Working on the Farm: An Autoethnography Exploring Gender,Race,and Labor Divisions in Middle America

Oppression comes in all sorts of packages. Being able to analyze it is key.

—Trier-Bieniek (2017, p. 19)

I drove north. The farm was about an hour outside the Big Ten town where my husband had begun Year 1 of his doctorate program. After passing windmills, rest stops, and cornfield after cornfield, I turned off the interstate exit and would smell the mix of livestock, gasoline, and manure before seeing the towering red barn and vast parking lot. I had arrived at the dairy farm for my interview. Although my father grew up on migrant farms across the Midwest, I was no farmhand. Like many other U.S. consumers, my knowledge of food origins did not venture beyond the local Jewel, Meijer, Walmart, and so on. Fortunately, this farm was not your average local dairy. I was applying for a café manager position at one of the most prominent agritourism destinations in the Midwest. According to John Pike (n.d.), Extension Educator at the University of Illinois, “agritourism is defined as any business activity that brings the public to a farm or rural setting in an effort to market farm raised or produced products or the enjoyment of related outdoor activities.” At this Midwest dairy farm that translated to visitors (for a fee) physically seeing where their milk came from. There was a cow carousel where machines milked Holsteins through windowed observatories and a birthing barn where (for better or worse) you could watch a calf be born placenta and all. Visitors could also gaze at the factory line while sampling curds and spending additional money on a grilled cheese sandwich inside the café or at the black-and-white-spotted gift shop where you could take home your favorite cow-themed fill-in-the-blank souvenir. Settled between two major Midwest cities, this in-the-middle-of-nowhere tourist attraction makes Old MacDonald bourgeois. Here, agritourism has fashioned a place for the rural to become extraordinary.

Although my hometown is a mere 30 miles from the farm, this would be my first visit. My parents were hesitant when it came to traveling south, even further away from the city and suburbs. There was comfort in diversity. Moving to a one-stoplight, small town an hour outside of Chicago was enough culture adjustment to last a lifetime. There we were one of the three Latino families in a town of 4,000. Although we were outsiders, I do not have lingering memories of overt racism toward our family. Perhaps our small-numbered ethnicity and well-manicured lawns were not seen as a threat to neighbors. Leaving the familiarity of our town’s borders, however, created uncertainty for my parents. Hanging out in neighboring all-White spaces with my friends came with a stern warning, “Be careful; they’re racist there.”

With numbers of Latinos in America nearing 60 million, growth is no longer limited to urban areas or border regions. The Midwest alone has seen an 18% increase in its Latino population in the last decade (Noe-Bustamante et al., 2020; Zúñiga & Hernández-León, 2005). Latinos have been significantly present within the Midwest region since the early 20th century. As jobs opened in railroad, steel, automobile, sugar-beet, and meatpacking industries, Mexicans and Mexican Americans began moving from the Southwest to the Midwest in larger numbers (Gjerde, 2007). Despite racialized experiences, including segregated and substandard housing, low-paying and hazardous jobs, and mistreatment by local law enforcement, Mexicans and Mexican Americans continued to reside in the Midwest, creating their own cultural communities within a dominant White society (Gjerde, 2007; Miraftab, 2016). Throughout the 1900s, percentages of Mexican and Latino immigrants fluctuated alongside immigration laws and policies. During the 1990s, when borders saw increased surveillance, the records of Latinos migrating to the Midwest more than doubled (Miraftab, 2016). Families sought to settle in rural areas where safety and cost of living were prioritized over racial or ethnic diversity (Miraftab, 2016; Zúñiga & Hernández-León, 2005).

The dairy farm sits in a rural township of approximately 1,600 people. County demographics confirm the majority racial makeup of the community at 91% White alone/non-Hispanic. According to recent census data, about 6% of county residents identify as Hispanic/Latino, 1% identify as two or more mixed race, and less than 1% identify as African American/Black (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). Although these numbers reflect surrounding townships and overall state demographics regarding Latino populations, it is also important to recognize that undocumented immigrants may have been unwilling to participate in data collection. Despite legislative protections that prohibit sharing immigrant legal status for deportation purposes, “fear and lack of trust” in government continue to deter undocumented immigrants from completing census surveys (Lehman Held, 2020). This detail becomes salient when observing that demographic data additionally states 0% of the households in the county spoke a non-English language as their primary language.

