Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers

by Ruth Conniff

Overview

A compelling portrayal by the veteran journalist of the lives of farming communities on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border and the surprising connections between them

“Conniff brings her skills and insights to a particularly urgent project: moving beyond the polarizing politics of our current era, and taking a deeper look at how people who have been pitted against each other can forge bonds of understanding.” —E.J. Dionne Jr., co-author of 100% Democracy

Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Award

In the Midwest, Mexican workers have become critically important to the survival of rural areas and small towns—and to the individual farmers who rely on their work—with undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico, accounting for an estimated 80 percent of employees on the dairy farms of western Wisconsin.

In Milked, former editor-in-chief of The Progressive Ruth Conniff introduces us to the migrants who worked on these dairy farms, their employers, among them white voters who helped elect Donald Trump to office in 2016, and the surprising friendships that have formed between these two groups of people. These stories offer a rich and fascinating account of how two crises—the record-breaking rate of farm bankruptcies in the Upper Midwest, and the contentious politics around immigration—are changing the landscape of rural America.

A unique and fascinating exploration of rural farming communities, Milked sheds light on seismic shifts in policy on both sides of the border over recent decades, connecting issues of labor, immigration, race, food, economics, and U.S.-Mexico relations and revealing how two seemingly disparate groups of people have come to rely on each other, how they are subject to the same global economic forces, and how, ultimately, the bridges of understanding that they have built can lead us toward a more constructive politics and a better world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620976371
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	637,837
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ruth Conniff is the editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner and editor-at-large and former editor-in-chief of The Progressive magazine. She has appeared on Good Morning America, C-SPAN, and NPR and has been a frequent guest on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers (The New Press) is her first book. Conniff lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Road Trip to Mexico 15

2 Roberto and Kevin Tecpile 34

3 John Rosenow 49

4 Shaun Duvall 67

5 Blanca Hernández and Fatima Tepole 83

6 Bill Traun, Dana Allen-Tully, and Nora Lindstrom 96

7 Stan Linder and Clara Panzo 113

8 Emanuel Montalvo Tzanahua: The Barber of Arcadia 127

9 Jaziz Hernández and Chris Weisenbeck 145

10 Blandina Hernández 159

11 Ezequiel Lozano 169

12 Tommy Johnson and Lulys Montero Valdez 183

13 Waumandee Spring 198

14 Christine Neumann-Ortiz 209

15 Sarah Lloyd 226

16 Jim Goodman and Russ Feingold 233

17 The Future of Farming 246

18 Luis Rey 261

Epilogue 271

Acknowledgments 279

Notes and Selected References 281

Editorial Reviews

05/09/2022

Journalist Conniff debuts with an empathetic account of how Wisconsin dairy farmers and undocumented Mexican laborers have been “thrown together by global economic forces beyond their control.” Over the past decade, she notes, Wisconsin has lost nearly half of its dairy farms to “low milk prices and massive consolidation,” and the state is currently ranked number one in farm bankruptcies. Many farms that have survived have cut costs and expanded operations by hiring undocumented immigrants. (A major part of the problem, Conniff notes, is that dairies require year-round work, while visas for unskilled agricultural jobs are seasonal only.) Interweaving economic data and deeply personal stories from migrant workers, their families in Mexico, and the white farmers who hired them, Conniff spotlights the shared experiences and mutual respect between immigrants and rural Americans, despite the Republican Party’s efforts to pit one against the other. Ironies abound—one third-generation farmer voted for Donald Trump twice, despite his attachment to the undocumented immigrants who have worked for him and his outrage over a state law requiring proof of legal residency for a driver’s license. Sensitively reported and cautiously optimistic about finding common ground, this is a worthwhile look behind the headlines. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Milked:
“An exceptionally thoughtful examination of fundamental issues—immigration, farm and food policy, globalization—that leaders in Washington have struggled to address on a deeply human level.”
—The Capital Times

“Milked reaches far beyond the people its author profiled. The stories are personal and universal, stretching into farms and fields across the country and over borders.”
—Modern Farmer

“[An] illuminating, distressing, yet oddly optimistic exploration of America’s Dairy Land.”
—Washington Monthly

“Sensitively reported and cautiously optimistic about finding common ground, this is a worthwhile look behind the headlines.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Readers will find more than a story of farming and politics; they will be drawn in by personal stories and friendships that transcend culture.”
—Booklist

“Conniff brings her skills and insights to a particularly urgent project.”
—E.J. Dionne Jr., co-author of 100% Democracy

“From the back roads of Mexico to the dairy farms of Wisconsin, Milked is a wondrous and important work of ‘going there’ reportage. Ruth Conniff breaks through so many misperceptions and stereotypes to reveal the commonality of the human experience.”
—David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father

“Illuminates the profound connections and commonalities between undocumented agriculture workers and their American employers while examining the policies that have pushed both groups into painful precarity.”
—Bernice Yeung, author of In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers

“Anyone who wants to understand the real relationship between people in the United States and Mexico should read Milked.”
—David Bacon, author of Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants

“The only way we will ever fully appreciate the vital role immigration plays in shaping the American economy is by understanding the human beings who are drawn together—across borders and cultures—by a rough combination of necessity and hope. Ruth Conniff, with her remarkable eye for detail and her global perspective, provides us with the road map we require to find a future where fear and vision are replaced by love and solidarity. This is a remarkable, redeeming book.”
—John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation

“A heartfelt collection of stories from both sides of the border detailing life and work experiences that unite rather than divide people, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the human dimension of economic forces in two different but complementary regions.”
—Alberto M. Vargas, associate director, Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison

From the Publisher