Illustration by Alex Charner.
August 7, 2019 forever changed the lives of many undocumented immigrants living and working in the heart of Mississippi. That day, ICE raided seven chicken processing plants and detained almost 700 people in what is now considered the largest single-state immigration raid in the country.
Latino USA traveled to Mississippi last year to learn about the long-term effects of this massive immigration raid and explored how many immigrant workers got to these chicken processing plants in the first place.
As part of Latino USA’s continuing coverage on the state, Maria Hinojosa and producer Reynaldo Leaños Jr. traveled to Mississippi in early August of this year to catch up with some of the people we met in last year’s episode and figure out what’s changed and what hasn’t in their lives and in their communities.
In this episode, we get updates from Elena, Yesenia, and Lorena Quiroz, all of whom we met last year, and we hear from new voices in the community. We also dive into the racial history behind the chicken processing business in the South and the vicious cycle of an industry that continues to exploit the most vulnerable.
Maria Hinojosa interviews Yesenia and her daughters in Forest, Mississippi. (Photo credit: Reynaldo Leaños Jr./Latino USA)
Portrait of Lorena Quiroz, director of Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity. (Photo credit: Reynaldo Leaños Jr./Latino USA)
Community members at a vigil in Canton, Mississippi to commemorate two years after the ICE raids of 2019. (Photo credit: Reynaldo Leaños Jr./Latino USA)
Maria Hinojosa and Lorenz Quiroz walk through a neighborhood in Canton, Mississippi. (Photo credit: Reynaldo Leaños Jr./Latino USA)
This episode was produced by Maria Hinojosa and Reynaldo Leaños Jr.
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Latino USA with Maria Hinojosa, produced by Futuro Media, is the longest-running Latino-focused program on U.S. public media.
