, Pesce would let me sample his Italian sausage at the Italian Winterfest fundraisers.
His deli is inside e Forum o ce complex at 6750 Poplar. I wasn’t sure where it was, so I asked Nielsen Ferry, who was entering the building, for directions. He was very familiar with Pesce’s place. “It’s dangerous,” he told me. “ ose smells get going at lunchtime.”
Pesce’s Italian Deli, which is in e Forum 1 building, is a comfortable space with six-four tops, lots of windows, two freezer cases, and a counter, where Pesce will greet you if he’s not in the kitchen.
e deli’s primary purpose is to be a place where o ce and business owners at e Forum, which comprises three buildings, can eat, Pesce says. But it’s also open to the public. And, Pesce says, “I just happen to know everybody in the city, luckily.”
His deli, which opened October 29th, is designed to be “a place where you can eat every meal.” at means breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Pesce partners with Sunrise Memphis (East Memphis) for breakfast items. Pesce’s pastas, risottos, sauces, and take-outs — as well as some Lucchesi’s Ravioli & Pasta Company items — are featured at dinner.
But lunch is all Pesce. “We are having a party at lunch. I’m so busy I have to go to Facebook to see who was there during the day.”
He’s not getting a lot of sleep these days since he’s usually up until 1 a.m. making sausage. “I’ve been getting two hours of sleep a night.”
Pesce sells out of his meatballs and most of his Italian sausage each day. “I can’t make this fast enough.”
A Memphis native, Pesce, who grew up in Whitehaven, has been making Italian sausage since he was 12 years old.
His father, who was born in Calizzano, Italy, cooked the “fun things” like pastas and other Italian dishes at their home. Pesce’s mom took care of the daily family meals. “ ey both loved to cook, and I learned to cook from both of them.”
Pesce’s dad worked at his parents’ grocery store in South Memphis while he attended law school at night. A er he graduated from law school, he bought Granny’s Market with Louis “Weejie” Vescovo. He also bought
the recipe for the store’s Northern Italian sausage.
Pesce began working at Granny’s Market when he was young. “I remember my dad coming in: ‘Get your ass up. You’re going to work today.’”
When he was 12, Frank Retari, who made sausage at Granny’s Market, taught him to make the Italian sausage.
Pesce began making sandwiches when he started working at Snappy Sacker Grocery Store, which his dad co-owned. He remembers a fellow employee telling him, “You’re going to have a sandwich shop one day.”
Pesce still uses the original recipe for the Italian sausage. “I have not changed the recipe whatsoever.”
He uses “100 percent” Boston butts. “Most people use pork scraps. at’s when you trim hogs and things. Pork scraps have a little meat attached.”
Pesce cuts up the Boston butt into little chunks. “You pour seasoning over it, grind it up, and then you add a little wine in there, mix it up again. And I use natural hog casings.”
I gured the seasoning ingredients were secret, but I asked him what they were anyway. “Salt and pepper,” he says, with a sly smile. at’s the only ingredients he would reveal. “It is very secret.”
When he was 19, Pesce moved from food to radio when he began working at Flinn Broadcasting. His jobs included program director for Real Sports Talk Sports 56.
Around 2015, while still at the radio station, Pesce began marketing his Pesce’s Authentic Italian Sausage. “I sold it to Lucchesi’s. High Point Pizza used it. Superlo carried it. Rizzi’s in Arlington. Billy Hardwick’s bowling alley put it on their pizzas.”
He also worked at Kirby Parkway Liquors, which was owned by his brother-in-law Chris Vescovo.
As for Pesce’s Authentic Italian Sausage, he says, “Covid knocked me out. We couldn’t get pork.”
Pesce continued to work at the liquor store until last September. He also was looking for a little place to open a deli. “I always wanted to do that.”
And, he says, “I knew it was a life thing.”
He began driving up and down Poplar Avenue near Germantown. “Nothing was reasonable.”
Pesce almost gave up. He said a prayer one night: “God, if you want this to happen, nd me a shop. ’Cause I’m done. I’m giving up. If you want me to do this, nd me a location.”
“ e very next day,” he says, Lorrie Fisk, who owns A Beautiful You Medical Spa in e Forum, came into the liquor store to buy some champagne. She and Pesce began talking about the building complex. Just as she was getting in her car, Pesce asked her if they “happened to need a deli” at e Forum. She said they sure did. ey’d had a deli, but it closed.
