Speaker 1: One thing we're learning in this pandemic is that some
Speaker 1: workers are more essential to our nations functioning than others.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're not talking about bankers and politicians
Speaker 1: and celebrities. We're talking about grocery store workers and nurses
Speaker 1: and teachers and cafeteria workers and sanitation workers. We're thinking
Speaker 1: of them in ways that we've never thought of before
Speaker 1: because they're realizing that if these people don't show up
Speaker 1: in person for their jobs, Americans can't stay healthy. They're
Speaker 1: not going to be fed. So in this episode, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a look at a group of workers we
Speaker 1: Americans required to keep our country going that that are
Speaker 1: not only overlooked, underpaid, and undervalued, but we've been actively
Speaker 1: attacking them for years. This is Tom Coliko and this
Speaker 1: is Citizen Chef. We have immigrant workers who are growing
Speaker 1: and picking and processing the vast majority of our food,
Speaker 1: but according to the Department of Agriculture, half of them,
Speaker 1: over million men and women, are undocumented labor contractors and
Speaker 1: growers estimated that NUMB would be much higher around and
Speaker 1: so right now, in the summer of we're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a global pandemic and its growing season here
Speaker 1: in the United States, and we've experienced several years of
Speaker 1: a government that has systematically trying to do its very
Speaker 1: best to prevent the so called illegal workers from making
Speaker 1: a living in this country. These are people who pick
Speaker 1: and process our food and they are absolutely essential. We
Speaker 1: don't eat if they don't show up to work. By
Speaker 1: this logic, they should have so much power, but instead,
Speaker 1: immigrant workers are some of the most vulnerable people in
Speaker 1: this country. In this episode, we'll take a look at
Speaker 1: the paradox of the immigrant essential worker in America. They
Speaker 1: work for low pay, they are subject to the whims
Speaker 1: of a political party in power, can't benefit from our
Speaker 1: unemployment system, are social security system that they pay into
Speaker 1: if they're working on the books, and most of them
Speaker 1: are and much of time to live in fear being
Speaker 1: rounded up and detained, deported and separated from their families
Speaker 1: for the crime of showing up to work and doing
Speaker 1: a job that all Americans need them to do. I'm
Speaker 1: really pleased that y'all are shining a light on on
Speaker 1: this subject. So today I am talking to Dr Angela Stsi.
Speaker 1: I'm Associate professor of anthropology at the University of North
Speaker 1: Carolina Chapel Hill and we're going to look into the
Speaker 1: conditions in which some of these workers do their jobs.
Speaker 1: This is uh something that I really kind of has
Speaker 1: been bugging me since I read of the raids in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: But I guess to tea it off, and I guess
Speaker 1: right now, American contumes about nine billion chickens a year,
Speaker 1: so it's about twenty four million chickens per day. So
Speaker 1: let's just start there where we always this chicken crazy
Speaker 1: in this country. We are a bit chicken crazed in
Speaker 1: this country. You're right, So Americans eat almost I think
Speaker 1: we're at about ninety three pounds of chicken per year
Speaker 1: per capita, so per person, which is virtually an all
Speaker 1: time high, up considerably from when I was a kid
Speaker 1: or when our grandparents were were consuming chicken. Um and
Speaker 1: experts sort of point to two trends that have led
Speaker 1: to to our appetite for chicken. That's really we're we're
Speaker 1: ramping up in the nineteen eighties, and one is our
Speaker 1: increased interest in our health and our recognition that cholesterol
Speaker 1: contributes to to poor heart health. The poultry industry did
Speaker 1: a really good job in the eighties and nineties of
Speaker 1: of sort of capitalizing on that concern and marketing right
Speaker 1: as as white meat that was that was better for
Speaker 1: our heart health. And simultaneously there was a big rise
Speaker 1: during those decades of our consumption of fast food and
Speaker 1: that extended um or built on on the more traditional
