This column appeared in Thursday's Detroit Free Press.

From the outside, my family’s story was the epitome of the American Dream. My father followed the northern migration from Texas to work in Michigan’s auto industry. He started as a custodian and rose to journeyman, earning a union wage and benefits, while my Michigan-born mother stayed home to raise me and my two siblings. We had a house, two dogs, a flock of chickens and a little bit of land in Eaton Rapids. My favorite spot was sitting under a maple tree in the front yard to read a good book.

From the inside, my family’s story was a violent nightmare. My father ruled our home with fear, and as his kids grew older, the abuse escalated from verbal to physical. When my mother finally left my father, she had to pick up extra jobs to supplement her income as a teacher’s aide. Never one afraid of hard work, she worked part-time at the local McDonald’s and cleaned office buildings in the evenings to try and make ends meet. Eventually, she took a full-time union job offering benefits and greater pay as a school custodian. Ironically, one of my first jobs was working as a custodial assistant through a special employment program for low-income students. I soon followed my mother into custodial work, washing floors and cleaning toilets at age 15.

I’m sharing this backstory not to elicit sympathy but to help readers understand why agencies like mine exist — and how government is often the last refuge for families teetering on disaster. As the director of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency since late 2021, I help my team support Michiganders who are out of work and low on hope. I took the job after the worst of the pandemic, eager to fix mistakes of the past, serve people effectively and empathetically, and make Michigan’s unemployment system a national model for fast, fair and fraud-free service.

My made-in-Michigan education and years of experience in government gave me the credentials I needed to earn this challenging job. My childhood gave me the tools and tenacity I needed to stick with it. My story is worth sharing only because it’s not unlike so many others in Michigan.

Maybe even yours.

The path out

My siblings and I were part of a small handful of Mexican kids at a rural high school filled with children who had rarely, if ever, interacted with anyone who looked like me. Their ignorance bordered on bigotry and was not discouraged at school, where I was called every slur in the book. Still, I liked the structure at school. I liked learning, and I was determined to continue my education, become a lawyer, and move to Chicago, where I would live in a glamorous condo and never head back to my small town ever again.

School made sense to me, unlike everything at home. Like many victims of abuse, my mother could not afford to leave for years, and when she finally found the resources, she fled with her kids. We stayed at a hotel until it was safe to go back to our house.

When you lose everything, you shoulder the seismic stigma of poverty. Especially in a small town, when your mom is paying for groceries with food stamps, and your classmate is bagging them. You learn how stressful it is to decide which bills get paid. You learn how to cook Spam and fried bologna, regardless of if you like it, because it’s all you can afford. You learn that there’s nothing good or glamorous about being unemployed or underemployed and how a job doesn’t always provide your loved ones with the security and comfort you’d hoped it would.

For a few years, my family survived on food stamps and kindness. Our Christmas presents came from the church. The Old Newsboys, an extraordinary non-profit working in Lansing and elsewhere in Michigan, brought us new winter boots and gloves. County government programs supporting people below the poverty line helped me secure summer jobs.

My time at Michigan State University was pivotal turning point in my life. I found community in Case Hall at the James Madison College — engaging with other civically minded students. I connected with other Chicano-Latino students through the university’s Intercultural Aide Program and later stepped into a role working with other first-generation students and earning room and board in the process. Several mentors across the university offered guidance, and jobs at Consumers Energy and Taco Bell, as well as part-time jobs at the school cafeteria or the receptionist desk in the dorm, churning up just enough money to stay afloat. I became the first member of my family to graduate college with a four-year degree.

A future informed by the past

Those memories guide me at UIA, where me and my colleagues are determined to help Michiganders in their most desperate moments find their paths to the American Dream.

Like I found mine.

Government is supposed to serve people — and behind every unemployment claim is a person. Someone trying to feed their kids. Someone trying to pay their bills. Someone with a daughter who is spending her summers scrubbing the floors in her school’s bathrooms to help keep a roof over her family’s head. I was able to beat odds and break cycles because people cared enough to give me the support that I needed. Everyone should have that chance to do the same, and state agencies should lead the way to make that happen.

Julia Almendarez Dale is director of the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency.

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