A couple of weeks ago, I went to a presentation from Rob Paral, a researcher who suggests Mexican immigrants are coming to the Midwest is such large numbers that shunning or criminalizing workers from the other side of the southern border is both unrealistic and self-defeating.
In his definition of "Midwest," Paral didn't include Kansas. But Johnson County is very much part of this picture.
Bernardo Ramirez, executive director of Kansas City's Hispanic Economic Development Corporation,
​National Book Award-winning writer and literary fussbudget Jonathan Franzen, who looked a $1.5 million gift horse in the mouth by dissing Oprah Winfrey in 2001 when she picked his novel The Corrections for her book club, has now helpfully outlined the geographic and emotional boundaries of the Midwest. In an interview printed in the summer issue of Duke University's literary journal, Boundary 2, Franzen, who grew up in St. Louis suburb Webster Groves, explains:If you ask what the Midwest mean