Speaker 1: meal fast food meal of hamburger, into chicken nuggets and
Speaker 1: chicken sandwiches. And together these two sort of trends in
Speaker 1: in the US diet led to a dramatic increase in
Speaker 1: the amount of chicken we eat, right and the majority
Speaker 1: of the chicken. Again, this the new story of the
Speaker 1: raids in Mississippi is what really sort of prompts me
Speaker 1: to look at this. I mean, obviously I'm a chef, um,
Speaker 1: I I sell a lot of chicken. Uh, we eat
Speaker 1: a good amount of chicken at home as well. But
Speaker 1: when I read about the raids in in Mississippi, I
Speaker 1: started thinking of is this going to happen, um in
Speaker 1: not only Mississippi. Is this gonna happen in Georgia, Alabama, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And if this, if this happens and we're losing um,
Speaker 1: you know a large part of the workforce who's doing this,
Speaker 1: What is this gonna do the cost of chicken is
Speaker 1: it gonna is it gonna increase? And so I guess,
Speaker 1: let's talk about chicken processing down south? Why the industry
Speaker 1: um moved down south? How it started down south? And
Speaker 1: starting I guess in World War two? Who was working
Speaker 1: in these plants and and how did that labor force
Speaker 1: change over over over the the poultry industry really grew
Speaker 1: up in the South. So unlike meat processing, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, an urban manufacturing job, poultry really grew up,
Speaker 1: like you say, um around World War two in the
Speaker 1: South because land was cheap, much of it was not
Speaker 1: terribly fertile, and there was importantly a large supply of
Speaker 1: of poor folks who needed jobs and who saw work
Speaker 1: and chicken plants as a step up from other types
Speaker 1: of jobs that they could have, principally farm work right
Speaker 1: outdoor labor on farms. In in and around World War two,
Speaker 1: the industry relied heavily on poor white women, many of
Speaker 1: whom were who were alone with their with their partners
Speaker 1: away at war. And and it really, you know, began,
Speaker 1: as you're probably aware, tom sort of as a initially
Speaker 1: a backyard industry that that supplemented people's dinner plates and
Speaker 1: maybe a little brought in a little extra income with
Speaker 1: the eggs that you could sell or the chickens that
Speaker 1: you could sell. But starting around the nineteen thirties and forties,
Speaker 1: it it became an industrial food source, and and women
Speaker 1: worked largely on those lines, on the processing lines in
Speaker 1: the early years. So let's let's focus on the raids.
Speaker 1: This is what really sort of piqued my interest again. Um,
Speaker 1: like most people, I woke up to the news back
Speaker 1: in August of these raids, and and obviously because I
Speaker 1: am I'm a chef and and always look at things
Speaker 1: through food lens, two things came to mind right away.
Speaker 1: Number one, Um, is this something that is you know
Speaker 1: it is going to extend outside of Mississippi? And how
Speaker 1: does something like this happen? Well, it was a coordinated effort,
Speaker 1: so it was actually across UH, seven different plants simultaneously
Speaker 1: in six different towns. It was an enforcement action that
Speaker 1: took months, if not years to organize UH and the
Speaker 1: government flew in hundreds of agents in order to carry
Speaker 1: it out. I was taken by surprise by the raids,
Speaker 1: as I think many were, because our entire industrial food
Speaker 1: system relies on undocumented labor, and there are undocumented workers
Speaker 1: in our communities across our entire country, from Maine to
Speaker 1: Florida to Washington State and Arizona right and everywhere in between.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure what stood out about Mississippi because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's unique. You know, a town or
Speaker 1: a series of towns, a region that have been transformed
Speaker 1: by Latin American immigration due to the demands of industrial
Speaker 1: food production. The investigation that led to these raids started
Speaker 1: about eighteen months before August seven. This was the largest
Speaker 1: single state immigration enforcement operation in our country's history. My
Speaker 1: name is Alisa Zool and I'm an investigative reporter with
Speaker 1: the Clarion Ledger. It's the newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi. How
