‘It’s five years since a white person applied’: the immigrant workforce milking America’s cows
P roducts spring out from the walls of Veracruz Mexican market in Monroe, Wisconsin: packets of cinnamon sticks, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, tiny rainbow-colored sprinkles, chicle; a wall of healthcare like anxiety pills and vitamins for energy, and a shelf devoted entirely to various forms of muscle pain relief. A large meat case full of Mexican specialties, such as longaniza. Piñatas. Maíz. Jarritos. Chicharrones. And rosquillas, a treat in between a cracker and a cookie which is what newly arrived immigrants ask for most often, says Maribel Lobato. She and her husband Santos Tinoco have owned the store for 13 years in Monroe, a small city in Green county about 40 miles south of Madison.
The couple are often first contact for an increasing number of Latinos who immigrate to Monroe – which is 95% white – to work on dairy farms. “We can see the new faces because we know all the Latinos in Monroe,” says Lobato. She offers them donated furniture, clothes, a way to connect to home. An InterCambio Express telephone for sending money sits beneath an advertisement for a $19/hour job at a cheese factory, “but this place requires good papers”, customers in the store say in Spanish.
When a family skidded off the road during their first winter in Monroe and the dad broke his arm in three places, Lobato took care of the kids. The store served as a Covid vaccination center. People bring traffic citations into the store they need help filling out; profiling is so common that after a certain number of tickets, many Latinos here just get a new car. Still, customers will risk the 40-minute drive from Beloit, a city in a neighboring county with a growing Latino population, to get the products they miss. About once a month, someone calls Lobato in the middle of the night to pick them up from the side of the road after their car is confiscated because they don’t have a license.