Pesce drove over to e Forum a er he got o work at 5:30 to take a look at the space. He said, “I’ll be damned. is is exactly what I’m looking for.”
He also discovered the leasing agent’s dad was his old high school baseball and basketball coach at St. Paul Catholic School.
During my visit to Pesce’s deli, I had to try “Mi Paisan,” which is one of his most popular sandwiches. It’s made with ve meats: mortadella, Volpi salami, prosciutto, capicola, and ham. He adds mayonnaise, onions, let-
tuce, tomatoes, and a blend of spices he calls “Flavor Dust.” He then adds an oil-and-vinegar blend to shredded lettuce on top.
Most of the sandwiches on the menu “have been in my head my whole life,” Pesce says.
He also went to “every sandwich shop” he could drive to, sampled di erent sandwiches, and gured out how he could improve the ones he liked.
People were in and out of the deli while I was there. I asked Pesce if all this tra c makes him think about opening a second location. “If the good Lord tells me another location is needed, I’ll do it. He found me this spot. So in the future, if I have time and I can do it, I’ll do it. It’s just too early.”
Meanwhile, surprising things are still happening to Pesce. While I was eating lunch, Pesce happened to mention that a small pipe burst on his ice machine. And, it just so happened, Jake Bainbridge, a commercial equipment repairman, was eating lunch at the table next to me. When he heard about the ice machine, Bainbridge went into the kitchen and xed it at no charge. at incident didn’t surprise Pesce. “It’s happened like that from day one. Too many coincidences to be a coincidence.”
PHOTO: MICHAEL DONAHUE
Scorpio Season
is much-maligned sign is more complex than you think.
Scorpio season is here, and we have much to learn from this much-maligned sign. All zodiac signs are more complex than we typically think, and Scorpios have more layers than many know. As a Scorpio myself, I enjoy sharing the hidden depths of the sign.
Scorpio rules the sky from October 23rd until November 21st. ose born under the sign are known for being passionate, intense, mysterious, and loyal, with a powerful sense of determination. ey possess a deep emotional reservoir, are highly intuitive, and o en have a magnetic presence. ey are known to use their intuition along with research skills to nd information.
Scorpios tend to be naturally curious about everything, especially things that are deemed occult or taboo. But the passion and intensity that many consider among the sign’s allures can also be a deterrent for those wanting to get closer to them. Scorpios tend to be secretive and distrustful until we’ve decided you are trustworthy, and that can take a while. at distrust can mean Scorpios can become jealous and manipulative. But once a Scorpio trusts you, they are loyal friends and partners.
evolved. It’s a tiny creature that feels threatened and protects itself with a venomous stinger. is echoes the tendency among some Scorpios to lash out rather than let themselves be vulnerable. ey can cause more harm than they think, but they’re usually acting out of a desire for self-preservation and defense rather than malevolence.
e serpent aspect of Scorpio shows up when they have learned to be charming (and/or manipulative) to get what they want. e serpent also re ects the versatility and love of change that we associate with this sign. e eagle aspect
Much of Scorpio’s association with the occult and the taboo comes from the sign being ruled by two planets, Mars and Pluto. Mars has long been linked to Scorpio’s passionate and aggressive qualities, whereas Pluto is associated with transformation and the hidden forces that shape reality.
Scorpio symbolism centers on transformation, rebirth, intense emotions, and hidden power. It is the only zodiac sign represented by three symbols. Each sign has an image associated with it: Aries is a ram, Taurus is a bull, and so on. Each sign’s representative symbol, be it an animal, person, or an inanimate object, can tell you a lot about its overall personality. Although Scorpio is most represented by a scorpion, the sign actually has a few other animals associated with it — speci cally, the serpent, eagle, and phoenix. is is not to say the scorpion doesn’t accurately re ect the Scorpio archetype, but these other symbols capture aspects of the sign that may be omitted from your average personality pro le.
e scorpion is the most widely known symbol, but it’s also the least
of Scorpio re ects their intense stare, the ability to see the big picture, as well as their loyalty and vision. However, even at their most noble height, eagles are swi predators.
