Colleen Bradford Krantz's Blog, page 2
January 8, 2012
An Iowan's Thoughts on the Caucus, Good and Bad
As a journalist living in Iowa, it was odd to be an observer during our first-in-the nation caucuses on Tuesday.
Four years ago, I missed reporting on or even attending a caucus event; my daughter was born days before. I was a little preoccupied. But eight years ago, in 2004, I was a general assignment reporter for the Des Moines Register. We had several regular political reporters who would take care of things initially, but when the trickle of early arriving candidates turned into a parade of candidates, others were quickly pulled in to help cover the dozens of events. I was among those traveling Iowa’s highways and back roads in 2004 to report as presidential contenders spoke at diners, community centers, libraries, or wherever there was room for a crowd.
For myself at least – and I suspect for others – the novelty of meeting a person that could someday be president wore off for the most part. You got used to it. That’s not to say the whole process wasn’t still fascinating. It was, and it still is. The thought that the first voter involvement in selecting our president started right in my home state was an amazing one.
Any Iowan (or anyone traveling to Iowa) could relatively easily catch almost every candidate at some point or another if they had the time to dedicate to this goal. A friend of mine and his wife took their baby to numerous candidate events in Iowa in 2008, eventually getting their son’s photo taken with John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Guiliani, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Fred Thompson, John McCain, and, yes, Barack Obama (among others).
What’s the downside of all the national attention that goes along with this kind of access? Every four years, the media picks apart Iowa and its role in the presidential nomination process. That’s expected and doesn’t bother most people. You get used to that too, and many Iowans would probably agree that it’s valid to ask why Iowa is always first. (Read why we're first here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_cau...)
But it’s the cheap shots that get old. The articles that portray Iowa as a backward, clueless place that has little to offer. University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom wrote the cheap shot piece that has probably drawn the most attention in this particular caucus season. His observations include that rural Iowans are “the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in education) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that ‘The sun'll come out tomorrow.’ ” You can read the full piece here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/a...
I’ve since read an article since quoting Bloom, who took a lot of heat, as saying that it was his job as a journalist to include observations. I didn’t lose sleep over it, but it was clear to me that he wasn’t working hard to include a balance of positive and negative observations. After all, would that have sold as well to the national magazines? Probably not.
But it also struck me that a person could write a piece like his about ANY state. Really. Any state. Here’s the formula: pick out a few towns that seem “scuzzy” and throw those under the bus, describe the people that you judge as being less desirable for how they look (never mind if it’s due to poverty), and talk about the small percentage of the population that has a drug problem (adjusting for the illegal drug of choice in your state). Voila! You’ve sold an article to a national publication.
And, to any state that might someday be successful in assuming the first-in-the-nation caucus status, you can bet someone living there will be ready with that piece for your state.
It’s the price of access, and, really, in my opinion, probably a relatively small one.
Four years ago, I missed reporting on or even attending a caucus event; my daughter was born days before. I was a little preoccupied. But eight years ago, in 2004, I was a general assignment reporter for the Des Moines Register. We had several regular political reporters who would take care of things initially, but when the trickle of early arriving candidates turned into a parade of candidates, others were quickly pulled in to help cover the dozens of events. I was among those traveling Iowa’s highways and back roads in 2004 to report as presidential contenders spoke at diners, community centers, libraries, or wherever there was room for a crowd.
For myself at least – and I suspect for others – the novelty of meeting a person that could someday be president wore off for the most part. You got used to it. That’s not to say the whole process wasn’t still fascinating. It was, and it still is. The thought that the first voter involvement in selecting our president started right in my home state was an amazing one.
Any Iowan (or anyone traveling to Iowa) could relatively easily catch almost every candidate at some point or another if they had the time to dedicate to this goal. A friend of mine and his wife took their baby to numerous candidate events in Iowa in 2008, eventually getting their son’s photo taken with John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Guiliani, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Fred Thompson, John McCain, and, yes, Barack Obama (among others).
What’s the downside of all the national attention that goes along with this kind of access? Every four years, the media picks apart Iowa and its role in the presidential nomination process. That’s expected and doesn’t bother most people. You get used to that too, and many Iowans would probably agree that it’s valid to ask why Iowa is always first. (Read why we're first here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_cau...)
But it’s the cheap shots that get old. The articles that portray Iowa as a backward, clueless place that has little to offer. University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom wrote the cheap shot piece that has probably drawn the most attention in this particular caucus season. His observations include that rural Iowans are “the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in education) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that ‘The sun'll come out tomorrow.’ ” You can read the full piece here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/a...
I’ve since read an article since quoting Bloom, who took a lot of heat, as saying that it was his job as a journalist to include observations. I didn’t lose sleep over it, but it was clear to me that he wasn’t working hard to include a balance of positive and negative observations. After all, would that have sold as well to the national magazines? Probably not.
But it also struck me that a person could write a piece like his about ANY state. Really. Any state. Here’s the formula: pick out a few towns that seem “scuzzy” and throw those under the bus, describe the people that you judge as being less desirable for how they look (never mind if it’s due to poverty), and talk about the small percentage of the population that has a drug problem (adjusting for the illegal drug of choice in your state). Voila! You’ve sold an article to a national publication.
And, to any state that might someday be successful in assuming the first-in-the-nation caucus status, you can bet someone living there will be ready with that piece for your state.
