The Pull of Pollo

I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts, but one that I do like is Gravy, the podcast of the Southern Foodways Alliance. This podcast on how the chicken industry has utterly transformed Springdale, Arkansas, turning it from one of the state’s whitest towns into the state’s most diverse town. This is because the poultry industry is worked almost entirely by Latino immigrants, as well as some people from the Marshall Islands and south and southeast Asia. Lots of emphasis on the terrible working conditions in the plants, how this is a permanent transition since many of the immigrants really love northwest Arkansas and won’t leave, and the racism that pervades the community.

Well worth your time.

And if you like that, here’s one telling the story of Shirley Sherrod, who must be the most famous midlevel appointment in the Department of Agriculture in U.S. history, thanks of course to Republican mendacity and racism.