SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Springfield, Ohio is a blue-collar town of roughly 60,000 residents with a story that’s familiar to dozens of Rust Belt communities across the Midwest that have been transformed by job loss, opioids, and now, open migration.
Schuler’s Bakery greets visitors on the south side of town, not far from the interstate, as a relic of resilience having withstood the challenges faced by a declining economy for decades. Founded in 1937, the local sweet spot can now be found in two locations offering customers the kinds of cakes and pastries that define the small-town memories carried for generations long after residents have left.
The donuts are so rich they can make the teeth ache, but the sugar high is immediately crashed when confronted with the image of a town forever changed by the flood of more than 20,000 Haitian migrants. The horizon from the bakery’s front door introduces visitors to a dilapidated community now presented with traffic hazards as Haitians crowd the streets and parking lots of a Rust Belt community turned into Little Haiti.
“They don’t know how to drive,” a local tow truck driver on the southwest side told The Federalist. “They don’t know how to go by our rules.”
The tow truck operator named David declined to offer a last name out of fear of reprisal to his business, but he made clear that the influx of newcomers has brought more havoc than money to the depressed blue-collar community that was already struggling.
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