It’s the price of access, and, really, in my opinion, probably a relatively small one.
December 11, 2011
Aunt Jeanine
Once the nurses opened the locked door, we searched for Aunt Jeanine.
The kids were interested in the place. "Is this an apartment building?" one of the boys asked.
“Kind of like an apartment,” I said. “It’s a place where people can stay if they can’t live on their own any longer - sometimes when they are older. Maybe their minds aren’t working quite right so they lock the doors to keep them safe.”
My answer satisfied them. As my husband, kids and I walked past rooms in the Alzheimer unit, we were greeted by an older woman, who was walking the halls. She stared openly at my 8-year-old for a few minutes, before saying, “Oh, you are the most beautiful boy.” My shy son squirmed, embarrassed, as she repeated herself several times.
He was rescued when a nurse noticed us, asking if we were the relatives who had called about visiting Jeanine. She escorted us to a small room where we were joined by Jeanine, who looked a bit thin but otherwise healthy.
During our hour-long visit, though, it was easy to see how else she had changed. She talked in some detail about when she was young like my children, but then once insisted that she was not a twin. Later, she would remember, “Oh, I guess I am a twin – to Jim. Now are you one of Jim’s children?” I am, I told her. She knew that when she was herself.
I didn’t see Aunt Jeanine real frequently as a child because she was often based far away from her home state of Iowa, where she was born in 1934 near the small town of Fonda. Jeanine was a nun. We were as likely to call her Sister Jeanine as Aunt Jeanine.
When I was a young child, I remember her coming to visit from what then seemed like a far-away exotic place – the Bahamas. She lived in the Bahamas for many years, and helped start and run a school called Mary Star of the Sea Catholic School.
Sister Jeanine could always make people laugh.
As a teen, I remember being amused by how my then-middle-aged aunt would discuss with my sisters and I how "hot" Tom Cruise was. With moments like this, I was reminded how she didn’t fit the stereotype of the oh-so-serious Roman Catholic nun. But she was like so many other nuns when it came to sacrifice. She spent her life teaching and caring for others, following the path she’d been drawn to as a young woman, always putting others first.
As she grew older, she and one of her sisters - my aunt who became a widow years earlier - became roommates in a house in Arizona. They were nearly always together. When Jeanine began showing signs of Alzheimers and eventually had to move back to her mother house where she could be cared for properly, the separation was difficult for them both.
Aunt Jeanine would call my dad’s cell phone repeatedly as the weeks passed, sometimes a dozen times a day. Always, her pleas were the same: “I have to get out of here. I need to go home. I need to see Mom.” But her mother and father had died many decades earlier. The Fonda farmhouse in which they had grown up was long since gone.
As we visited with her last summer at the convent’s nursing home, she told me the same thing: “I need to go home. I need to see Mom.”
As I talked with Jeanine, my three children played with some toys that had been left in the visiting room. Often, the kids would stop playing to watch the half dozen parakeets that were kept in a large glass cage in the room.
Last month, Aunt Jeanine died.
I told my Mom and one of my sisters about these birds as we drove home from the funeral. I remembered what Aunt Jeanine had said about the parakeets, as my son watched them: “Yeah, they are pretty, but I can’t help but feel bad for them being locked in here. They should be free.”
It felt like she was talking about herself when she talked about those birds, I told them. In a way, she was trapped by the Alzheimers. She had yearned to be free too.
A nun talked during Jeanine’s funeral about how Jeanine seemed to know her time was near. All this made me think about where Jeanine was wanting to escape to. I'd made the assumption that, in asking for her mother, she planned to go look for her at a long-since-gone childhood home in Fonda.
Perhaps she had said only that she needed to go see Mom. Perhaps she hadn't meant Fonda at all.
The kids were interested in the place. "Is this an apartment building?" one of the boys asked.
“Kind of like an apartment,” I said. “It’s a place where people can stay if they can’t live on their own any longer - sometimes when they are older. Maybe their minds aren’t working quite right so they lock the doors to keep them safe.”
My answer satisfied them. As my husband, kids and I walked past rooms in the Alzheimer unit, we were greeted by an older woman, who was walking the halls. She stared openly at my 8-year-old for a few minutes, before saying, “Oh, you are the most beautiful boy.” My shy son squirmed, embarrassed, as she repeated herself several times.
He was rescued when a nurse noticed us, asking if we were the relatives who had called about visiting Jeanine. She escorted us to a small room where we were joined by Jeanine, who looked a bit thin but otherwise healthy.
During our hour-long visit, though, it was easy to see how else she had changed. She talked in some detail about when she was young like my children, but then once insisted that she was not a twin. Later, she would remember, “Oh, I guess I am a twin – to Jim. Now are you one of Jim’s children?” I am, I told her. She knew that when she was herself.
I didn’t see Aunt Jeanine real frequently as a child because she was often based far away from her home state of Iowa, where she was born in 1934 near the small town of Fonda. Jeanine was a nun. We were as likely to call her Sister Jeanine as Aunt Jeanine.
When I was a young child, I remember her coming to visit from what then seemed like a far-away exotic place – the Bahamas. She lived in the Bahamas for many years, and helped start and run a school called Mary Star of the Sea Catholic School.
Sister Jeanine could always make people laugh.