Finally, there is the phoenix aspect.
e phoenix is the most evolved form of Scorpio and represents their ability to weather change and transform. Many Scorpios reach this stage a er a momentous life shi or an immense personal loss. In the same way that a phoenix is reborn from ash, so, too, are these Scorpios. ese are the most magical, alchemical, and resourceful Scorpios who have a gi for making something out of nothing. ey possess the strengths of all the other forms: the scorpion’s power, the serpent’s knack for change, and the eagle’s big-picture thinking.
is season, get to know your local Scorpios for a refreshing dip into emotional and philosophical depths. Or use this time, as we wind down toward winter, to embrace some of the qualities of the sign. Wherever life takes you, enjoy your journey — and try to stay on the good side of a Scorpio.
Emily Guenther is a co-owner of e Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.
PHOTO © SCALIGER | DREAMSTIME.COM
By the editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication
The Entrepreneurial Spirit
On Oct. 18 in Bangkok, Thailand, Pittaya Moolin, 51, was arrested as he conducted a delicate procedure in the backseat of his vintage Toyota Corolla, the Daily Mail reported. Moolin, also known as Chang Yai Modify, allegedly offered genital enhancement treatments to men in the region in spite of the fact that he is not licensed to perform such services. He promoted his business on TikTok, offering penis enlargement, circumcision, and pearl implantations, saying he learned how to do the surgeries by watching social media videos. “I became interested in this kind of work, so I studied and developed it as a side hustle to supplement my income,” he said. Authorities found no sterilizing equipment in the makeshift operating theater, but they did find local anesthetics, surgical blades, needles, and other equipment. He was charged with practicing medicine without registration and authorization, which could land him in prison for three years.
Animal Antics
Ray Ray the cat clearly did not want to be left behind when his family left their home in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, for Keene, New Hampshire, on Sept. 26, The Washington Post reported. After driving about 100 miles, Tony Denardo, Ray Ray’s owner, stopped the family van for a bathroom break and discovered the 8-year-old cat clinging to the vehicle’s roof. “How did this cat stay on there?” wondered Tony’s wife, Margaret. “And he was completely unfazed.” The family believe Ray Ray lodged himself in between luggage strapped to the van’s top as they sped along the interstates. The Denardos leaned in, stopping at a pet store for a leash, harness, backpack, and food for Ray Ray, and he joined the adventure. Tony carried him across the finish line at a marathon in Keene, and Ray Ray “seemed to really like Times Square at night,” Margaret said of their stop in New York City. She plans to write a children’s book about her pet’s adventure.
Suspicions Confirmed
You may have heard that gold prices are at an all-time high, so it’s no wonder people are willing to go to extreme lengths to get their hands on it. Or, in this case, their private parts. Three women from Hong Kong were arrested in Japan on Oct. 20 for trying to smug-
gle about 8 kilograms of gold powder in their underwear, The Mainichi reported. The women were recruited by Masamori Nishimura, 34, they said, to conceal pouches of gold powder on a flight bound for Tokyo last summer. The precious metal was valued at about $650,000. The smugglers’ payment? Cash and travel expenses.
The Passing Parade
Kira Cousins, 22, of Airdrie, Scotland, allegedly misled family and friends for months about her pregnancy and the Oct. 10 birth of her daughter, BonnieLeigh Joyce, the Daily Star reported on Oct. 20. She wore a prosthetic baby bump and introduced a plastic Reborn doll as her newborn — even to the baby’s supposed dad. Cousins also claimed the baby girl had health problems including a heart defect, which was why she wouldn’t allow anyone to hold her. When her mom discovered the doll, Cousins messaged the would-be dad that Bonnie-Leigh had passed away, but the deception was soon revealed. “Everybody believed her,” said friend Neave McRobert. “We were all so happy. I feel totally used and drained.” Another friend said she had “noticed straight away that her bump wasn’t real. You could see the straps on her back holding it on.” Cousins declined to comment.
Inexplicable
Residents of the Rockridge area of Oakland, California, are on high alert, KTVU-TV reported, after someone keeps throwing rocks through home windows. The attacks have been going on for almost a year. Luis Aguirre said his home was targeted, after which he installed security cameras. On Oct. 6, video caught the man throwing a rock through Aguirre’s car window. “We got footage of the individual who did it,” he said. “Just aimlessly walking in the middle of the street.” Another homeowner said her duplex was hit six times in the last year. Neighbors have spent thousands of dollars repairing the damage. Oakland Police are investigating but can’t confirm that the incidents are related.