Speaker 1: are you doing. I'm doing great. Thanks for agreeing to
Speaker 1: do this. Yes, let's just jump right in. Okay. It
Speaker 1: was actually really interesting to look at the search warrants
Speaker 1: that were unsealed after the raids. Uh. They included details
Speaker 1: basically making the case for why federal officials believed that
Speaker 1: undocumented workers were employed at these chicken processing plants. What
Speaker 1: we found in these search warrants is that federal investigators
Speaker 1: used ankle monitors and informants to build a case for
Speaker 1: writing these chicken plants. Some workers had been caught, maybe
Speaker 1: at the border or during a traffic stop in other
Speaker 1: parts of the country years ago. At that time, authorities
Speaker 1: knew they didn't have permission to be in the country
Speaker 1: and put them on electronic monitoring while their immigration cases
Speaker 1: made their way through courts. So GPS coordinates actually showed
Speaker 1: that for hours every day, several days a week, these
Speaker 1: known undocumented immigrants were reporting to chicken processing plants. And
Speaker 1: sometimes whenever undocumented immigrants were picked up by ICE agents,
Speaker 1: they directly told them we have jobs. We work for
Speaker 1: a chicken processing plant in Mississippi. Sometimes they even gave
Speaker 1: them their work I d S. What was the coordination
Speaker 1: like to actually execute the arrests, UM, This was a
Speaker 1: massive operation. Like you mentioned earlier, hundreds of federal officials,
Speaker 1: either Homeland Security or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement came into Mississippi.
Speaker 1: A total of six and eighty people were arrested that day. UM.
Speaker 1: They were all suspective, suspected of coming into the country
Speaker 1: illegally in working without permission. UM. A lot of people
Speaker 1: were busst away and taking uh in for processing. About
Speaker 1: three people were least on the spot or within twenty
Speaker 1: seven hours of the raids UH. The remaining a few
Speaker 1: hundred people UH were sent into ice detention. UM and
Speaker 1: that day, August seven, happened to be the first or
Speaker 1: second day of school for a lot of kids in
Speaker 1: the area. UM and UM. I think maybe that's part
Speaker 1: of the reason why this drew so much national attention
Speaker 1: and a lot of people it was just a normal
Speaker 1: day at work for them at first. What alerted to
Speaker 1: them to the fact that something strange was happening is
Speaker 1: that they heard helicopters. And one woman told me that
Speaker 1: she showed up for work, federal agents walked in. They
Speaker 1: pointed their guns at her and ordered all the workers
Speaker 1: to put their hands on the walls. They were searched
Speaker 1: and and they were taken away that day and used
Speaker 1: of the raids spread really quickly, because you got to remember,
Speaker 1: these are really small towns. Everyone knows everyone else. And
Speaker 1: what ended up happening is a lot of people showed
Speaker 1: up outside the plant's gates as the raid was going on.
Speaker 1: Some of them brought children, hoping to convince these agents
Speaker 1: to love let their loved ones go. Children were crying,
Speaker 1: some people were chanting let them go as people were
Speaker 1: herded onto these buses and taken away. And it's hard
Speaker 1: to overstate the humanitarian impact that these raids have had.
Speaker 1: Last my check, there were about a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: people who were charged criminally. These offenses were mostly related
Speaker 1: to fraudulent use of Social Security cards. So in November,
Speaker 1: an ICE representative testified at a congressional hearing. He said
Speaker 1: that investigators have found that not one of the hundreds
Speaker 1: of people arrested were engaged in any major criminal activity
Speaker 1: besides immigration and identity fraud violations. And you know, even
Speaker 1: if you didn't have criminal charges against you, a lot
Speaker 1: of people are fighting deportation and immigration courts move really slowly,
Speaker 1: so for some folks, their court dates aren't until later
Speaker 1: this year. And this has created a humanitarian crisis because
Speaker 1: even if you weren't arrested, if you were an undocumented worker,
Speaker 1: most likely you were fired after these raids. And so
Speaker 1: as a result, a lot of families are in tough positions.
