Local, Global, Rural: Diasporic Indigenous Workers in a South Dakota Turkey Plant

• In Event: The Political Flows and Social Engagements of Home and Place

Abstract

This paper takes up the issue of “home/not home” through examining what we might call transnational indigeneities. More specifically, I analyze how home, place, and local community are represented and constructed by and for diasporic indigenous workers.

I root my analysis in Huron, South Dakota. In the last decade, Huron, a rural town with a population of 13,000, has undergone significant food-related shifts. Local Hutterites opened a multi-million dollar plant that processes 21,000 turkeys per day, 8 million turkeys annually. The plant hired immigrants from all over the world, many of whom are political refugees. 2,500 Karen refugees, who had fled Myanmar due to being a persecuted indigenous and religious minority, resettled in South Dakota. They now make up 61% of the plant’s workforce.

Such situations are becoming increasingly common. To combat the population decrease of small towns, a decline often described as threatening to the continuation of rural ways of life, some rural leaders have publicly invited big businesses and the (im)migrants that will largely perform the low-waged labor upon which they rely. Indeed, Ken Rutledge, the President and CEO of the turkey plant stated that they “recruited” Karen employees, a process that, according to Rutledge put the plant in the hot seat. The potential Karen workers, according to Rutledge, “actually interviewed the company when they were first recruited. They took a look at the city. They took a look at the schools. They made sure there were food stuffs in the area. We have developed a solid relationship with these folks. They are a family-oriented, dedicated workforce.” The Karen employees are presented as people who care deeply about their local community. They are people who would (come from political refugee camps in Asia?) to check out the city and the schools. Beyond this, they are workers who pledged nearly $70,000 to a South Dakota United Way program. The chair of this workplace fundraising campaign stated that the plant’s “management staff is very supportive of our efforts to help people less fortunate than themselves. It’s all about explaining to each employee that most of the money is districted locally and also about discussing many of the individual agencies. We are also very proud of how supportive our Karen employees are of the United Way campaign.”

The ways in which management talk about the plant’s Karen employees raises many questions: What does “local” mean for Karen workers? What does this deployment of “local” do and for whom? What does Karen indigeneity mean in South Dakota, where American Indians make up nine percent of the state’s population? What does it tell us that the work place is the site from which Karen workers make apparent their commitment to this locale? For Karen workers, might the workplace itself—with its majority Karen work force—become reminiscent of home? In working to answer these questions, I queer the settler/colonizer binary, explore encounters between different indigeneities, and consider what “local” means in an increasingly transnational world.

Author

• Carly Thomsen, Middlebury College (VT)