{"id":214,"date":"2021-01-28T13:56:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T18:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/?p=214"},"modified":"2021-01-29T10:09:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T15:09:36","slug":"a-frustrating-story-or-one-of-great-hope-or-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/2021\/01\/a-frustrating-story-or-one-of-great-hope-or-both\/","title":{"rendered":"A frustrating story. Or one of great hope. Or both."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On\nthe front page of the May 30, 2017, New York Times<\/em>, a headline\nsummarized contemporary Storm Lake: \u201cIn Rural Iowa, A Future Rests On\nImmigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\na story known to many in Buena Vista County, an impressive and concise summary\nof the strengths and weaknesses of Storm Lake\u2019s economy and community. We read\nthis piece this week, which led to a conversation on the paradox of the town\u2019s\nhistory. When Hygrade closed in 1981, and union jobs vanished, the city found\nitself all the more vulnerable to the vagaries of industrial forces. Enter IBP,\nwhich hired non-union workers and recruited heavily among Latino populations\nfor less pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Looking at this moment now, decades later, it was perhaps the<\/em> pivotal moment for the community in the twentieth century. But was it the apex or the nadir of Storm Lake\u2019s story? Can one lament a deteriorating labor environment while simultaneously feeling inspired by the community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nwere fortunate to have the article\u2019s author join us for a conversation by Zoom.\nPatricia Cohen covers the national economy for the Times<\/em>, and her\narticle prompted a wide-ranging conversation on immigration, the forces of\ncapitalism, and generational change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students\nheard of her time in Storm Lake, and they also learned how a consummate\nprofessional (yet outsider) managed to capture, in relatively few words, the\nheart of the Storm Lake story. Her secret? \u201cWhat I did for Storm Lake is what I\nwould say any good reporter does for anything: \u2026 I come really prepared, and I\ndo all the research that I can possibly do.\u201d Yes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\na good reminder as students embark upon their own research this semester.\nStudents Anna Rottenborn, Adam Kimble, Michel Reising, and Nathaniel Hieber put\nvarious questions to Cohen: why were younger white generations more likely to\nmove out of town, and children of recent immigrants more likely to return? Did\nshe encounter any episodes of explicit racism? What were her impressions of\nStorm Lake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Patricia Cohen joined our class for a discussion. Jan. 27, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Cohen\nexplained how her experience writing the piece demonstrated that journalists,\nlike historians, can\u2019t always anticipate the results. That\u2019s why she went to Iowa:\nto listen. She met with church and police leaders, and with locals of Latin\nAmerican and Southeast Asian origins. She struck up conversations in markets.\nShe chit-chatted over sips of joe at the Grand Central Coffee Station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\nhad gone to town anticipating writing a profile on Storm Lake\u2019s embrace of multiculturalism.\nBut she was astonished by the economic past that had led to such a present. \u201cI\nthought that was a really fascinating part of the story,\u201d she said, \u201cwhich was,\nin the popular belief, that immigrants came and undercut the jobs. But, in fact,\nit was the reverse that happened. The companies had essentially busted the\nunions and cut pay, and then nobody wanted those jobs, and so immigrants were\nwilling to take them at a lower wage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her\npublished article\u2019s first featured interviewee, Dan Smith, appeared on her\nradar during a conversation with Art Cullen. She recalled Cullen saying, \u201cYou\nknow, you should call this guy because he\u2019s been [at Tyson\/IBP\/Hygrade] for 40\nyears now, and I think he\u2019s retiring next week.\u201d Cohen then continued, \u201cAnd so,\nyou know, my journalistic spidey-sense just went like, \u2018bing bing bing bing\nbing,\u2019 like, that\u2019s the perfect guy, the magic notebook you hope to have someone\ncome across.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ndetail provided by Mr. Smith, in fact, stood out in students\u2019 minds and\nrepresents much of Storm Lake\u2019s economic history: he worked as a forklift driver\nfor most of his career, and made the same wage ($16 per hour) the entire time.\nWere this adjusted for inflation, it would have been triple the amount in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s emblematic of economic changes\u2014for the worse, one could say\u2014that are responsible for Storm Lake\u2019s development in the last 40 years. And yet, without this, the city wouldn\u2019t be thriving, albeit imperfectly, with a growing multicultural community. The other stories that Cohen found wouldn\u2019t have been possible: the example of Silvino Morelos\u2019s \u201cValentina\u2019s Meat Market,\u201d or the success of Abel Saengchanpheng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Our 15 students, socially distanced, listened as Anna Rottenborn asked Patricia Cohen a question.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Is\nStorm Lake the realization of the American dream, born from economic\nvulnerabilities? A student, Joey Puckett, put this question to Cohen. What did\nshe think? Was this a tale of disappointment or of hope?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nfirst thing I would say to you is,\u201d she said, ever the journalist, \u201cwhat you\nguys think is actually more important. It\u2019s what are you<\/em> taking away\nfrom the story. But I would have to kind of say both [hope and disappointment].\nIt’s one of the reasons I like that story, and I think that it got the\nattention that it did because it captured so many things that were going on in\nterms what had happened to union jobs in this country, not only meatpacking\nplants but in manufacturing plants and elsewhere, all over. As globalization\noccurred and jobs were exported abroad and unions were broken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the other hand,\u201d Cohen continued, \u201cif you look at kind of what we generally call \u2018the crisis of rural America,\u2019 which is that demographic trend of communities getting smaller and smaller, and aging, and people not wanting to move there, and no industries, then Storm Lake is a success story in that it has managed, however fitfully and however bumpy and lumpy along the way, to create this thriving community which, unlike a lot of others, is growing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the front page of the May 30, 2017, New York Times, a headline summarized contemporary Storm Lake: \u201cIn Rural Iowa, A Future Rests On Immigrants.\u201d It\u2019s a story known to many in Buena Vista County, an impressive and concise summary of the strengths and weaknesses of Storm Lake\u2019s economy… Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3041,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-update"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3041"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/stormlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}