I’m plopped into my chair eating apple pie on Sunday after four days of driving, and I think: What a huge country, how lucky we are, and what a flatlander I am. The milo was ripe and the sunflowers brilliant as traffic zoomed on I-90 past Mitchell. I was on my way to Cowboy Central, Sheridan, Wyoming, to a film festival for a screening of the documentary “Storm Lake.” Up into the Badlands and Black Hills where the leaves are turning golden and toward the Big Horn Mountains. Merle and Willie serenade.
As a Decendent of Immigrants who left Europe in the late 19th Century to avoid the conflict between France and Germany, the current immigration situation needs a more objective look. I left Iowa in the late sixties to the theme of the old family farms being auctioned off to Atlantic Richfield. No longer need all the Sons to farm the land. Modern Equipment and Corporate Practices only need one man per 1000 acres. They fail to mention that the Loan Officer is the other essential farm worker. Where Grandpa only went to the Bank to replenish his Savings Accounts , his contemporary successor needs Bank Loans to put in the Crop. At some point one realizes that they are just working for the Bank. As for the contemporary Immigrants, at some point, folks realize that they ran off too many Sons. I have worked with the Hispanics that came in to do the work for the Farmer in my adopted home for fifty years. I am a lot closer to the Border than Iowa in the Southwest United States. Enough Anti Bellum prejudice still survives that white folks don’t do manual Labor. Being from Iowa rural background of another time, I grew up doing Labor and got to know the Hispanics from doing Labor along side them. Many times, I wish I was still farming with my Grandfather in Sibley, Iowa. The irony I find is that my work mates wish they were still in Zacatecas or Coahuila farming with their families. North American Free Trade Act blew that up for them ,just like Corporations are designed Agriculture by the Individual in Iowa
As a Decendent of Immigrants who left Europe in the late 19th Century to avoid the conflict between France and Germany, the current immigration situation needs a more objective look. I left Iowa in the late sixties to the theme of the old family farms being auctioned off to Atlantic Richfield. No longer need all the Sons to farm the land. Modern Equipment and Corporate Practices only need one man per 1000 acres. They fail to mention that the Loan Officer is the other essential farm worker. Where Grandpa only went to the Bank to replenish his Savings Accounts , his contemporary successor needs Bank Loans to put in the Crop. At some point one realizes that they are just working for the Bank. As for the contemporary Immigrants, at some point, folks realize that they ran off too many Sons. I have worked with the Hispanics that came in to do the work for the Farmer in my adopted home for fifty years. I am a lot closer to the Border than Iowa in the Southwest United States. Enough Anti Bellum prejudice still survives that white folks don’t do manual Labor. Being from Iowa rural background of another time, I grew up doing Labor and got to know the Hispanics from doing Labor along side them. Many times, I wish I was still farming with my Grandfather in Sibley, Iowa. The irony I find is that my work mates wish they were still in Zacatecas or Coahuila farming with their families. North American Free Trade Act blew that up for them ,just like Corporations are designed Agriculture by the Individual in Iowa
what an excellent article young art, keep up the great work...