As a teen, I remember being amused by how my then-middle-aged aunt would discuss with my sisters and I how "hot" Tom Cruise was. With moments like this, I was reminded how she didn’t fit the stereotype of the oh-so-serious Roman Catholic nun. But she was like so many other nuns when it came to sacrifice. She spent her life teaching and caring for others, following the path she’d been drawn to as a young woman, always putting others first.
As she grew older, she and one of her sisters - my aunt who became a widow years earlier - became roommates in a house in Arizona. They were nearly always together. When Jeanine began showing signs of Alzheimers and eventually had to move back to her mother house where she could be cared for properly, the separation was difficult for them both.
Aunt Jeanine would call my dad’s cell phone repeatedly as the weeks passed, sometimes a dozen times a day. Always, her pleas were the same: “I have to get out of here. I need to go home. I need to see Mom.” But her mother and father had died many decades earlier. The Fonda farmhouse in which they had grown up was long since gone.
As we visited with her last summer at the convent’s nursing home, she told me the same thing: “I need to go home. I need to see Mom.”
As I talked with Jeanine, my three children played with some toys that had been left in the visiting room. Often, the kids would stop playing to watch the half dozen parakeets that were kept in a large glass cage in the room.
Last month, Aunt Jeanine died.
I told my Mom and one of my sisters about these birds as we drove home from the funeral. I remembered what Aunt Jeanine had said about the parakeets, as my son watched them: “Yeah, they are pretty, but I can’t help but feel bad for them being locked in here. They should be free.”
It felt like she was talking about herself when she talked about those birds, I told them. In a way, she was trapped by the Alzheimers. She had yearned to be free too.
A nun talked during Jeanine’s funeral about how Jeanine seemed to know her time was near. All this made me think about where Jeanine was wanting to escape to. I'd made the assumption that, in asking for her mother, she planned to go look for her at a long-since-gone childhood home in Fonda.
Perhaps she had said only that she needed to go see Mom. Perhaps she hadn't meant Fonda at all.
October 14, 2011
Americans on Farms: Should I Have Used the "L" Word?
I was doing a book signing a few weeks ago at a great little Des Moines bookstore. The crowd had been steady thanks largely to an art crawl happening in the East Village that day, and I spent a few hours talking with one person after another.
I often explain in these conversations that, as a journalist, I wasn’t trying to push people in any particular political direction on the immigration issue in my book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation.” After that, the conversations are usually amicable as we share observations - not political "solutions" - related to immigration. It was the same on this particular day as I chatted with a woman. I shared some observations, as did she, but when I made one comment, her mood seemed to shift suddenly and dramatically.
What I had said was that farmers are saying they have trouble finding U.S. citizens who want to work on their farms – particularly with the more demanding jobs such as picking vegetables or milking cows. And many they do hire quit within a few weeks, if not days. Many Americans feel they have better choices and don’t want to work so hard in less-than-ideal conditions.
“That is not true what you just said!” the woman said, her voice suddenly louder.
I was confused for a minute. I asked if she meant it’s not true that farmers are saying they can’t hire and retain enough U.S. citizens? Or she thinks farmers are lying about Americans not wanting these jobs?
I explained that, as a reporter, I had heard it from farmers myself a number of times. Some dairy farmers in the northeast Iowa told me several years earlier that they were having much better luck hiring rural Mexicans or Central Americans to milk the cows, a job that usually begins around 5 a.m. I’d heard the same thing from other farmers, and had read similar comments in various reports from other journalists.
The woman said she felt that agriculture was just using those from south-of-the border because they could pay them less and abuse them when it came to working hours and benefits. I told her that, as a reporter, I had seen evidence of this at one agricultural production facility - a massive egg-laying facility in the Midwest - but that I wasn't convinced that carried over to most family farms.
My own parents raise cattle in the hilly pastures of western Iowa. My dad usually has one or two hired men or women to work alongside him. He has always been able to hire U.S. citizens and has been lucky to find some great, hard-working people. But it’s not always a quick or easy task to find them. The hours on the ranch are long and erratic. Cattle get out of the fields at random times, water supplies freeze over in the middle of blizzards, cows need to be assisted during calving in the middle of the night. All these issues have to be dealt with quickly, despite the hour or the weather. Farming might seem rewarding and fun to those driving by on the highway on a nice, sunny day (and it can be) but it’s the rainy, cold, or snowy days that are the true test.
I think my big mistake in our conversation was that I used the L word - "Lazy" - in reference to some U.S. citizens when it came to types of farms that are less mechanized and still require intensive hands-on work.
Was I going too far in using that word? Perhaps.
Maybe I should have said another L word: "Lucky." Maybe Americans are too lucky to want to do this kind of farm work. Maybe, as a nation, we really could still get out there in the mud and heat, and still do the back-breaking work that comes with raising vegetables, caring for pastured animals, or milking cows.
It was just a few weeks later when I saw this article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/... The headline said: “Hiring Locally for Farm Work Is No Cure-All.”
It told of an onion farmer who described the same experience I had heard about from Iowa’s dairy farmers. The man made a point to hire local help, wondering if he had been unfair about hiring U.S. citizens.
The article said: “Six hours was enough, between the 6 a.m. start time and noon lunch break, for the first wave of local workers to quit. Some simply never came back and gave no reason. Twenty-five of them said specifically, according to farm records, that the work was too hard.”
At least the New York Times reporter was smarter than me.