Speaker 1: They're kind of stuck in this holding pattern. They want
Speaker 1: to work, but they can't. They still have to feed
Speaker 1: their kids and pay their rent and utilities, but they
Speaker 1: can't move away to find job opportunities because they have
Speaker 1: court dates coming up. So you know, there were always
Speaker 1: people looking for jobs in these smaller communities, but the
Speaker 1: employment pool isn't huge. UM, And have to think about two.
Speaker 1: The conditions inside a chicken processing plant aren't ideal. It
Speaker 1: can be a really messy, dirty, hard job to do.
Speaker 1: And anecdotally, UM, just talking to some people who have
Speaker 1: worked in these chicken plants, turnover is pretty high. It's
Speaker 1: definitely not a job for everyone. I've stayed in touch
Speaker 1: with a source who works at a chicken plant in Morton, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and she says she's just been incredibly busy since August
Speaker 1: because they still haven't been able to replace all the
Speaker 1: workers who are fired. So she's working double shifts and
Speaker 1: and and over time. I guess, yeah, longer hours, double shifts.
Speaker 1: One of the things that is that probably draws employers
Speaker 1: to undocumented workers is precisely their undocumented status dr angels. Certainly,
Speaker 1: their undocumented status makes them exploitable and often UM less
Speaker 1: likely to stand up for better pay or against dangerous
Speaker 1: working conditions or us likely to organize a union, less
Speaker 1: likely to report or to demand UM workers compensation when
Speaker 1: they're when they're injured. But in Mississippi, actually Latin American
Speaker 1: workers have been organizing since the early two thousand's when
Speaker 1: I was there, there was a massive firing of immigrant workers,
Speaker 1: precisely at the time that they that they're organizing was
Speaker 1: really gaining traction. I don't I don't know that organizing
Speaker 1: was on the up swing in this particular moment um.
Speaker 1: But people have pointed to the fact that you know
Speaker 1: that that at least in the case of cook Foods,
Speaker 1: that workers you know, had brought this class action lawsuit
Speaker 1: against the company. It's hard to say whether that's you know,
Speaker 1: whether that figures into into the raids, right, So let's
Speaker 1: let's focus on the conditions. You know, we hear about
Speaker 1: injuries in plants. In your book Scrouching Out a Living,
Speaker 1: you talk about how workers would show up wearing diapers
Speaker 1: and knew sort of just give me a sense and feel.
Speaker 1: I did not work personally in the plants, but I
Speaker 1: did have access to the plants while I was doing
Speaker 1: my research as an interpreter with the unions and as
Speaker 1: an organizer with the Mississippi Poultry Workers Center. Just kind
Speaker 1: of take us through a shift I know you did
Speaker 1: this really really well in the book. You kind of
Speaker 1: walked just you know, sort of entering the plant and
Speaker 1: walking right through the line, and I found it fascinating. Boy,
Speaker 1: I'll try. You know, the pay is low and poultry,
Speaker 1: but this is really just the beginning. The plants. First
Speaker 1: of all, they're fortified by walls with um barbed wire
Speaker 1: at the top. They very much have a feeling of
Speaker 1: you know, what's in is supposed to be kept in,
Speaker 1: and what's out as supposed to be out. One of
Speaker 1: the times that I had the opportunity to tour a plant,
Speaker 1: a worker was standing by the door that I walked in,
Speaker 1: and he announced to me as I walked in, welcome
Speaker 1: to the penitentiary. And that was just, you know, hit
Speaker 1: me that that that sort of comparison between being inside
Speaker 1: the walls of a chicken plant and being inside the
Speaker 1: walls of a you know, state prison. But they are
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're concrete wall rooms. It's very very cold.
Speaker 1: The plant cannot go above forty degrees in the in
Speaker 1: the areas where the the de boning is happening, where
Speaker 1: the chicken is being cut. When I was working in
Speaker 1: with the Mississippi Poultry Workers Center. It was very normal
Speaker 1: to hear workers saying they weren't permitted to wear jackets
Speaker 1: to stay warm. Some said that they had to. So
Speaker 1: they're standing on a line with a conveyor belt of
Speaker 1: chickens whizzing by them. Currently, the limit, the federal limit
Speaker 1: for line speed is a hundred forty birds per minute.
