Chapter 4: “The Wanderers, El destierro”

• “Jobs no local would take.” Working in a chicken processing plant

Koch Foods in Ashland AL

Chicken processing plant owned by Tyson

Clay County

Ashland

“The counters of the Census 2000 arrived in Ashland and the surrounding towns a year after I left: they tallied 253 people of “Hispanic” heritage in Clay County (a severe undercount, by my reckoning), about 2 percent of the total population” (Tobar, 2005, p. 111)

“The counters of the Census 2000 arrived in Ashland and the surrounding towns a year after I left: they tallied 253 people of “Hispanic” heritage in Clay County (a severe undercount, by my reckoning), about 2 percent of the total population” (Tobar, 2005, p. 111)

2000 Census

2010 Census 57.7%increase

0.5%decrease

Chapter 4: “The Wanderers, El destierro”

• “Jobs no local would take.” Working in a chicken processing plant

• Labor recruiters advertise on Spanish radio stations

• “The ad promised overtime,” leading Roman to imagine “fat numbers,” even up to “$400 in a single week.

• Economies of Scale in Slaughtering chickens—”The plant had an insatiable, round-the-clock appetite for chicken…”

• Occupational segregation: “A group of engineers and mechanics arrived, men with clipboards and take-charge attitudes, their smart eyes gazing up at the ceiling. Every single one of them was white.”

• Licenses for immigrants—state policies on giving driving exams in languages other than English. Market for taxicab drivers.