He didn’t use the L word.
I often explain in these conversations that, as a journalist, I wasn’t trying to push people in any particular political direction on the immigration issue in my book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation.” After that, the conversations are usually amicable as we share observations - not political "solutions" - related to immigration. It was the same on this particular day as I chatted with a woman. I shared some observations, as did she, but when I made one comment, her mood seemed to shift suddenly and dramatically.
What I had said was that farmers are saying they have trouble finding U.S. citizens who want to work on their farms – particularly with the more demanding jobs such as picking vegetables or milking cows. And many they do hire quit within a few weeks, if not days. Many Americans feel they have better choices and don’t want to work so hard in less-than-ideal conditions.
“That is not true what you just said!” the woman said, her voice suddenly louder.
I was confused for a minute. I asked if she meant it’s not true that farmers are saying they can’t hire and retain enough U.S. citizens? Or she thinks farmers are lying about Americans not wanting these jobs?
I explained that, as a reporter, I had heard it from farmers myself a number of times. Some dairy farmers in the northeast Iowa told me several years earlier that they were having much better luck hiring rural Mexicans or Central Americans to milk the cows, a job that usually begins around 5 a.m. I’d heard the same thing from other farmers, and had read similar comments in various reports from other journalists.
The woman said she felt that agriculture was just using those from south-of-the border because they could pay them less and abuse them when it came to working hours and benefits. I told her that, as a reporter, I had seen evidence of this at one agricultural production facility - a massive egg-laying facility in the Midwest - but that I wasn't convinced that carried over to most family farms.
My own parents raise cattle in the hilly pastures of western Iowa. My dad usually has one or two hired men or women to work alongside him. He has always been able to hire U.S. citizens and has been lucky to find some great, hard-working people. But it’s not always a quick or easy task to find them. The hours on the ranch are long and erratic. Cattle get out of the fields at random times, water supplies freeze over in the middle of blizzards, cows need to be assisted during calving in the middle of the night. All these issues have to be dealt with quickly, despite the hour or the weather. Farming might seem rewarding and fun to those driving by on the highway on a nice, sunny day (and it can be) but it’s the rainy, cold, or snowy days that are the true test.
I think my big mistake in our conversation was that I used the L word - "Lazy" - in reference to some U.S. citizens when it came to types of farms that are less mechanized and still require intensive hands-on work.
Was I going too far in using that word? Perhaps.
Maybe I should have said another L word: "Lucky." Maybe Americans are too lucky to want to do this kind of farm work. Maybe, as a nation, we really could still get out there in the mud and heat, and still do the back-breaking work that comes with raising vegetables, caring for pastured animals, or milking cows.
It was just a few weeks later when I saw this article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/... The headline said: “Hiring Locally for Farm Work Is No Cure-All.”
It told of an onion farmer who described the same experience I had heard about from Iowa’s dairy farmers. The man made a point to hire local help, wondering if he had been unfair about hiring U.S. citizens.
The article said: “Six hours was enough, between the 6 a.m. start time and noon lunch break, for the first wave of local workers to quit. Some simply never came back and gave no reason. Twenty-five of them said specifically, according to farm records, that the work was too hard.”
At least the New York Times reporter was smarter than me.
He didn’t use the L word.
September 5, 2011
The Next Big Thing?
I figured it was time when I carried the plastic file folder box to the basement.
It bulged with all those government documents, handwritten notes, and letters.
I was packing away the raw material that had served as the foundation for my first book.
Now, though, I was forced to look at my freshly cleared desk and admit it was time to lock in on my next topic.
Ideas weren’t an issue. After spending a decade as a newspaper reporter, I still made mental leaps during conversations: “Hey, that would be a great article!” But book ideas were a different thing.
Not only did such ideas need to have enough areas to explore that a person could fill a book, but it also needed to be a topic that could hold my interest for the year and more that I knew I’d spend writing and marketing it.
I was lucky that the story I told in my first book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation” (Ice Cube Press, 2011), held my attention the entire time, despite the longer-than-normal period I dedicated to it and the companion documentary. I never got bored with the topic, which author friends tell me is an accomplishment.
The funny thing is that this search for a new topic seemed to come up so quickly.
Didn’t I just finish writing the last book? Wasn’t it just a few short months ago that I celebrated - over a glass of wine - the book being off to the printer? But in the flurry of releasing a new book, the time flew by and suddenly it seems to be time to settle on another topic.
I imagine it being like the mother of a 6-month-old finding out that she’s expecting another baby again already.
Well, like that, just with less crying.
Hopefully.
It bulged with all those government documents, handwritten notes, and letters.
I was packing away the raw material that had served as the foundation for my first book.
Now, though, I was forced to look at my freshly cleared desk and admit it was time to lock in on my next topic.
Ideas weren’t an issue. After spending a decade as a newspaper reporter, I still made mental leaps during conversations: “Hey, that would be a great article!” But book ideas were a different thing.
Not only did such ideas need to have enough areas to explore that a person could fill a book, but it also needed to be a topic that could hold my interest for the year and more that I knew I’d spend writing and marketing it.
I was lucky that the story I told in my first book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation” (Ice Cube Press, 2011), held my attention the entire time, despite the longer-than-normal period I dedicated to it and the companion documentary. I never got bored with the topic, which author friends tell me is an accomplishment.
The funny thing is that this search for a new topic seemed to come up so quickly.
