By Peaches Calhoun
To Our New Neighbors in Ohio
Dear Friends,
I am writing to you about a letter.
Not because letters are unusual, but because they are not as ordinary as they appear.
When leaders choose to write—truly write, not post, not announce, not gesture—they are doing something deliberate. They are slowing time. They are fixing intent to paper. They are creating a record that can be returned to later and pointed to with purpose.
That is why this letter exists.
Recently, an official letter was sent from Ohio’s Governor to a federal leader. On its face, the letter spoke of cooperation, readiness, and opportunity. It used the language of partnership and preparedness. Nothing in it was loud. Nothing in it was threatening. And yet, for those who know how to read letters shaped by power, it was not casual.
Letters rarely are.
I want to pause here and say something plainly: this letter is not an order. It is not a warning. It does not change the law, suspend rights, or signal immediate action. But it does something else quieter and more enduring.
It tells us how those in leadership are arranging the board.
A letter tells us where attention is moving.
A letter tells us what a state is offering itself for.
A letter tells us how the future is being imagined—before it arrives.
For many New Americans, this may feel familiar in an uncomfortable way. In other places, letters were not explanations. They were announcements. They arrived before uniforms, before trucks, before consequences. If that history lives in your body, you are not wrong to feel alert when official words are set down carefully.
But this is also why understanding matters.
In the United States, letters are part of a conversation, not the end of one. They can be questioned. They can be contextualized. They can be answered. They exist in public view, where communities are allowed—encouraged—to read closely.
This particular letter is being read closely because of when it arrived.
It arrived during a moment of national unease. A moment when trust in federal enforcement is being questioned. A moment shaped by grief over a life lost in Minnesota, and by conversations about restraint, authority, and accountability. Timing does not change the words in a letter—but it changes how they land.
When a letter enters the room at a moment like this, people sit differently.
They listen to what is said.
They listen harder for what is not.
That does not mean fear is required. It means awareness is appropriate.
What I want you to take from this letter—and from this one—is not alarm, but readiness of mind. Knowing how to read official language is a form of protection. Understanding how governments speak to one another helps communities remain grounded when headlines move faster than facts.
This letter does not tell us what will happen tomorrow.
It tells us how leaders are thinking about the future.
And that knowledge belongs to you, too.
This letter I am writing now is meant as reassurance, not dismissal. You deserve clarity. You deserve context. You deserve to know that being informed is not the same as being afraid.
In this country, participation does not require agreement.
Belonging does not require silence.
Sometimes, it begins simply by reading the letter—slowly, carefully, together—and asking what it allows us to understand.
With respect,
A Neighbor in Ohio
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