Speaker 1: They're at the steel table. It's very noisy. You have
Speaker 1: to sort of shout if you want to communicate with someone,
Speaker 1: even who's next to you, and the chickens are whirling
Speaker 1: past you at this tremendous rate. Workers are standing in
Speaker 1: one place and they're making the same motion up to
Speaker 1: sixty times per shift. So your your job might be
Speaker 1: to cut off one wing or to lower a shoulder,
Speaker 1: or your job might be to put the whole chicken
Speaker 1: on the cone that's going to take the chicken down
Speaker 1: the conveyor belt. Workers also regularly complain that their equipment
Speaker 1: is dull, that their knives and scissors are dull. This
Speaker 1: creates conditions ripe for repetitive strain injuries as all as
Speaker 1: well as acute lacerations. We saw lots of amputations come
Speaker 1: through the Workers Center carpal tunnel in tendonitis or some
Speaker 1: of the major repetitive motion injuries. All Right, when when
Speaker 1: there's a laceration, I mean, do they stop the line
Speaker 1: or they just keep working through it. I have other
Speaker 1: accounts that I've read of workplace injuries. Workers have been
Speaker 1: surprised that, you know, maybe someone has a heart attack
Speaker 1: and is lying on the ground next to them and
Speaker 1: the line just keeps running. Um. So when it comes
Speaker 1: to lacerations, I would suspect that the answer to that
Speaker 1: question has less to do with the condition of the
Speaker 1: worker as it does to do with the possible contamination
Speaker 1: of the food source. Because food safety laws, I think
Speaker 1: are are taken very seriously and are UM police heavily,
Speaker 1: and the chicken plants um labor protections not so much.
Speaker 1: UM Again, diapers and here read reports of workers who
Speaker 1: actually wear diapers because there's there's there's just no bathroom breaks. Right,
Speaker 1: So one of the biggest complaints that poultry workers have
Speaker 1: is the um that they're not given breaks, particularly when
Speaker 1: they need to use the bathroom. They're supposed to be
Speaker 1: a rotation system of floater system where if you need
Speaker 1: a break, you know someone can come replace you. On
Speaker 1: the line while you go to the bathroom. But that
Speaker 1: clearly isn't happening in a lot of plants and a
Speaker 1: lot of cases. And again it was the it was
Speaker 1: probably the most common complaints that we heard at the
Speaker 1: workers center from from workers. You know, yes, the line
Speaker 1: speed is is you know, inhumane, and yes there are
Speaker 1: lots of injuries and it's cold, and we're being mistreated,
Speaker 1: and the supervie there's yelled at us, but they won't
Speaker 1: even let us use the bathroom. Right. We heard that
Speaker 1: over and over to the point where we actually took
Speaker 1: the complaint to the director of OSHA. Mississippi doesn't have
Speaker 1: a state Occupational Safety and Health office, but there was
Speaker 1: a federal OSHA representative to the state, and along with
Speaker 1: some poultry workers and their unions, we took this complaint
Speaker 1: um too to the OSHA office and they basically said, like,
Speaker 1: we hear you, but this is a question of resources
Speaker 1: and we just don't have enough. They said, we've got
Speaker 1: twelve I think it was twelve workers at the time
Speaker 1: these the data is a little bit dated, but at
Speaker 1: the time it was twelve workers to investigate OSHA issues
Speaker 1: across the entire state, and they said, you know, first
Speaker 1: we're going to go somewhere where UM, there's a death
Speaker 1: on the job. Second, we're going to investigate UM cases
Speaker 1: where there were multiple injuries, and sort of going down
Speaker 1: the line, he said, you know, we're just never going
Speaker 1: to get to the point where we can and force
Speaker 1: a worker's right to use the bathroom. So on top
Speaker 1: of the sort of physicality of the difficult um nature
Speaker 1: and the cold nature and the fast nature of of
Speaker 1: poultry work. UM, the other thing that that I heard
Speaker 1: so much from workers was the sense that they were
Speaker 1: treated like they weren't humans, UM, that they were treated
Speaker 1: like they were machines, that they were sort of see,
Speaker 1: they felt as if they were disposable. UM. Many people
Speaker 1: reported degradation by supervisors UM, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, extortion,
Speaker 1: and exchange for favorable treatment. And actually this was UM
Speaker 1: in the in one case in Mississippi at cook Foods,
Speaker 1: one of the plants that that was rated this past year. UM.