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As with any job interview, there were nerves. Resumé in hand, I headed to the office with the General Manager, where we discussed my previous experience, strengths and weaknesses, and salary. An interruption from a delivery driver would allow me to insert the little knowledge I have regarding professional sports, as the manager and driver discussed promising quarterbacks and playoff hopefuls. Although I am cis-female, I wanted to make it seem like I could fit in with my male colleagues. Even though most of the employees I would work alongside were women, the positions of power were held by men, and I learned early on in my career it literally pays to “hang” with the guys. Women become “easy to get along with” and are promotable when they appear less “emotional” or “dramatic” (Harris & Giuffre, 2015).

I want to think my “can-do” attitude and degree in food management secured my position; however, there would be later conversations with co-workers where I discovered it was assumed I spoke Spanish as well as I did English (which unfortunately I do not, un poquito Español), and my boss had a pattern of hiring young women. These rumors or assumptions did not deter me from my job, nor did they impact my ability to complete day-to-day responsibilities. Instead, I filed these comments away into the mental filing cabinet labeled “racists and/or sexist things said to me at work.” Inside these mental files are the numerous times my work or position was accredited to my ethnicity, gender, or at times both. The “double-minority” is what one of my employees at a different food establishment once deemed my hiring as his new boss. The nearly retired, should have been fired, older custodian told me, “When you got this job, they got to check off two boxes.” From summer camps and scholarships to better shifts and management roles, my deservingness too often was attributed to my marginalization instead of the merits of my work. I choose not to sit in the rumored reasonings of how I got here for my mental health and ever-present struggles with imposter syndrome. Unfortunately, truth versus fiction can become blurred, and these rabbit holes run deep. As a woman of color, my sex and skin tone are ever-present. I wrestle with their effects in my professional life with every application, first impression, reference, and position.

Reflecting on the work of Crenshaw (1990), the intersections of race and gender “account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed” (p. 1245). As a Latina, my framework of knowledge is uniquely shaped by the collective memories and understandings I experience as both a female and Mexican American (Delgado Bernal, 2002). From my standpoint, exploring interpersonal relationships and experiences will ultimately differ from a White, male, Eurocentric perspective (Delgado Bernal, 2002). For centuries racial and gendered hierarchies have devalued the knowledge of women of color, questioning the validity of their lived experience. Instead, racist and sexist ideologies remain ingrained in American institutions as micro- and macro-aggressions are present in today’s workplace (Crenshaw, 1990; Delgado Bernal, 2002). Because of the consistent sexism and racism present throughout public discourse and within my own academic and educational careers, I at times worry I have become complacent with industry standards. Although my experiences may not appear as egregious or hostile as someone else’s experiences, they fall in line with the stereotypical logics that continue to oppress women and women of color in the workplace (Trier-Bieniek, 2017).

When cooking outside the home, professional kitchens and restaurants have historically been male-dominated (Harris & Giuffre, 2015). Women entering this industry often are seen as “invaders” and forced to “prove” they belong in these spaces (Harris & Giuffre, 2015). Any signs of feminine emotion or concern are to be left outside the workplace, as women are expected to take up the masculine figure of personhood both physically and mentally. Performing more masculine may mean “playing along” with sexual innuendos or harassment, working longer hours, or refusing help from male colleagues. It is assumed women will not threaten “the precarious masculinity of men working in the kitchen,” but instead learn how to fit in (Harris & Giuffre, 2015, p. 87). Often this “fitting in” keeps the upward mobility of women workers limited. Despite starting employment simultaneously, men are promoted quicker and paid higher salaries than their female counterparts, and trends do not show this number improving. In the past 5 years, women have made no gains in food industry leadership positions and remain underrepresented at every level beyond entry level (Luna, 2019). For Latina workers, cultural assumptions emphasizing collectivist and gendered ideologies make moving up the professional ladder even harder. The challenges of balancing work and family responsibilities often force working-class Latinas to choose family over career (DelCampo et al., 2009). According to the most recent data observing women in the workplace, “For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 85 women were promoted,” and for Latinas, this number shrinks to 71 (Coury et al., 2020). Research suggests that the gap between these identities will substantially increase following COVID-19 challenges, setting women back even further (Coury et al., 2020).