Didn’t I just finish writing the last book? Wasn’t it just a few short months ago that I celebrated - over a glass of wine - the book being off to the printer? But in the flurry of releasing a new book, the time flew by and suddenly it seems to be time to settle on another topic.
I imagine it being like the mother of a 6-month-old finding out that she’s expecting another baby again already.
Well, like that, just with less crying.
Hopefully.
August 7, 2011
Postville: The Other Raid that Never Was
In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out what was then the United States’ largest workplace raid on record.
It happened in the small northeast Iowa town of Postville. Dozens of agents descended on a kosher meatpacking plant, taking into custody more than 400 people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
It was to have happened eight years earlier.
I reported this bit of news in my new book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation,” as part of the background of Alonzo Martinez, an immigration supervisor who worked on another immigration case at the heart of my book. He also was to have been part of the Postville raid that was set to go in the fall of 2000.
Instead, someone within the Clinton administration called the Postville raid off even though numerous agents were far into their trip to Iowa from Texas and elsewhere. Hours of research had been invested in data work, and agents were expecting to find an estimated 200 undocumented immigrants working at the kosher plant.
The raid-that-didn’t-happen had been organized out of the Des Moines and Omaha offices of what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They heard from the regional offices in Texas that the raid was off. The call to that office had come from the immigration offices in Washington D.C.
The best information the agents could get was that someone had canceled it for one of two reasons: 1) a friend of the Rubashkins, the family out of New York that ran the kosher plant, Agriprocessors, had asked for or implied that it shouldn’t happen, or 2) someone was concerned about the impact on the kosher meat supply in the United States.
It left me wondering whether Postville, which would see the likely impact doubled when it was finally carried out, came out better or worse off by what sounded like a favor to someone. Would the plant have still gone through bankruptcy if they had lost 200 from the workforce instead of 400? How many fewer residents of several Guatemalan villages, who heard of the good odds of getting a job in Postville, would have gone elsewhere in the United States or remained home, avoiding being taken into custody eight years later?
Who was being helped by this “favor?” Probably not some struggling Central Americans. Probably not small town Iowans trying to keep their local economy on solid ground. Probably some business owners
The Des Moines Register took the initiative to dig into this news tidbit from my book. The article appears today at http://www.desmoinesregister.com/arti...
It’ll give you something to think about.
It happened in the small northeast Iowa town of Postville. Dozens of agents descended on a kosher meatpacking plant, taking into custody more than 400 people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
It was to have happened eight years earlier.
I reported this bit of news in my new book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation,” as part of the background of Alonzo Martinez, an immigration supervisor who worked on another immigration case at the heart of my book. He also was to have been part of the Postville raid that was set to go in the fall of 2000.
Instead, someone within the Clinton administration called the Postville raid off even though numerous agents were far into their trip to Iowa from Texas and elsewhere. Hours of research had been invested in data work, and agents were expecting to find an estimated 200 undocumented immigrants working at the kosher plant.
The raid-that-didn’t-happen had been organized out of the Des Moines and Omaha offices of what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They heard from the regional offices in Texas that the raid was off. The call to that office had come from the immigration offices in Washington D.C.
The best information the agents could get was that someone had canceled it for one of two reasons: 1) a friend of the Rubashkins, the family out of New York that ran the kosher plant, Agriprocessors, had asked for or implied that it shouldn’t happen, or 2) someone was concerned about the impact on the kosher meat supply in the United States.
It left me wondering whether Postville, which would see the likely impact doubled when it was finally carried out, came out better or worse off by what sounded like a favor to someone. Would the plant have still gone through bankruptcy if they had lost 200 from the workforce instead of 400? How many fewer residents of several Guatemalan villages, who heard of the good odds of getting a job in Postville, would have gone elsewhere in the United States or remained home, avoiding being taken into custody eight years later?
Who was being helped by this “favor?” Probably not some struggling Central Americans. Probably not small town Iowans trying to keep their local economy on solid ground. Probably some business owners
The Des Moines Register took the initiative to dig into this news tidbit from my book. The article appears today at http://www.desmoinesregister.com/arti...
It’ll give you something to think about.
July 31, 2011
The United States: No Longer the Popular Kid?
The tentative declaration was made earlier this month: the flow of undocumented immigrants from Mexico appears to have slowed to a trickle.
In fact, the traffic may have stopped if you look at net change.
The researchers behind this news say that Mexicans' interest in heading to the United States has fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. The New York Times wrote about the situation in nice detail. Find the article here --http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/20... -- to understand why this is happening. Basically, it has to do with improved job opportunities in Mexico, smaller families in Mexico (smaller pool of people who might consider trying to slip into the United States), and the increased costs and dangers associated with the journey.
Imagine if this trend continues or becomes more extreme. It would represent the first time that many Americans have seen our neighbors to the south look at us and say, "No, thanks."
I think we tend to be a little self-centered in this regard anyway. We are quick to assume that all Mexicans who sneak into our country really wanted to come. We forget that home is still home, even if the job opportunities are few and far between. Coming to the United States is not always the first choice option for Mexicans, especially when leaving means splitting up a family. But some do it anyway.
But if job opportunites are good at home, why would they leave?
And if our own economy struggles or worsens, you can be certain that the interest in coming here will drop even more.