Speaker 1: This became a class action lawsuit that was eventually, after
Speaker 1: many many years settled. But that that I think is
Speaker 1: worth mentioning, right, the sort of in humanity of working
Speaker 1: in chicken plants. And there was one worker leader who
Speaker 1: who had been there many, many years, who said, you know,
Speaker 1: the chicken plants just use you up and reach back
Speaker 1: for your kids, and that it's sort of a generational
Speaker 1: wasting of bodies. Yeah. You refer to to this is
Speaker 1: plantation capitalism. Yeah. Yeah. And and there's a criminalization of
Speaker 1: actual work, this idea of plantation capitalism, um in in
Speaker 1: chicken processing. Yeah. I think I use the term plantation
Speaker 1: capitalism to think about, um, sort of the continuities over
Speaker 1: time in the Deep South, where you know, our food
Speaker 1: has always been produced by exploitable labors right by by
Speaker 1: people who were disenfranchised, who didn't have full rights. And
Speaker 1: this takes us, you know, takes us back to the
Speaker 1: time of plantation, um slavery. Really when we when we
Speaker 1: look at how how food has been produced in our country, um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think some people here plantation capitalism.
Speaker 1: I think, oh, this is sort of some figurative way
Speaker 1: of talking about racial exploitation and the plants, And in
Speaker 1: some ways it is, but I think it's a much
Speaker 1: more direct line. I worked with poultry worker leaders who
Speaker 1: had grown up as sharecroppers on the land that their
Speaker 1: grandparents have been enslaved on and for them being able
Speaker 1: to move off that land into a wage earning job
Speaker 1: was significant, while at the same time sort of the
Speaker 1: continuities of exploitation and inability to get ahead, and sort
Speaker 1: of the generational expectations that that you know, your kids
Speaker 1: were going to be in the same position that you
Speaker 1: were in. UM, I think very real after the break,
Speaker 1: what should the immigrant bill of rights look like? In America?
Speaker 1: We're back and you're listening to Citizen Chef. America's immigrant
Speaker 1: population is under attack. Who's gonna plant, pick, and process
Speaker 1: our food if we don't allow guest workers into our
Speaker 1: country to do it? I want to look at the
Speaker 1: role that immigrant workers have long played in our food
Speaker 1: system and ask the question, what should the immigrant bill
Speaker 1: of rights look like? In America? I'm talking to investigative journalists,
Speaker 1: at least as you of the Mississippi Claring Ledger. What
Speaker 1: struck me is is reading the reports of the raids
Speaker 1: is the response from the chicken processors. It was almost
Speaker 1: as if well, this is all okay, we'll just move
Speaker 1: on and and and um. You know, most business as
Speaker 1: if they lost two thirds of their workforce would be
Speaker 1: freaking out, And their reaction was just like well, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll find out the workers. UM. Did this have any
Speaker 1: additional economic ripple effect through the community. Obviously the workers
Speaker 1: were impacted, their families were impacted, but did have any
Speaker 1: additional effects. I stopped by some small Hispanic businesses in Morton,
Speaker 1: UM and they were just totally empty. One used to
Speaker 1: be a combination sort of restaurant and grocery store, but
Speaker 1: the restaurant had been closed basically since the raids. They
