Abstract
Driving south from Minnesota on Route 52, just past the Amish settlement at Harmony, the traveler finds a friendly billboard marking the state line, “The People of Iowa Welcome You: Fields of Opportunity.” It means, “Iowa needs workers.” This is the first of many welcoming signs, whose messages, much in keeping with the character of the region, are nevertheless profoundly at odds with an immigration raid. An eventual left onto Route 9 at Decorah will bring you to Frankville Road, right turn only. Over yonder sits tiny Frankville (pop. 343). To the right, the cemetery is larger than the town. For 150 years, folks have been born, raised, and buried at “The Nicest Little Spot in Northern Iowa.” Postville too was like that once, a homogeneous town of German and Norwegian Lutherans, followed by Irish Catholics, Dutch Methodists, and Presbyterians. Four miles ahead, a right on 51 toward Route 18 brings you to Postville, “Hometown to the World,” established 1849. A century and a half later, this town of two square miles had been home to people of 50 nationalities, speaking 35 languages.1
Maybe Postville is out front of where the rest of America is eventually headed.
—Stephen Bloom
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Notes
Cornelia Flora and Jan Flora, “Postville, Iowa: Lessons for Immigration Reform,” UC Davis files (2009): 3.
Stephen Bloom, “Strangers in a Strange Land: A Jewish Sect Comes to Iowa to Kick-Start a Factory and Finds a Home,” Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1996, p. 6.
A. Lloyd Lack, “Benjamin Franklin’s Opinion of German-Americans,” New York Times, October 12, 1919.
“Banks were foreclosing on family farms throughout the state, and agricul-tural conglomerates, once considered the devil, were about the only saviors left, even though they low-balled anyone who thought twice about selling” (Stephen Bloom, Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America [New York: Harcourt, 2000], p. 45).
Abbas, who strongly condemned the raid, also became outspoken against worker abuses surfacing from the investigation of Agriprocessors. The board of KPVL radio, controlled by its president, Agri executive Chaim Abrahams, became intent on silencing Abbas. Lynda Waddington, “Immigration Raid Continues to Impact Postville,” Iowa Independent, March 17, 2009.
Mark Grey and Anne Woodrick, “Unofficial Sister Cities: Meatpacking Labor Migration between Villachuato, Mexico and Marshalltown, Iowa” (unpub-lished paper draft, 2001. Available at http://www.extension.iastate.edu/miac/annewoodrick.pdf). Mark Grey and Phyllis Baker, “Positive Exposure: Immersion in Latino Culture Brings Positive Change,” Cityscape (February 2002): 8–9.
Mark Grey, Michele Devlin, and Aaron Goldsmith, Postville U.S.A.: Surviving Diversity in Small-Town America (Boston: Gemma, 2009), p. 14.
Susan Saulny, “Hundreds Are Arrested in U.S. Sweep of Meat Plant,” New York Times, May 13, 2008.
Julia Preston, “Large Iowa Meatpacker in Illegal Immigrant Raid Files for Bankruptcy,” New York Times, November 5, 2008.
Aviva Chomsky, “They Take Our Jobs!” and 20 other Myths about Immigration (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007).
Lynda Waddington, “Agriprocessors Imports Homeless Workers and Postville Pays a Price,” Iowa Independent, June 25, 2008.
Lynda Waddington’s early optimistic reports for the Iowa Independent, “Postville More Diverse Now Than at Time of Immigration Raid” (September 12, 2008) and “Palauan Minister: Postville Workers Are Benefit to Palau’s Economy” (October 7, 2008), quickly gave way to negative reports: Claire Kellett, “Frustrated Palauans leave Postville,” KCRG-TV9, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (November 16, 2008).
Wayne Drash, “Mayor: Feds Turned My Town ‘Topsy Turvy’,” CNN.com, October 14, 2008.
Amy Goodman, “Iowa Town Turned into ‘Open-Air Prison’ as Wives of Men Arrested in Largest Immigration Raid in U.S. History Forbidden to Work … or Leave,” Democracy Now, August 20, 2008.
Marcelo Ballvé, “A Year Without a Mexican,” Mother Jones, March 20, 2009.
Tony Leys, “Harkin Move Kept Agriprocessors Plant Afloat,” Des Moines Register, December 29, 2008.
Tony Leys, “We Can’t Even Feed Kids, Postville Crowd Tells Judge,” Des Moines Register, December 5, 2008.
Janell Bradley, “Postville Mayor Submits Resignation,” WCF Courier, March 11, 2009.
Nathaniel Popper, “As New Owners Take Over Meat Plant, Battered Postville Waits and Worries,” Jewish Forward, September 18, 2009.
Tony Leys, “Throng Packs Postville to Pray, Call for Change,” Des Moines Register, July 28, 2008
Julia Preston, “Iowa Rally Protests Raid and Conditions at Plant,” New York Times, July 28, 2008.
Erik Camayd-Freixas, “A Rose for Sister Mary,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 25, 2009.
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© 2013 Erik Camayd-Freixas
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Camayd-Freixas, E. (2013). Hometown to the World. In: US Immigration Reform and Its Global Impact. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137106780_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137106780_2
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