High Plains Drifting
Kansas has long been viewed as the quintessential white, rural, blue-collar state in the heart of American cattle country. Its wide open expanses conjure up images of America’s romanticized Wild West. But a growing number of immigrants are calling Garden City, tucked away in the remote southwest corner of the state with a population of 28,000, their home. Hispanics make up the vast majority of new arrivals, with blacks and growing numbers of Asian and African immigrants rounding out the rest. The immigrants are drawn to the region by the many meatpacking plants that have long relied on their labor in jobs that require little or no English language skills. The project takes a look at the issue of immigration in America from the vantage point of a single community and offers a peak into the meatpacking industry.
The immigrants are drawn to the region by the many meatpacking plants that have long relied on their labor in jobs that require little or no English language skills. The Tyson plant alone, just outside of Garden City in Holcomb, has language interpreters on site to translate for its employees, and as many as 26 different nationalities are represented on any given day. Around 3200 employees process as many as 6000 heads of beef daily at the Tyson plant.
The relocation and consolidation of the nation’s meatpacking industry began in the 1960s with the tapping of the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge subterranean reservoir that stretches from the Texas Panhandle to western Nebraska. This allowed for an explosion in the number of feed yards in the area, operating on the vast surplus of feed grain. Soon after, the large meatpacking plants began moving out of the big cities, preferring to be closer to the livestock sources, such as Kansas, where cattle is king. The first big slaughterhouse in Kansas came to Emporia, followed by plants near Garden City, Dodge City, and Liberal in the 1980s. The beef cattle industry became the engine driving the economy and a Mecca for new immigrants to the sparsely populated and parched High Plains.
While meatpacking attracts the vast majority of today’s immigrants, immigration and integration go all the way back to Garden City’s founding, when Mexicans came to work on the beet farms and railroads. The 1980s saw the arrival of the Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians. Most recently Somalis, Ethiopians, and Burmese have added to Garden City’s diverse ethnic mix.
This sudden influx of new immigrants over the past twenty years has created numerous challenges for Garden City. Broadly speaking, the three main areas affected are in: housing, healthcare, and education. The city simply cannot keep up with demands for low-income housing. Most of the immigrants and their families live in crowded efficiency apartment complexes or in large trailer park neighborhoods that ring the outskirts of the city. Garden City’s schools, with an approximate 80% Hispanic student body, offer a New Arrivals program for those new to Garden City and the country and a large staff of translators and English-language facilitators for students and the parents. Access to adequate healthcare is an issue since many of the new arrivals are under or uninsured.
Fortunately there are a number of avenues of support where the immigrants can turn to in Garden City. United Methodist Mexican American Ministries (UMMAM) offer a wide range of support services, including health and dental clinics. Perhaps the largest area of community support comes in English language classes. The Adult Learning Center, affiliated with the local community college, offers a full spectrum of ESL (English as Second Language) classes, a migrant reading program, and even driving classes catered to the immigrants. Garden City has become the hub of immigrant support services throughout southwest Kansas.
In the end, Garden City is a unique mirror from which the rest of America can view itself, showing not only where it has come from but where the country is heading.
About the Author
Adam Reynolds
Adam Reynolds is a freelance photojournalist with Corbis Images. He began his career covering the Middle East in 2007. Since then he has split his time between that region and America’s Great Plains. Adam holds undergraduate degrees from Indiana University in journalism and political science with a focus in photography and Middle Eastern politics, and a Masters degree in Islamic and Middle East studies.
He views himself as a documentary photographer in the classic sense. As such, he is in the service of his subjects. His hope is that they are able to ‘speak’ through the photographs and create a sense of personal connection in the viewer.
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