Speaker 1: didn't have their customers anymore. UM. There was one employee
Speaker 1: who didn't want to talk on the record, but it
Speaker 1: was clear that they've been really struggling since the raids
Speaker 1: and UH. As far as the cost of the raids,
Speaker 1: the salaries paid to the about six hundred federal agents
Speaker 1: on the day of the raids amounted to nearly five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars overall, including the cost the investigation that extended
Speaker 1: to eighteen months prior. UH it's cost tax payers about
Speaker 1: one point three million dollars so far, and that was
Speaker 1: according to an ICE official UM back in November. Right,
Speaker 1: and I guess you're factory again. The economic effect that
Speaker 1: I had, a ripple effect that I had through the community, UM,
Speaker 1: plus the fact that I'm assuming that these people were
Speaker 1: were working, they were paying taxes as well. They're paying
Speaker 1: into Social Security taxes. They weren't getting paid under their table,
Speaker 1: and so UM there's a tax base that was eroded
Speaker 1: as well. There, you know. Again, Plus if you're if
Speaker 1: you're spending money UM shopping for groceries and things like that,
Speaker 1: there's also additional tax that's being paid. And I guess
Speaker 1: I'm getting at this myth that that these workers are
Speaker 1: getting Most people think that UM workers that are working
Speaker 1: without proper documentation, that they're not paying into the taxes.
Speaker 1: They're not. They're they're they're kind of getting cash under
Speaker 1: the table, and it's it's not the case. The people
Speaker 1: I talked to were absolutely adamant about the fact that
Speaker 1: they paid taxes. They may have not been citizens, and
Speaker 1: they may have been using someone else's Social Security cards,
Speaker 1: but they were still paying income tax, They were paying
Speaker 1: sales tax, even property taxes. A lot of the folks
Speaker 1: I spoke to UM owned homes and cars, and they're
Speaker 1: paying it to Social Security that they'll never see, right
Speaker 1: because the Social Security is under someone else's name. I
Speaker 1: still eat chicken, but every time I'm in the meat
Speaker 1: aisle at the grocery store. I can't help but to
Speaker 1: think about the raids. I'm reminded of sort of the
Speaker 1: pungent animal smell that surrounds these chicken plants. I think
Speaker 1: about the people who left their homes and families and
Speaker 1: traveled thousands of miles to make a living butchering chickens,
Speaker 1: and who now perhaps don't know where their next meal
Speaker 1: is coming from. And I look at this chicken that
Speaker 1: will become sort of my cheap meal prep for the week. Um,
Speaker 1: But it has been so costly for so many others
Speaker 1: right there. Was are you know, the external costs that
Speaker 1: we don't actually see when we go to the store
Speaker 1: and spend you know, for regular commercial chickens about to
Speaker 1: forty nine pound or two thirty something a pound, and
Speaker 1: we don't understand the real, real, the real cost of it.
Speaker 1: I don't think we actually bear the real cost of it.
Speaker 1: And it's just a system that is propagated, you know,
Speaker 1: through cheap labor um expendable labor. I mean this story,
Speaker 1: in this rate, it's just a microcosm of how we
Speaker 1: look at at food and how food is produced in
Speaker 1: this country. And it's just on the backs of expendable labor.