NEWS OF THE WEIRD © 2025 Andrews McMeel Syndication. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Akan concept of sankofa is represented by a bird looking backward while moving forward. The message is “Go back and get it.” You must retrieve wisdom from the past to move into the future. Forgetting where you came from doesn’t liberate you; it orphans you. I encourage you to make sankofa a prime meditation, Aries. The shape of your becoming must include the shape of your origin. You can’t transcend what you haven’t integrated. So look back, retrieve what you left behind, and bring it forward.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to engage in strategic forgetting. It’s the art of deliberately unlearning what you were taught about who you should be, what you should want, and how you should spend your precious life. Fact: Fanatical brand loyalty to yourself can be an act of self-sabotage. I suggest you fire yourself from your own expectations. Clock out from the job of being who you were yesterday. It’s liberation time!
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): We should all risk asking supposedly wrong questions. Doing so reminds us that truth and discovery often hide in the compost pile of our mistaken notions. A wrong question can help us shed tired assumptions, expose invisible taboos, and lure new insights out of hiding. By leaning into the awkward, we invite surprise, which may be a rich source of genuine learning. With that in mind, I invite you to ask the following: Why not? What if I fail spectacularly? What would I do if I weren’t afraid of looking dumb? How can I make this weirder? What if the opposite were true? What if I said yes? What if I said no? What if this is all simpler than I’m making it? What if it’s stranger than I can imagine?
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian novelist Octavia Butler said her stories were fueled by two obsessions: “Where will we be going?” and “How will we get there?” One critic praised this approach, saying she paid “serious attention to the way human beings actually work together and against each other.” Other critics praised her “clear-headed and brutally unsentimental” explorations of “far-reaching issues of race, sex, power.” She was a gritty visionary whose imagination was expansive and attention to detail meticulous. Let’s make her your inspirational role model. Your future self is now leaning toward you, whispering previews and hints about paths still half-formed. You’re being invited to be both a dreamer and builder, both a seer and strategist. Where are you going, and how will you get there?
By Rob Brezsny
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The Tagalog language includes the word kilig. It refers to the butterfly-in-the-stomach flutter when something momentous, romantic, or cute happens. I suspect kilig will be a featured experience for you in the coming weeks — if you make room for it. Please don’t fill up every minute with mundane tasks and relentless worrying. Meditate on the truth that you deserve an influx of such blessings and must expand your consciousness to welcome their full arrival.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Your liver performs countless functions, including storing vitamins, synthesizing proteins, regulating blood sugar, filtering 1.5 quarts of blood per minute, and detoxifying metabolic wastes. It can regenerate itself from as little as 25 percent of its original tissue. It’s your internal resurrection machine: proof that some damage is reversible, and some second chances come built-in. Many cultures have regarded the liver not just as an organ, but as the seat of the soul and the source of passions. Some practice ritual purification ceremonies that honor the liver’s pivotal role. In accordance with astrological omens, Virgo, I invite you to celebrate this central repository of your life energy. Regard it as an inspiring symbol of your ability to revitalize yourself.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The pupils of your eyes aren’t black. They are actually holes. Each pupil is an absence, a portal where light enters you and becomes sight. Do you understand how amazing this is? You have two voids in your face through which the world pours itself into your nervous system. These crucial features are literally made of nothing. The voidness is key to your love of life. Everything I just said reframes emptiness not as loss or deficiency, but as a functioning joy. Without the pupils’ hollowness, there is no color, no shape, no sunrise, no art. Likewise in emotional life, our ability to be delighted depends on vulnerability. To feel wonder and curiosity is to let the world enter us, just as light enters the eye.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The tour guide at the museum was describing the leisure habits of ancient Romans. “Each day’s work was often completed by noon,” he said. “For the remainder of the day, they indulged in amusement and pleasure. Over half of the calendar consisted of holidays.” As I heard this cheerful news, my attention gravitated to you, Sagittarius. You probably can’t permanently arrange your schedule to be like the Romans’. But you’ll be wise to do so during the coming days. Do you dare to give yourself such abundant comfort and delight? Might you be bold enough to rebel against the daily drudgery to honor your soul’s and body’s cravings for relief and release?
