A Yemeni family flees a war-torn nation and bets on a future in rural Appalachia

[dlwickham]

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/a-yemeni-family-flees-a-war-torn-nation-and-bets/article_7a985774-1e87-561f-bbc1-818907bd0de2.html

WELCH — Sadeq Hauter looks out the window of his family’s convenience store at the steep hillsides and hollows of Appalachia and is reminded of his hometown in Yemen. The difference is that, here, he can see a future for himself and his wife and children.

He relocated them in 2015 to escape from Yemen’s escalating civil war. The family opened Eller’s Quick Stop on a flat stretch of U.S. 52 in Northfork, a town of 372 in McDowell County. Their arrival presents both a stir of hope and a challenge to a community that — like so many rural places in America — is trying to eradicate generational poverty while simultaneously adjusting to the huge economic shifts roiling the nation.

The Hauter children are the only English-as-a-second-language students enrolled in McDowell County public schools, which are on the front lines of the economic effort being led by Reconnecting McDowell, an ambitious public-private initiative. Yet the school district has been averaging triple-digit enrollment losses the past few years, according to education officials, prompting a paradoxical question: Are efforts to better prepare the county’s students simply quickening their exodus and hastening the demise of the county and its way of life? Or might the arrival of a family of newcomers hint at a new chapter for this corner of Appalachia?

[Blue_true]

1. Hillary was proposing real solutions for places like this.

But those places resoundingly rejected her in favor of a soulless clown. I am mixed on this, I hope the Yemini family succeed and help their hollow while teaching it something about the value of diversity, but in the current noise is fact environment, I don't hold out much hope.

[3catwoman3]

2. May they have...

...every success, and be treated well.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

3. +1