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I started my career in food at 15. I would spend many nights and weekends mixing milkshakes and dropping fries at the local ice cream shop. I loved working there. Alongside scholarships and loans, my ice cream job paid for the college education where I would first major in journalism before switching to food and hospitality management. Because journalism required additional obligations such as volunteering at the campus newspaper and spending summers in unpaid internships, the major became inaccessible. Conversely, food education validated my experiences serving catered events, cashing out registers, and unloading inventory. I received praise for my diligence and customer service skills in my food courses. When looking back on my previous educational experiences, despite achieving excellent grades and applying the same due diligence, I rarely was commended for my problem-solving abilities inside the classroom the way I was on the kitchen floor. I felt welcomed in kitchens; I worked hard, and I was good at my job. Here I found a sense of belonging.

Although Latina myself, I ironically have never worked alongside other Latinos in the kitchen. I blamed this lack of diversity on growing up and going to college in middle America. My parents were hesitant when I switched majors. Although there is a certain job security within the food industry, they understood the stereotypes that came with being Latino in the kitchen, “We want you to have a better life than we did.” I think my parents worried that I would get stuck cleaning after and serving people for the rest of my life. Both workers who spent long hours on their feet, my parents wanted me to have an office job. For them, sitting at a desk in pressed button-ups and shiny heels was the symbol of success. “Why don’t you go work at a bank?” was a phrase frequently heard after I came home exhausted in grease-stained uniforms. As a result, my mentors in the field were either White women or primarily White men who appreciated the long hours and reliability I brought to the job. These mentors were eager to share their accumulated knowledge and experience, and I was eager to observe how they navigated the system. They would be the ones who branded me employee-of-the-month, wrote reference letters for internships, took me to trade shows, and taught me the administrative side of food work. My mentors would be essential in opening doors and securing several of my entry-level positions out of college throughout the years.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021), Latinos make up approximately 28% of the food and beverage industry laborers. In addition, 37% of food manufacturing and agricultural workforces are Latino (Waltenburg et al., 2021). These percentages exemplify the large number of Latinos who continually make up the U.S. poor, working, and lower middle class. Despite more and more Latino families reaching middle-class status in recent years, poorer Latino households continue to grow at faster rates, thereby widening the economic gap between White and Latino households (Dávila, 2008). Latinos’ failure to climb up the socioeconomic ladder often ignites the debate surrounding the assimilability of Latino immigrants into mainstream, White American society (Morando, 2013). Some portray Latinos’ lack of upward mobility due to “their non-European cultural origins, low education, and job skills, and their unwillingness to integrate into the American way of life” (Zhou & Lee, 2007, p. 190). Others recognized the lingering racial discriminatory practices that prevent the advancement of second- and third-generation Latinos (Morando, 2013). Whiteness reproduced through institutionalized values and ideologies has contributed to the deindustrialization, xenophobia, and lower than average educational attainment that continues to prevent Latinos from navigating the routes of economic mobility in the United States (Dávila, 2008; Morando, 2013).

