Undercover in a Chicken Factory

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Roberto quickly responds: "Outside, we are all fucked. We're in Arkansas."

Everyone laughs.

Alejandro, more seriously, says to me: "Outside, you're a gringo. You are from here. Outside, we are Mexicans, but it is different. We're still screwed, but in a different way. We are foreigners. We don't belong. At least here in the plant we belong even if we are exploited. Outside, we live better than in Mexico, but we do not belong, we are not from here and keep to ourselves."

I then ask: "And in Mexico? Who are we in Mexico?"

Roberto says to me: "In Mexico, you are a gringo. You are a foreigner, but not like we are here in Arkansas. You are more like a tourist, treated well. We are not tourists here. We are treated more like outsiders. In Mexico, we are normal people, Mexicans, just like everyone else. But in Mexico there is no future. My children were all born here, they are Americans. They have a future. Now, when I return to Mexico I feel like a tourist. I have money, travel, visit people. Our future is here now."

Alejandro ends on a light note: "At least in Mexico the chicken has some fucking taste."

When Alejandro looks around at people from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Vietnam, Laos, and the Marshall Islands, and says we are all Mexicans, he is making a statement about class. He is not confused by the bright lights of the postmodern world, or unclear where he is located, socially, racially, and geographically. Rather, he is playing with the label, using it almost as a synonym for worker. "Yes, we are all Mexicans here" is almost the same as, "Yes, we are all workers here." And not any kind of worker -- but those who do what society sees as the worst work. Shit work. In this respect, Li, from Laos, is not singled out by accident. She is Mexican, one of us, because she does the same crap; because she eats Michael's chicken; and because she is Mexican to Tyson's management.

We've yet to appreciate the full impact of transnational migration, especially on people like my coworkers at the plant. In the process of crossing borders in search of opportunity, their experiences may be leading them to question the national loyalties that borders reinforce. As they work together, both immigrants and the native-born may be developing new identities that run counter to old notions of citizenship. And some of these new identities are grounded in class. Could it be that globalization internationalizes not only capital, but also workers? It's worth considering. Poultry plants are, after all, one of the places where workers of the world come together.

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