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Your dreams speak in images, not ideas. They bypass your rational defenses and tell the truth slantwise because the truth straight-on may be too bright to bear. The source of dreams, your unconscious, is fluent in a language that your waking mind may not be entirely adept in understanding: symbol, metaphor, and emotional logic. It tries to tell you things your conscious self refuses to hear. Are you listening? Or are you too busy being reasonable? The coming weeks will be a crucial time to tune in to messages from deep within you.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The Zulu greeting Sawubona means “I see you.” Not just “hello,” but “I acknowledge your existence, your dignity, and your humanity.” The response is Ngikhona: “I am here.” In this exchange, people receive a respectful appreciation of the fact that they contain deeper truths below the surface level of their personality. This is the opposite of the Western world’s default state of mutual invisibility. What if you greeted everyone like this, Capricorn — with an intention to bestow honor and recognition? I recommend that you try this experiment. It will spur others to treat you even better than they already do.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Bear with me while I propose an outlandishsounding theory: that you have enough of everything. Not eventually, not after the next achievement, but right now: You have all you need. What if enoughness is not a quantity but a quality of attention? What if enoughness isn’t a perk you have to earn but a treasure you simply claim? In this way of thinking, you consider the possibility that the finish line keeps moving because you keep moving it. And now you will decide to stop doing that. You resolve to believe that this breath, this moment, and this gloriously imperfect life are enough, and the voice telling you it’s not enough is selling something you don’t need.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The Inuit people have dozens of words for snow. The Scots have over 100 words for rain. Sanskrit is renowned for its detailed and nuanced vocabulary relating to love, tenderness, and spiritual bliss. According to some estimates, there are 96 different terms for various expressions of love, including the romantic and sensual kind, as well as compassion, friendship, devotion, and transcendence. I invite you to take an inventory of all the kinds of affection and care you experience. Now is an excellent phase to expand your understanding of these mysteries — and increase your capacity for giving and receiving them.
FILM By Kailynn Johnson
Get into the Ring
Sydney Sweeney stars as a pioneering boxer in Christy
Rooting for Sydney Sweeney was not on my 2025 bingo card — especially in a performance where she wears cornrows!
Sweeney’s portrayal of boxer Christy Martin comes at a complex time in her career. Sweeney’s earlier performance as Cassie Howard in HBO’s Euphoria lended her major street cred for Gen Z audiences, with roles in Anyone But You and e Voyeurs solidifying her as a fan favorite. ose days feel long gone though, as the actress was recently caught in controversy over an American Eagle jeans ad some thought gave a subtle nod to eugenics.
A biopic about a small-town basketball player turned powerhouse women’s boxer may be out of the norm for the actress. But as the title card vanishes and Sweeney stands in the corner in a quintessential ’80s mullet, you’d never think so.
Directed by e Rover’s David Michôd, Christy tells the story of renowned female boxer Christy Martin (née Salters). Within the rst ve minutes of the lm, we’re thrown directly into the world of Christy Salters, a West Virginia-born woman, who just won her rst boxing match on a dare from her teammates. Donning a champion jacket, her jubilation is disrupted at a family dinner where her mother brings up rumors of a secret relationship between Christy and her girlfriend Rosie (Jess Gabor).
e taboo of this relationship lingers in the background as Christy’s talent catches the eye of boxing coach James Martin (Ben Foster). ough apprehensive at rst, her tenacity and her natural knack for knocking heads inspire him to continue training her.
Christy and Rosie’s relationship eventually falls apart due to distance, with an attraction between Christy and James developing in its wake. e couple get married, still assuming the roles of trainer and boxer. As female boxing had not yet become a lucrative sport at the time, the pair faced nancial problems — on top of James’ controlling and violent tendencies and Christy’s uid sexuality.
A er several failed attempts to capitalize on Christy’s talent, the Martins land a meeting with famed boxing promoter Don King (Chad Coleman). Impressed by Christy’s charm and aptitude, King agrees to
Sydney Sweeney is Christy Martin in this biopic of the legendary boxer.
