(Copied from
http://news.illinois.edu/news/
12/0123connections_FaranakMiraftab.html)
1/23/2012 | Dusty Rhodes, Arts and
Humanities Editor | 217-333-0568;
rhodes8@illinois.edu
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — On Fridays, when
Cargill issues paychecks to workers at its Beardstown, Ill.,
meatpacking plant, people line up at the post office and grocery
stores to send funds to relatives in Congo, Mexico, Puerto Rico,
Senegal or Togo. Such scenes make it easy to see how this
corporation is helping support families and communities in poorer
parts of the world. What's not as easily seen is the many ways those
distant families and communities are supporting Cargill, according
to a study published in the Journal of Planning Education and
Research.
The study, "Faraway Intimate Development: Global Restructuring of
Social Reproduction," was written by
Faranak Miraftab, a professor of
urban and
regional planning at the University of Illinois. It's part of
her continuing research for a book she's writing for an Indiana
University Press series called Global Framing.
"I see this as the responsibility of critical scholarship: to make
these global connections much more tangible for the everyday layperson, to see
that there is not a one-way road," Miraftab said.
"We are not only contributing to the development of Mexican and
African villages; Mexican and African villages are subsidizing and contributing
to the development of our communities here."
Their contribution comes in the form of what Miraftab calls "social
reproduction" – a term she expands beyond biological reproduction
and child care to include the reproduction of place, cultural
identity, tradition and pride.
Cargill employs hundreds of immigrant workers, some enticed by the
corporation's transnational recruitment teams, searching for legal
immigrants; others persuaded by relatives already working for
Cargill, which pays a bonus to employees who bring on new hires. The
African workers typically hold diversity visas and college degrees – Miraftab met engineers, professors, a lawyer and a veterinarian
among the laborers at the meatpacking plant. But like other
immigrants, these workers moved to the U.S. specifically for jobs.
Many return to their countries of origin when they're no longer able
to perform such demanding physical work. "They come here
to do the industrial labor, but they leave the social reproduction
of the next generation of immigrant labor force to their families,
neighbors, friends and a whole network of hospitals and schools back
home," Miraftab said. "Both the beginning and end of the cycle, from
the time you are born until you reach an economically active age,
and then after you are frail and old or injured in a very hazardous
job like Cargill – the beginning and end of this life cycle are kind
of outsourced to communities of origin."
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 Her field research in Lomé, Togo, and Tejaro, Mexico, has documented
tangible benefits funded by the remittances some Cargill workers
send home each week. Around Beardstown – one of the shinier spots on
the Rust Belt that encircles most small, Midwestern towns – Miraftab
found evidence of the material wealth the pork-processing workers
share with Beardstown natives. Unlike other rural communities that
have become ghost towns, Beardstown has a healthy housing market, an
ample stock of rental housing refurbished by Mexican immigrants, a
viable downtown, and a new public school building and library.
Her study also documents intangible benefits for both laborers and
the native-born citizens of Beardstown – an erstwhile all-white
"sundown" town where, at one time, minorities were allowed only
during daylight business hours.
Churches have added Spanish-language services, Mexican holidays and
Africa Day are celebrated in city parks and the town square, and the
public school system has adopted a dual-language program that
provides half of all instruction in English and half in Spanish for
all students. Several youth soccer teams started by immigrants now
seem to bring all the various Beardstown cultures together.
"The good part of the story is how this town is changing," Miraftab
said. "While there was no room for diverse populations in this town,
today the new generation of Beardstown residents learns to speak in
a different language at school and make friends with children from
different cultures. There is, in that sense, some hope for the
future.
"But you have to see both sides," Miraftab said. "The cost is being
paid by families that are left behind, children that have been deprived of their
moms and dads."
Miraftab believes her research is especially relevant in today's
political climate. "In the environment of immigration policy debates
that are happening, it is very important for people to know that if
you want to shoo away the immigrants, there will be a devastating
economic impact on small towns that have been losing their
native-born population but are revitalized by the new immigrants. Their
development is dependent on these migrant workers." ___
News Bureau editor's note: To contact Faranak Miraftab, call
217-333-3890; email
faranak@illinois.edu. The paper is available from the
U. of I. News Bureau.
[Text and photo copied
from
University of Illinois News Bureau article]
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