This might be a good reminder for the United States - long the popular kid on the continent - that others on the playground can be strong and desirable too.
In fact, the traffic may have stopped if you look at net change.
The researchers behind this news say that Mexicans' interest in heading to the United States has fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. The New York Times wrote about the situation in nice detail. Find the article here --http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/20... -- to understand why this is happening. Basically, it has to do with improved job opportunities in Mexico, smaller families in Mexico (smaller pool of people who might consider trying to slip into the United States), and the increased costs and dangers associated with the journey.
Imagine if this trend continues or becomes more extreme. It would represent the first time that many Americans have seen our neighbors to the south look at us and say, "No, thanks."
I think we tend to be a little self-centered in this regard anyway. We are quick to assume that all Mexicans who sneak into our country really wanted to come. We forget that home is still home, even if the job opportunities are few and far between. Coming to the United States is not always the first choice option for Mexicans, especially when leaving means splitting up a family. But some do it anyway.
But if job opportunites are good at home, why would they leave?
And if our own economy struggles or worsens, you can be certain that the interest in coming here will drop even more.
This might be a good reminder for the United States - long the popular kid on the continent - that others on the playground can be strong and desirable too.
July 4, 2011
Trying to Balance a Story
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune wrote a very nice review of my new book last Sunday, saying it "provides a quick and fascinating glimpse into the underground world of immigrant smuggling that's worth the read." (See the full review here: www.startribune.com/entertainment/boo... )
The book critic, however, also wrote this about Train to Nowhere: "The book, which reads mostly like a novel, tries almost too hard not to take sides in the immigration debate."
It was the nicest bit of criticism I could have received.
I've spent a long time working on this book and the companion documentary, all along having this key goal of telling the story in as balanced a way as possible. I'm growing to understand that this sort of more distant, emotionally calm approach in regard to a heated topic like immigration doesn't always go over well.
I was doing a reading at a bookstore last week and one audience member said something along the lines of: "I don't know if this is the journalistic approach or what, but I'm not sure if I'm on board with the idea of not having an agenda with this book. Why wouldn't you?"
It was a great question. And an easy one to answer. I told the group how everywhere I turn, it seems like people are either turning their televisions to a channel that will give them the "right" liberal or conservative slant. Or I see media outlets slipping on keeping the bias of their reporters out of their stories. It's discouraging for a former newspaper reporter who used to insist that half of the slant complaints were overblown, exaggerated. I don't say that much anymore.
What's lost? An understanding of the other side.
You may think you don't care what the "other side" thinks on a given argument, but the less you listen to them, the bigger the divide becomes, until we find ourselves stuck on important national issues like immigration, leaving everyone disenchanted.
Another woman in the audience at this reading understood. She was a volunteer at an organization that provides legal services to immigrants. She said that she never would have thought it worth hearing about someone who worked in immigration enforcement/Border Patrol. Having heard me read about the Latino immigration agent who is part of my nonfiction book, however, made her think for the first time about the people behind the uniform. She said that was a valuable thing, even if it didn't change her opinion on immigration.
So, yes, my book tries almost too hard not to take sides. And I'm proud of that.
The book critic, however, also wrote this about Train to Nowhere: "The book, which reads mostly like a novel, tries almost too hard not to take sides in the immigration debate."
It was the nicest bit of criticism I could have received.
I've spent a long time working on this book and the companion documentary, all along having this key goal of telling the story in as balanced a way as possible. I'm growing to understand that this sort of more distant, emotionally calm approach in regard to a heated topic like immigration doesn't always go over well.
I was doing a reading at a bookstore last week and one audience member said something along the lines of: "I don't know if this is the journalistic approach or what, but I'm not sure if I'm on board with the idea of not having an agenda with this book. Why wouldn't you?"
It was a great question. And an easy one to answer. I told the group how everywhere I turn, it seems like people are either turning their televisions to a channel that will give them the "right" liberal or conservative slant. Or I see media outlets slipping on keeping the bias of their reporters out of their stories. It's discouraging for a former newspaper reporter who used to insist that half of the slant complaints were overblown, exaggerated. I don't say that much anymore.
What's lost? An understanding of the other side.
You may think you don't care what the "other side" thinks on a given argument, but the less you listen to them, the bigger the divide becomes, until we find ourselves stuck on important national issues like immigration, leaving everyone disenchanted.
Another woman in the audience at this reading understood. She was a volunteer at an organization that provides legal services to immigrants. She said that she never would have thought it worth hearing about someone who worked in immigration enforcement/Border Patrol. Having heard me read about the Latino immigration agent who is part of my nonfiction book, however, made her think for the first time about the people behind the uniform. She said that was a valuable thing, even if it didn't change her opinion on immigration.
So, yes, my book tries almost too hard not to take sides. And I'm proud of that.
June 22, 2011
The Fate of the Newspaper World
It was on the news again last night: more newsroom layoffs. Then the faces popped up on the screen. An award-winning photographer, a respected sports columnist, an editor I had worked with some when I was still a reporter, and others. This was at least the third time I'd seen friends and former co-workers forced to leave the newspaper where I'd spent five years.
This involved the Des Moines Register, but it could have been virtually any metro newspaper in the United States. The story would have been very similar. Some of my newspaper friends have stopped saying "if I get laid off" and now say "when I get laid off."