Scenes of Christy basking in her victory are quickly ushered out by shots of her vile husband.
take her as his rst female boxer. Under his management, she becomes known as the Coal Miner’s Daughter, a feared opponent whose pre-arena jawing mirrored her in-match jabs.
As Christy rises through the ranks and in popularity, we’re taken along on her meteoric success journey. But unfortunately, every celebratory win is cinematically and guratively cut short with the presence of James. Scenes of Christy basking in her victory are quickly ushered out by shots of her vile husband.
Words can’t describe how truly evil the monster known as James Martin is. e most sinister manufactured villains don’t seem to level up to Christy’s real-life antagonist, who happened to also be her husband. is disdain is further intensi ed when you realize the movie isn’t a work of ction.
e vividly cinematic sport of boxing would have served as a
haunting allegory for the trauma and abuse Christy su ered behind the scenes of her professional life. However, the lm is a biopic, making these parallels even more harrowing. Christy’s most formidable opponent in the boxing ring was Laila Ali (Naomi Graham), daughter of Muhammad Ali. But what was going on behind the scenes proved to be much scarier than a prize ght.
I was unfamiliar with Christy’s story, and I refrained from doing research prior to seeing the lm. So as I’m rooting for her to leave her abusive husband, and see James’ violence hit a peak, I’m quickly reminded that this is the protagonist’s true story. is meant there wouldn’t be any clean or happy ending. is adds to the e ectiveness of the lm, though. O entimes when we’re watching a biopic, we can become so enamored by the storytelling and cinematography that we have to
remind ourselves it is someone’s life, even if it makes a good story.
I did go in with skepticism about Sweeney’s performance. An actress who’s been praised for her aesthetic appeal taking on a role that doesn’t rely on a balance of humor and beauty could have been a recipe for disaster. However, I must give it to her: Her commitment to the role was admirable. While at rst a bit oputting, she grows into the character for a believable portrayal.
Christy Martin is a ghter — both inside and outside of the ring — and Sweeney did a remarkable job of bringing her story to life. e opening box o ce numbers may show otherwise, but that’s probably a problem with Sweeney’s jeans, not a re ection of the quality of this lm.
Christy Now playing Multiple locations
Our critic picks the best films in theaters.
The Running Man
Director Edgar Wright takes on the Stephen King novel. Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards, who, hoping to raise money to pay for his daughter’s medical treatment, volunteers to be the quarry on a reality show where the contestants are hunted by a pack of assassins. Colman Domingo is the show’s flamboyant host. Expect big action beats and some crackerjack cutting.
Keeper
In the third film by director Osgood Perkins to be released in the last 16 months, Tatiana Maslany (of Orphan Black fame) stars as Liz, who goes to a secluded cabin in the woods for a romantic anniversary weekend with her hubby Malcolm (Rossif
Sutherland). But when he’s called back to the city on an emergency, Liz must face an evil supernatural entity.
Bugonia
Emma Stone is a pharmaceutical company CEO kidnapped by a beekeeper named Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his codependent cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) because they think she’s an alien sent to Earth from Andromeda to enslave humanity. Yorgos Lanthimos directs this surreal comedy.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco are back as The Four Horsemen, a magic troupe who also do heists for Morgan Freeman. They’re recruiting a new team of prestidigitators to steal the world’s largest diamond.
Mended Therapy
Combining mental health with a love of fashion, creativity, and sustainability, Mended Therapy was born. Ashley wants to show that although things may seem like they cannot get better, there is hope. Just like a mended piece of clothing is brought new life, the same can be said of us. She is here to walk with you through this journey with laughter, creativity, and challenging your beliefs about yourself. She is MENDED (and constantly mending). She hopes you will let her join you as you MEND.
Ashley specializes in working with LGBTQ+ populations and mood disorders.
For more information or to book an appointment, visit mendedtherapypllc.com.
She currently accepts Aetna, BCBS, Cigna, Quest Behavioral Health, All Savers (UHC), Health Plans Inc, Optum, Oscar, Oxford, Surest (Formerly Bind), UHC Student Resources, UMR, UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealthcare Shared Services (UHSS), UnitedHealthcare Global, and UnitedHealthcare Exchange Plans (ONEX) insurance plans. She does provide a superbill for out-ofnetwork clients if they want to submit to their insurance. Self-pay is $125 for individual sessions.
