Postville USA: Surviving Diversity in a Small Town

In May 2008, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement led a raid on the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, a community of 2,000 called home by Orthodox Jews, immigrant workers, and native Iowans alike. The raid resulted in 20 percent of the town's residents being arrested and closure of the plant. It also exposed the disastrous enforcement of immigration policy, the exploitation of Postville by activists, and disturbing questions about the packing house's operators. Coauthors of the recently published Postville USA: Surviving Diversity in a Small Town will share their personal experiences with this community in crisis. They are UNI professor of anthropology and founder of the Iowa Center on Immigrant Leadership and Integration Mark Grey, Michele Devlin, professor of public health at UNI and director of the Iowa Center on Health Disparities, and Aaron Goldsmith, former city councilman of Postville, who received a rabbinical degree from Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim in Klar Chabad, Israel, and is currently president and owner of Transfer Master Products.