This is all so sad for someone who grew up associating Sundays with a packed newspaper being sorted out among family members in the living room. To someone who read about newspapers' greats during high school and college, and aspired to be like them. To someone who felt at home the minute I walked into the noise and chaos of a newsroom.
I don't know what the fate of newspapers will be but I suspect I wouldn't be wise to aim for a return to a newspaper newsroom, which I left six years ago (before layoffs really began) to stay home with my children and write a book. I spoke at a newspaper conference earlier this year and a local television anchor was there. He mentioned the conference's focus on the future of newspapers and made a joke about how he wondered if long ago earlier cultures held a conference to discuss the fate of cuneiform.
The audience laughed.
Kind of.
This involved the Des Moines Register, but it could have been virtually any metro newspaper in the United States. The story would have been very similar. Some of my newspaper friends have stopped saying "if I get laid off" and now say "when I get laid off."
This is all so sad for someone who grew up associating Sundays with a packed newspaper being sorted out among family members in the living room. To someone who read about newspapers' greats during high school and college, and aspired to be like them. To someone who felt at home the minute I walked into the noise and chaos of a newsroom.
I don't know what the fate of newspapers will be but I suspect I wouldn't be wise to aim for a return to a newspaper newsroom, which I left six years ago (before layoffs really began) to stay home with my children and write a book. I spoke at a newspaper conference earlier this year and a local television anchor was there. He mentioned the conference's focus on the future of newspapers and made a joke about how he wondered if long ago earlier cultures held a conference to discuss the fate of cuneiform.
The audience laughed.
Kind of.
June 15, 2011
Race and a Black Bird
The bird landed on the ground just a few feet from my toddler daughter. We were at a graduation party for a neighbor's son a few years ago, and my daughter was wandering their yard. Another neighbor girl, then 10, was tailing my little girl, helping entertain her.
As I pointed out the bird to my 1-year-old, I said, "Look at that pretty bird. He's black." The 10-year-old, hearing this, said, "That seems wrong to say that he's black." I laughed, understanding immediately what she meant. She had been taught well to try not to judge a person by their race or skin color. Her reaction is right on with how most of us are raising our children: just don't even talk about it.
I found her comment amusing, but the implications of this nervousness about talking about race less amusing. Is this really how we want to raise our kids? Isn't it better to teach our kids to talk openly and frankly so we can have good discussions? That openness should always be guided, of course, by kindness of heart, and examples of how generalizing can be dangerous. This is a parent's job.
I love the idea that we won't judge one another by our skin color. But we also don't want to raise children who are afraid to talk about race, do we? Otherwise, those with troublesome ideas or anger will just keep these attitudes festering quietly, out of sight where they are harder to address. You see how politicians draw heavy fire for any race-related comments. Eventually, they will stop talking about race at all, fearful of making a "mistake."
In my last post, I wrote about a woman who used the derogatory term "spic." The letter she wrote, if you look at my June 12 blog entry, was horrible. But it did illustrate for me how extremely emotional feelings can be when it comes to the immigration debate. And it made me feel I needed to write a book/script with this in mind, at least to some degree.
I have no doubt that the 10-year-old will grow up to be a wonderful, kind woman. She has a great family as an example. Not everyone does, though. But will we ever know the thoughts of those peers who grow up with lessons of hate? Will we know what lies under the surface with race-related debates in another 30 years? I'm skeptical.
As I pointed out the bird to my 1-year-old, I said, "Look at that pretty bird. He's black." The 10-year-old, hearing this, said, "That seems wrong to say that he's black." I laughed, understanding immediately what she meant. She had been taught well to try not to judge a person by their race or skin color. Her reaction is right on with how most of us are raising our children: just don't even talk about it.
I found her comment amusing, but the implications of this nervousness about talking about race less amusing. Is this really how we want to raise our kids? Isn't it better to teach our kids to talk openly and frankly so we can have good discussions? That openness should always be guided, of course, by kindness of heart, and examples of how generalizing can be dangerous. This is a parent's job.
I love the idea that we won't judge one another by our skin color. But we also don't want to raise children who are afraid to talk about race, do we? Otherwise, those with troublesome ideas or anger will just keep these attitudes festering quietly, out of sight where they are harder to address. You see how politicians draw heavy fire for any race-related comments. Eventually, they will stop talking about race at all, fearful of making a "mistake."
In my last post, I wrote about a woman who used the derogatory term "spic." The letter she wrote, if you look at my June 12 blog entry, was horrible. But it did illustrate for me how extremely emotional feelings can be when it comes to the immigration debate. And it made me feel I needed to write a book/script with this in mind, at least to some degree.
I have no doubt that the 10-year-old will grow up to be a wonderful, kind woman. She has a great family as an example. Not everyone does, though. But will we ever know the thoughts of those peers who grow up with lessons of hate? Will we know what lies under the surface with race-related debates in another 30 years? I'm skeptical.
June 12, 2011
The Sheriff's Letter
The letter was inside the folder the sheriff was sorting.
"Guess you can see this,” he said.
I was in Denison, Iowa, going through Crawford County Sheriff’s Office records as I researched my book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation.” The book and companion documentary examine the 2002 deaths of eleven undocumented immigrants, whose bodies were found in Denison when a grain worker opened a locked railcar.