SNAP Out of It
Americans are going hungry so that others can a ord to live the American dream.
is morning, with the idea of writing about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), I googled “SNAP bene ts news” and received a bevy of con icting news reports, all from reputable news organizations. NPR’s headline read, “Trump plan for smaller SNAP bene ts may leave millions with none at all.” NBC News reported that, “Partial SNAP bene ts will be more than previously estimated, Trump o cial says.” USA Today reported that “SNAP recipients to get as much as two-thirds of promised bene ts,” while e Hill reported, “Trump says he’s withholding SNAP bene ts until shutdown ends.” ree days ago as of this writing, the most current news stated that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service would fund 50 percent of SNAP bene ts. Today, that number is up to 65 percent. A message on the USDA website currently reads, “Senate Democrats have voted 14 times against reopening the government. is compromises not only SNAP, but farm programs, food inspection, animal and plant disease protection, rural development, and protecting federal lands. Senate Democrats are withholding services to the American people in exchange for healthcare for illegals, gender mutilation, and other unknown ‘leverage’ points.” at statement is not only pushing the legal boundaries of the Hatch Act, which forbids federal employees from taking an overtly partisan stance while on duty or using government property, but is an utter falsehood. While no human being is an “illegal” simply for existing or crossing a border, undocumented immigrants are also unable to access federal programs such as SNAP. Meanwhile, open enrollment for the health insurance marketplace began on November 1st in most states, and many of the Americans who use the marketplace through the A ordable Care Act are set to see just how much health insurance premiums have increased.
So, to summarize, SNAP bene ts have at the very least been reduced, health insurance premiums have increased, and the government is still shut down. is is nothing short of psychological warfare against some of the most vulnerable of our citizens. How many working single mothers have been unable to make a definite budget for the month of November, or begin to plan their healthcare costs for 2026? Because, yes, most Americans who use food assistance programs are employed.
In fact, to get personal for a moment, most of the food I ate as a child was paid for with food stamps, as we called them then. My sister and I also ate reducedprice lunches at school. Our parents were divorced, but they both worked, and my dad paid child support. We were pretty average, as those things go. My mother was, at various times, a waitress, a secretary, and a grocery store worker, and my father was part of the cleaning crew for an airline, doing necessary and thankless work to make sure planes were de-iced and clean. One question I’ve seen bandied about o en in the last month or so is, “Why are so many Americans using SNAP?” I might ask why, in a nation where people want to take ights on airplanes and eat food in restaurants, are those workers so horribly underpaid?
According to the USDA website’s scal reporting of 2023, approximately 39 percent of all SNAP participants were children, and more than 62 percent of SNAP households included children, with the majority of those households containing at least one child, an elderly person, or a person with a disability. e idea that Americans who receive food assistance don’t want to work is propaganda, pure and simple, and this quibbling about one of the smallest budget items in the national expenditure is political theater. We can a ord to bail out Argentina, to send Israel billions of dollars for missile defence, to send federal troops to cities with Democrat mayors, to build a new ballroom for the White House, to fund a huge gestapo (I’m talking about ICE, here), to give away tax incentives to pro table companies, but we can’t feed kids or the elderly.
I know that Flyer editor-in-chief Shara Clark and writer-atlarge Bruce VanWyngarden have both written about the SNAP issue, and I’m sorry to bludgeon the reader with my similar concerns. is is an emergency, though. It is a matter of life and death for more than 100,000 people in Shelby County, and it’s a moral question of the utmost importance for our nation. If we’re to be inundated with messaging about how the U.S. is the greatest country ever to pass a law, we should also be reminded of the many Americans who cannot access the privileges we are all supposed to enjoy.
Look, is the United States a great country, or isn’t it? Because, to my mind, a country that lets children go hungry is failing the most basic test. ere is a lot of daylight between the myth of America the prosperous and the reality of America the sick and hungry.
e reality of the matter is that for many of our neighbors, the American dream has become a waking nightmare, and it’s time for us to snap out of it.
Jesse Davis is a former Flyer sta er; he writes a monthly Books feature for Memphis Magazine. His opinions, such as they are, survived o of food stamps, free and reduced-price school lunches, and library books as a child.
PHOTO: NATHÁLIA ROSA | UNSPLASH
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