Nevertheless, others praise the contributions of Latinos toward American life (Zhou & Lee, 2007). They believe Latinos’ social and economic gains have been comparable with, or at times better than, earlier waves of European immigration (Zhou & Lee, 2007). Emphasizing bootstrap narratives and achieving the American dream are discourses that demonstrate how Latinos have earned their place among the U.S. middle class. Dávila (2008) reminds readers of the dangers of falling into tropes of the “good” or “model” minority identities that perpetuate Latinos as “hard-working” or submissive. She goes on to claim,

Doing so would implicate Latinos in the same immigrant hard-working tropes that immigrant groups have long used to claim whiteness by distancing themselves from Blacks. We must remember that this move has never quite worked for Latinos and that Latinos have failed to be fully “saved” and “whitened” by long-standing attempts to associate them with these tropes. Instead, and more likely than not, Latinos have been subjugated by these views, especially when they are used to turn them into a “model” but depoliticized constituency. In other words, this view asks too much from Latinos, while providing very little in return. (Dávila, 2008, p. 169)

Because first-generation immigrants enter the workforce a great deal behind White Americans, it takes several generations before Latinos are recognized as contributors to the U.S. middle class that has shifted from labor-intensive manufacturing to knowledge-based and technological services (Zhou & Lee, 2007). Specifically, in restaurant settings, we see Latino children relying on familial or community ties to find entry into hourly positions; however, when second-generation Latinos begin to navigate upward mobility, they must rely on support and resources outside the home (Morando, 2013; Wilson, 2008). Often Latinos who lack English proficiency also lack access to diverse networks with class-privileged Whites. Without access to these social capital outlets, some immigrants and second-generation Latinos can find themselves stuck on a broken economic ladder (Wilson, 2018).

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Most of the visitors/tourists at the farm tended to be White. With few options for food or leisure on this 80-mile stretch of interstate, billboards convinced Midwest roadtrippers to take a break from the mundane, overwhelmingly flat drive. Throughout the week, semi-drivers, students on field trips, and local families stopped by for a bite to eat and break from the workweek’s monotony. When hired at the farm, there were five main areas of employment: the café, cleaning staff, milk production, tours/exhibits, and the dairy farms themselves. On my first day of work, the dairy had published a P.R. announcement recalling their bleu cheese due to listeria concerns. For me, this meant I would spend my first day refunding wedges of cheese to customers and watching a handful of Latinos scrub equipment endlessly in the production area. Other White higher-ups (i.e., general managers, the CEO, farm owners) would be circling in and out of the café over the next few days, monitoring progress and checking out customer complaints regarding the issue.

During my first few weeks at the farm, aside from learning my daily job functions, I spent time observing the people behind the production. Each area of the farm had its own unique division of labor. The farming labor, such as milking and tending livestock, was primarily managed by Latino men. Like many larger farms in the area, dairy has come to rely on Mexican workers to maintain their production (Charles, 2017). When taking tours of the farms and stables, you could watch these farmhands cleaning utters and changing feed, but rarely did I see them inside the café for breaks or socializing. The exhibits and tour staff were predominantly White women. The person who first held the position I was now filling was recently promoted to the manager of the exhibit area. Her cheerful disposition and drive to increase sales would serve as the bar I was constantly measured against. The exhibit area was in a separate building from the café that also housed the CEO, marketing department, and additional administrative staff. Aside from a few seasonal employees, this building was entirely staffed by White personnel. Although the distance between the two buildings was only a few meters, the divide was felt in other ways. There was a stigma tied to café and production workers, and despite being the cash cow of the organization, rarely was an attempt made to recognize the people behind the product.

Because I was overseeing the café, I spent most of my time there. The café building also housed the cleaning crew and dairy production employees. The cleaning crew was comprised of a handful of Latinas who only spoke Spanish. Their supervisor was bilingual, and any direction from non-Spanish speakers went through her. In the early morning hours, before the café and tours opened and before customers arrived, a substantial part of the cleaning was already complete. Cleaning staff that worked throughout the day kept out of the way of patrons and would chit-chat with one another or the cooking staff only during slow times. The production workers on the assembly lines were Latino as well. Men assisted in cheese making and milk bottling, and women were delegated to cheese slicing and packaging. These areas had little to no interaction with customers and often worked out of sight from the tourist gaze. The cooks were Mexican, primarily women. They were bilingual in case they needed to speak with customers, although their backs were usually facing the counter, with their heads bent over a hot grill. The workers who interacted with our customers were predominantly White, aside from a few second-generation Latinos, who spoke English with “no accent.” Young White mothers and high school students made up most cashiers, cheese samplers, and ice cream dippers that would be the face of the café, alongside the White gift shop attendees. Although the H.R. department would say these descriptors are merely coincidental, labor divisions within the service industry are long established.