I read the note as then-Sheriff Tom Hogan waited for my reaction. It was a hand-written letter from a woman in another state. Hogan said it had arrived within days of the national news reporting on the discovery of the bodies in Denison. The letter said:
“This is [a] wonderful way to solve the illegal alien problem. Let’s hope we find hundreds more, no, make that thousands more, freight cars full of dead spics. Maybe then these worthless criminals will stay in Mexico where they belong.”
I knew that emotions could run high on either side of the immigration issue, but this was hard for me to believe. Here was someone who had heard a summary of how these eleven had died inside a sweltering railcar that had been locked from the outside, and presumably felt nothing – not even pity – for the group and what they endured.
I drove away from Denison that day feeling like my instincts had been right: if I was going to tell a story that related even distantly to immigration, it had to be as neutral as I could manage. I was going to set aside the advice I had heard from some I encountered in the book and film world (no one I ended up working with) that I had to have a political agenda if I was going to tell this story. I was new to this setting, having left behind the world of newspaper reporting, and I had listened, wondering if I could really be so far off with my plans to tell this story journalistically.
I really don’t have a political agenda, I would tell them. After all, if I had the answers to the immigration issue, I’d run for Congress. Wasn’t it acceptable anymore to simply tell a compelling story in as even-handed a manner as possible and let the readers walk away to draw their own conclusions?
The letter affirmed that this issue is emotional enough (though I don’t think such views are at all representative of most people who worry about illegal immigration). I was convinced it was better to avoid the animosity that can come from both sides of the debate. Perhaps that was my “agenda” – to get Americans to recognize our blind spots in the debate. I wanted those who automatically judged anyone in a Border Patrol uniform as being unfeeling and cruel to get to know Alonzo, the retired immigration agent who led the death investigation team. And I wanted those who viewed all undocumented immigrants as lawbreakers with a sense of entitlement to get to know Byron, a Guatemalan teen who only wanted the pride of earning his own money instead of taking money from his older siblings.
Monte Reel, an author and former South American correspondent for the Washington Post, shared the following comments about the “Train to Nowhere” story, which gave me hope that I had succeeded in my attempt to honestly share viewpoints from both “sides.”
“The issue of illegal immigration is so complex that anyone who declares himself to be unequivocally on one side or another probably isn’t that informed. …If someone [approaches] this with pre-formed opinions about the issue, this [story] probably won’t change their minds. But I don’t think that’s the point,” Reel wrote. “I think it will get them to acknowledge the complexities and to recognize immigration as a human – and not theoretical – issue. That, to me, seems to be the point, and I think it succeeds incredibly well.”
"Guess you can see this,” he said.
I was in Denison, Iowa, going through Crawford County Sheriff’s Office records as I researched my book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation.” The book and companion documentary examine the 2002 deaths of eleven undocumented immigrants, whose bodies were found in Denison when a grain worker opened a locked railcar.
I read the note as then-Sheriff Tom Hogan waited for my reaction. It was a hand-written letter from a woman in another state. Hogan said it had arrived within days of the national news reporting on the discovery of the bodies in Denison. The letter said:
“This is [a] wonderful way to solve the illegal alien problem. Let’s hope we find hundreds more, no, make that thousands more, freight cars full of dead spics. Maybe then these worthless criminals will stay in Mexico where they belong.”
I knew that emotions could run high on either side of the immigration issue, but this was hard for me to believe. Here was someone who had heard a summary of how these eleven had died inside a sweltering railcar that had been locked from the outside, and presumably felt nothing – not even pity – for the group and what they endured.
I drove away from Denison that day feeling like my instincts had been right: if I was going to tell a story that related even distantly to immigration, it had to be as neutral as I could manage. I was going to set aside the advice I had heard from some I encountered in the book and film world (no one I ended up working with) that I had to have a political agenda if I was going to tell this story. I was new to this setting, having left behind the world of newspaper reporting, and I had listened, wondering if I could really be so far off with my plans to tell this story journalistically.
I really don’t have a political agenda, I would tell them. After all, if I had the answers to the immigration issue, I’d run for Congress. Wasn’t it acceptable anymore to simply tell a compelling story in as even-handed a manner as possible and let the readers walk away to draw their own conclusions?
The letter affirmed that this issue is emotional enough (though I don’t think such views are at all representative of most people who worry about illegal immigration). I was convinced it was better to avoid the animosity that can come from both sides of the debate. Perhaps that was my “agenda” – to get Americans to recognize our blind spots in the debate. I wanted those who automatically judged anyone in a Border Patrol uniform as being unfeeling and cruel to get to know Alonzo, the retired immigration agent who led the death investigation team. And I wanted those who viewed all undocumented immigrants as lawbreakers with a sense of entitlement to get to know Byron, a Guatemalan teen who only wanted the pride of earning his own money instead of taking money from his older siblings.
Monte Reel, an author and former South American correspondent for the Washington Post, shared the following comments about the “Train to Nowhere” story, which gave me hope that I had succeeded in my attempt to honestly share viewpoints from both “sides.”
“The issue of illegal immigration is so complex that anyone who declares himself to be unequivocally on one side or another probably isn’t that informed. …If someone [approaches] this with pre-formed opinions about the issue, this [story] probably won’t change their minds. But I don’t think that’s the point,” Reel wrote. “I think it will get them to acknowledge the complexities and to recognize immigration as a human – and not theoretical – issue. That, to me, seems to be the point, and I think it succeeds incredibly well.”
