As states work to build high-quality early childhood systems and implement the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), having detailed knowledge of the characteristics of immigrant parents can help maximize the effectiveness of programs that seek to improve child and family outcomes, as this commentary explains.

Lucy Boston had led an adventurous life for a woman of her time. She had dropped out of Oxford University to become a nurse during WWI and worked in a hospital in Normandy. She had married her cousin, had her son Peter, divorced her husband, and moved to Germany and Italy to paint. When Peter started Cambridge, Lucy also moved to Cambridge and began obsessively painting King's College Chapel. Then in 1939, she bought The Manor, Hemingford Grey.

In Memory in a House, Lucy describes the two years that it took to restore The Manor as "which were by far the happiest of my life, even in spite of the war that broke out as soon as the builders began." (p. 19) In fact, she views her realtionship with the house as a love affair. She was aware that the house, which was built as a Norman manor in 1120 by Payne Osmundsen, was very historic, and she eventually documented everything she found and all the changes she made.

The forced restoration was brought about by the fact that the house was structually unsound due to cheap and unskillful renovations over the years. Faced with unsupported structural beams, walls cracking from top to bottom, and drastically sloping floors, Lucy was had no choice but to fix these problems. She was lucky enough to get honest and competent builders and architects to help her with the delicate job of historical renovation.

It becomes clear while reading the book that restoring the house was as much a creative endeavor for Lucy as painting a picture, or writing fiction. She was extremely sensitive to atmosphere, and accepted the physical imperfections of the house as part of the character that it had developed as it aged. She was also willing to change her mind about the alterations and restoration as she went along; the dining room, which she had thought was hopeless and would be used just as a corridor, became the center of her life, connecting the interior of the house with its equally important exterior garden.

Two weeks ago, some friends and I toured Lucy Boston's house and garden. My friend Val had read Boston's books; her husband Dave hadn't heard of Boston but wanted to see the old house. We took a train from London to the nearby town of Huntington (pop 10,000), then a short taxi ride to Hemingford Grey (pop.230), a quaint small village on the River Ouse.

Here are photos of the town's main or high street:

Since we were early for our 2 PM house tour, we decided to explore the gardens. Lucy talks about designing and building the gardens in her memoir Memory in a House, which also contains some black and white photos of the gardens back when she published the book. However, I did not realize until her daughter-in-law Diana Boston gave us the tour how much of the gardens Lucy build from scratch. Apparently most of the yard was just meadow until she set to work.

What stunned me, Val, and Dave was how large the gardens were in size. We split up in the gardens, and they saw only the more cultivated side:

WASHINGTON – While the new Trump administration public charge rule is likely to vastly reshape future legal immigration based on its test to assess if a person might ever use public benefits in the future, the universe of non-citizens who could be denied a green card based on current benefits use is quite small.

The Portuguese have a double gene for flavours. They keep it simple, they rely on extremely good produce. This dish has such a unique flavour. It's ideal with all wines. A good Lisbon paste is the trick!

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to reveal the associations between the risk of new-onset type 2 diabetes and the duration of antidepressant use and the antidepressant dose, and between antidepressant use after diabetes onset and clinical outcomes.

According to leaked drafts, the Trump administration is considering a rule that could have sweeping effects on both legal immigration to the United States and the use of public benefits by legal immigrants and their families. This report examines the potential scale of the expected rule’s impact, including at national and state levels and among children, as well as Hispanic and Asian American/Pacific Islander immigrants.

On this webinar MPI experts discuss their estimates of the populations that could be deemed ineligible for a green card based on existing benefits use. They also discuss the broader consequences of the public-charge rule implemented in February 2020, through its "chilling effects" and imposition of a wealth test aimed at assessing whether green-card applicants ever would be likely to use a public benefit in the future. 

While the Trump administration public-charge rule is likely to vastly reshape legal immigration based on its test to assess if a person might ever use public benefits in the future, the universe of noncitizens who could be denied a green card based on current benefits use is quite small. That's because very few benefit programs are open to noncitizens who do not hold a green card. This commentary offers estimates of who might be affected.

On this webinar, MPI experts discussed the public-charge rule and released estimates of the populations that could be deemed ineligible for a green card based on existing benefits use. They examined the far larger consequences of the rule, through its "chilling effects" and imposition of a test aimed at assessing whether green-card applicants are likely to ever use a public benefit in the future. And they discussed how the latter holds the potential to reshape legal immigration to the United States. 

James Chamberlain
Jul 1, 2013; 31:106-109
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