Of the many beneficial reasons I can come up with for living and working in beautiful Cook County, one of the most enriching ones is the annual influx of J-1 visa holders.
Besides filling critical seasonal jobs that are too numerous to be filled locally, these mostly university students from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America offer friendship and direct insight into their own unique cultures and perspectives to anyone willing to get to know them and wishing to broaden their horizons a little bit.
In the late 1980s I struck a friendship with one of the first J-1 student workers to come to Grand Marais. Now, some 30 years later, our friendship remains strong and relevant. Since then, I’ve gotten to know hundreds of J-1 workers in Cook County and have formed bonding friendships with many of them. They are as eager to connect with and learn from Americans, as many of us are to connect with and know about their countries.
Many of my J-1 friendships have become lasting. Some of these foreign student workers have become extended family to me. I’ve subsequently reunited with several of them in their own countries. Thanks to the J-1 program, I now have “children” spread across the globe.
I deeply hope that Cook County residents – and our esteemed tourists – will take the time to embrace these valuable and sometimes-vulnerable foreign workers with open arms and a warm welcome that nearly all visitors to a foreign land so appreciate and need. Show them the best of American hospitality in general and Cook County hospitality specifically! Give them the opportunity to enrich your life, just as you will undoubtedly enrich theirs.
David Eklof
Grand Marais and Thailand
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