Speaker 1: Um again the cavalier idea of these plants that well,
Speaker 1: I just lost, you know again two thirds of my
Speaker 1: workforce and it's no big deal. Somebody else is there
Speaker 1: to take the job and someone else that will just
Speaker 1: kind of burn through until the next wave of immigrants
Speaker 1: come through. Um are are um until this kind of
Speaker 1: dies down, and then I'll go back to doing these
Speaker 1: I think what they're doing now, Um, it's just it's
Speaker 1: amazing to me that the owners of these plants bear
Speaker 1: were no responsibility at all. I mean, what they were
Speaker 1: doing was breaking the law. Um. You know, we've we've
Speaker 1: managed to take uh work and criminalize work. But yet
Speaker 1: the people who are who are really reaping the benefit
Speaker 1: of the cheap labor, the owners of these plants were
Speaker 1: no responsibility at all. And I find I just find
Speaker 1: that to to just be just you know, it's snapshot
Speaker 1: of just how our system works. And so when you say,
Speaker 1: you go into the store and you're still buying chicken,
Speaker 1: but that that memory is there, it's it's seared into
Speaker 1: your brain and you're always thinking of these people. And
Speaker 1: I think probably for you, it's it's even more visceral
Speaker 1: because you know, the people you've met, the people that
Speaker 1: that have been affected by this. It's not, um, some
Speaker 1: abstract thing out there. And so to hear you say
Speaker 1: that every time you you buy chicken, or each chicken
Speaker 1: you think, you think of this, I think that is
Speaker 1: really the takeaway. There are people behind what you're eating,
Speaker 1: There are stories behind what you're eating, and uh, there's
Speaker 1: so many lives that are affected. And and our immigration
Speaker 1: story in this country is one of of you know,
Speaker 1: providing for a food system, whether they're working in processing plants,
Speaker 1: whether immigrants are working in the fields. Without that labor,
Speaker 1: we're not eating. And then so the question is if
Speaker 1: you're a responsible eater, how are you responsible to that
Speaker 1: person that is doing the work? Is it okay if
Speaker 1: I bring up a couple of oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: keep keep going. You know, the people I reached out
Speaker 1: to where either individuals who are directly impacted by the
Speaker 1: raids or trying to help those people out. Um, And
Speaker 1: I think that, uh, Mississippi is a very red state.
Speaker 1: There is also a lot of compassion for neighbors that
Speaker 1: I think is a very um important value here, especially
Speaker 1: in small towns. The non immigrant individuals of the community
Speaker 1: I spoke to. They felt very strongly for the people
Speaker 1: who ended up getting caught up in the raids. They
Speaker 1: felt like this raid helped illustrate a need for reform
Speaker 1: within our immigration system. One woman who said, you know,
Speaker 1: she doesn't really like to talk about politics, but she
Speaker 1: just really feels that people who come over here who
Speaker 1: don't have a criminal background, who are doing their best
Speaker 1: to work hard and make a life for their families,
Speaker 1: they should be given some sort of avenue for a
Speaker 1: citizenship or or for work authorization. UM And one pastor
Speaker 1: I talked to UM He is a priest at a
Speaker 1: local Catholic church, UM and he acknowledged that a large
Speaker 1: part of his congregation is pretty conservative, and so when
Speaker 1: the raids happened, uh, he decided, I'm not gonna put
Speaker 1: this sort of in a political framework. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say this is a humanitarian crisis. The people who are suffering,
Speaker 1: they are parishioners, they are our neighbors, and we need
Speaker 1: to help them. This is our Katrina. We need to
Speaker 1: step up. I'll leave it at that and just want
Speaker 1: to say thank you for the work that you're doing
Speaker 1: and this is this has been eye opening. Thank you
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Our government
Speaker 1: is making it impossible for workers to actually work here,
Speaker 1: immigrant workers and and and doing their best to separate
Speaker 1: them from their families and locking them up in cages,
Speaker 1: and so there's a real shortage pre COVID of workers
Speaker 1: who are forming an essential duty of making sure that
Speaker 1: we're fed. And so now with COVID, what we're seeing
Speaker 1: is that conditions in a lot of these processing plants
Speaker 1: are not safe and at all in the quest for
Speaker 1: providing cheap, cheap food, but that cheap food is you know,
Speaker 1: produced on the backs of people who are marginalized and
Speaker 1: really have no power, and in fact we have a
Speaker 1: government that is often including against them to keep them marginalized.
Speaker 1: But this is nothing new. I want to thank our
Speaker 1: guests Angela Stsi and Alisa's you and Christian Castri and
Speaker 1: Laurie Silverbush at a place at the table. This is
Speaker 1: Citizen Chef with me Tom Colikio. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Christopher hastiotis, our researcher is j Lynn Shields, and our
Speaker 1: producer and editor is Garrielle Collins. Thanks for listening.