There was a presidential debate last week. Ostensibly, the only we will see before the election. Of note was Donald Trump’s comments about Haitians abducting (implied not said) and eating (said and implied) the cats and dogs owned by the residents of Springfield, Ohio. I listened to a Daily episode that told more of the story. Indeed there has been a substantial, the most liberal estimate reaching upwards of 20%, population increase due to the arrival of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. One staggering statistic revealed that of the 7,500 students in a local school, 1,500 of them are English language acquisition students. And there are other problems that have come with the large influx. Rent prices have jumped. Five working Haitian men will rent a house together and can afford to pay more than a two income family. One frustrated resident complained of people driving the wrong way on the street at a town hall. This frustration reached fever pitch last year when a Honda Odyssey came across the lane and struck a bus full of elementary students. One boy, 11 year old, Aiden Clark, died and 23 other children were injured. The driver of the minivan, Hermanio Joseph, a Haitian, immigrant, had been in the U.S. for about a year. He was driving the car illegally, which is to say he had a state id, but not a valid drivers license. The accident allegedly involved the sun, dodging another car, and a misjudgment. A jury deliberated for an hour before charging Joseph with involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide.
As for the claim that the immigrants were eating dogs and cats? A few things. First a guy who describes himself as an influencer claimed at a Springfield city council meeting that he saw Haitians taking ducks from a park and decapitating them. The Daily reports that one Facebook group (presumably one based in Springfield, OH) said, “a neighbor’s daughter’s friend saw a cat hanging in a tree.” Then a video of a cat being eaten spread among Springfielders. The alleged video had nothing to do with Haitians or Springfield. Dominoes began to fall. Don Trump Jr. tweeted that Haitians are eating pets in Springfield. Elon Musk shared a post of people eating pets saying, “Vote for Kamala if you want this to happen to your neighborhood. The Arizona GOP put up a billboard that says, “eat less kittens, vote republican.” All of this led to former president Trump’s statement in the debate.
In an effort to practice humility as one admittedly thinks pet consumption is fantasy, I’ll grant the possibility that pets are being eaten, but I’d like to draw your attention to something. In October of 2020, in preparation for the coming holiday, Halloween enthusiast Dax Shephard and Monica Padman interviewed religious scholar Joseph Laycock, from Texas State University. Dr. Laycock’s interests include, and here I’ll quote his faculty page, “moral panic; religion and role-playing games; Marian apparitions; spirit possession.” One can see the relevance. Laycock is the kind of religious scholar you’d talk to about exorcisms and other fanatical spooky religious experiences. The conversation took an interesting turn (25:00). When asking about 17th century witch trials Shephard pressed for the contours of accusation. How would one know if they encountered a witch according to Salem’s logic? Lacock answers with the stuff of wild imagination, namely, eating babies, sexual orgies with each other and demons, which of course happened at night, but then he makes an interesting pivot. Citing the work of his mentor David Frankfurter in his book Evil Incarnate, Lacock points out that eating babies and participating in incest is a common accusation. It’s what the Romans accused the Christians of. It’s what Christians would later accuse Jews of. It’s what public imagination accused 1980s daycares of doing, and it’s what QANON accused democrats of.
French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss attempted to bring the rules of structuralism applied to language to myth (which he viewed synonymously). Though this theory would later receive plenty of criticism it’s interesting to note here that something like this seems to be at play in witch accusations. And what does this have to do with eating cats and dogs? I grew up in Tomahawk, WI, a small town 45 minutes north of Wausau, WI. Wausau functions like the last semblance of “city” as one heads to the picturesque Northwoods. With almost 40,000 people Wausau is big enough to have a Barnes & Noble, but not big enough to Banana Republic. It’s also big enough to play host to a large immigrant population. The Hmong are a people group from Laos who migrated to the United States after the Vietnam war. They are also featured as the prominent people group in Clint Eastwood’s 2008 film Gran Tarino. The Hmong make up a significant portion of the Wausau population (12%). While I grew up 45 minutes north of the Hmong, I was still within earshot of the juicy rumors. You’ve likely detected where this is going. The rumor about the Hmong people in Wausau, WI in 1993 was that they were stealing and eating people’s cats and dogs. While I don’t have any evidence that this did not happen, there is no evidence that it did. I also considered that the claim about Hmong and pet consumption might have errantly been recalled by my childhood memory, but in her book New Pioneers in the Heartland: Hmong LIfe in Wisconsin, Jo Ann Koltyk reports that white residents in Wausau spread rumors that Hmong refugees had killed and ate all the wild ducks in the area and stole dogs to eat. In a 2016 Atlantic article Doualy Xaykaothao reports the same. Hmong neighbors accused of eating dogs.
I’m not sure if Levi-Strauss’ structural anthropology could explain this coincidence or if this latent racism never died and the pet eating immigrant trope survived in cultural discourse much like a wave stubbornly refusing to die at a major sporting event. It seems then, that one has a choice about how to interpret the statement of the former president. One can conclude with no concrete evidence that Haitians are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio or one can reckon with the fact that this exact myth has lurked its ugly head in public discourse before in a situation that is oddly similar to the one in Springfield. Occam’s razor would likely encourage us to adopt the latter position.
But there is one more voice that needs to be heard. It’s that of the father of the late Aiden Clark the 11 year old boy who died in that bus accident. “I wish my son Aiden Clark was killed by a 60 year old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would say something so blunt. But if that guy killed my 11 year old son, the incessant group of hate spewing people would leave us alone. The last thing that we need is to have the worst day of our lives violently and constantly shoved in our faces. But even that’s not good enough for them. They take it one step further. They make it seem as though our wonderful Aiden appreciates your hate. That we should follow their hate. And look what you’ve done to us. WE have to get up here and beg them to stop. Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose.” Full comment can be found here.