Somalis now Iowa meatpackers

By Henry C. Jackson, The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 07/28/2008 10:51:38 PM PDT


POSTVILLE, Iowa - Scores of Somali immigrants are taking jobs at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, replacing Hispanic workers arrested in a huge immigration raid and forcing a remote Iowa town to make another cultural shift.

Before the May 12 raid at Agriprocessors, hundreds of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants maintained a vibrant community in Postville, a largely white community of 2,200 people in northeast Iowa.

Now the stoops and haunts once occupied by Hispanics are being filled by about 150 Somali men.

Aydurus Farah, a 21-year-old who emigrated from Somalia in 2004, set out for work in meatpacking plants to make money for his family back home in Somalia.

He planned to begin work at Agriprocessors this week, drawn from Minneapolis to Postville by the promised wages.

"They said over there they pay, like, 13 dollars an hour; very good money," Farah said as he stood outside Sabor Latino, a popular Mexican restaurant.

He said he also appreciates the city's small-town charms.

"I did not like Minneapolis - too many people, too many cars," he said. "I like small towns. I am small-town guy, so this is nice place. Maybe I can raise family here."

The influx of Somalis has been met with some surprise in a community still bewildered by the Agriprocessors raid, the largest action of its kind in the United States. Federal agents arrested 389 people, mostly Guatemalans and Mexicans who had


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
established roots and become part of the community.
The new immigrants have "raised some eyebrows, which is pretty normal when you get somebody different in town," Postville Mayor Robert Penrod said.

"That said, as far as I know they haven't caused a whole lot of problems. They've been keeping to themselves," he said.

It's not the first cultural change in Postville. The slaughterhouse attracted eastern Europeans in the 1990s, including emigrants from Bosnia, Poland, Russia and former Soviet Republics. Hispanics became the majority in the past decade.