Whether overt or informal, racism remains ubiquitous in the workplace. Everyday “slights and assaults” from management, co-workers, and customers, often reflect the asymmetrical powers at play that continue to uphold structures of racial capitalism (Bhattacharyya, 2018, p. 110). Reflecting upon the historical work of Cedric Robinson et al. (1983), in addition to more recent scholarship by Gargi Bhattacharyya (2018), the conceptualization of capitalism is rooted in its ability to divide and differentiate. In the United States, the visibility of race remains ever-present in ways hierarchies are created and maintained between nations of European conquest and othered, non-European peoples (Dávila, 2008). In addition to phenotype, language also remains objectively positioned along the lines of colonial distinction, centered around Europeanness (Rosa, 2019). For Latinos, race and language link them to particular models of personhood, establishing them as non-White in the eyes of conquest and colonialism (Dávila, 2008; Rosa & Flores, 2017). Despite Latinos’ ability to fall anywhere on the White and Black skin tone spectrum, institutionally Latino bodies remain differentiated from Anglo-European bodies through historical, political, and economic conditions (Rosa, 2019). My observations at the farm highlight how race and language, in addition to gender, reproduce processes embedded in normative European colonialism and uphold aspects of racial capitalism.

American history well establishes its use of segregation to uphold White privilege and the systematic protection of Whiteness (Bhattacharyya, 2018). Colonial pathways would allow some immigrants to become settlers, valuing their Whiteness and European ancestry, while other immigrants were made illegal and subsequently criminal (Tuck & Yang, 2012). As the ideologies of racialism became structures throughout Western culture, traditions of separation and domination are carried from past to present (Robinson et al., 1983). “Ghetto colonialism, prisons, and under-resourced compulsory schooling” are remnants of settler colonialism segregation in the United States that continue to keep populations disenfranchised (Tuck & Yang, 2012, pp. 17–18). The caste of non-European peoples is maintained through labor exploitation, serving as the bedrock to most European economies (Robinson et al., 1983). Drawing from the 16th-century ethnic distinctions of labor, today’s colonizing economy rewards identities that can exemplify Whiteness (Bhattacharyya, 2018; Robinson et al., 1983). Racial capitalism provides economic opportunity to those who position themselves in line with settler colonialism, as it continues to exclude and dehumanize non-White laborers and industries. Despite this valued embodiment of Whiteness, the boundaries of racial identification often lack clarity. How Whiteness is defined and who it includes has shifted throughout American history. Once excluded, Irish and Jewish Europeans are now regarded as White, while Asian Americans, once holding honorary-White status, repeatedly are foreignized during times of national crisis (Dávila, 2008; Tuck & Yang, 2012). This pervasive and non-static identity continues to make Whiteness, and the promises that come with Whiteness, appear attainable (Dávila, 2008).

Latinos perpetually find themselves engulfed in the “are they/aren’t they” classification of Whiteness as they navigate their position within the colonial economy. Largely stereotyped as brown bodies speaking Spanish, Latino personhood challenges the normative American identity as White bodies speaking English (Rosa & Flores, 2017). Even Latinos who are fluent in the English language continue to struggle with the perceptions of their bodies “sounding” a certain way, distinct from “unaccented” English (Rosa, 2019). This perception of raciolinguistic difference, in turn, creates further division within workplace structures. Particular customer-facing roles may only be accessible to employees seen as “looking good and sounding right” (Wilson, 2018, p. 214). As a result, Spanish-only speakers, or even employees whose English is perceived as “accented,” are deterred from the same employment opportunities as their White, English-speaking peers. Furthermore, bilingual employees may be expected to take on additional roles as “cultural brokers” between customers, management, and fellow workers with no financial incentive (Wilson, 2018). Even as Latinos gain qualities of assimilation through language acquisition, political affiliation, and religion, they are continually denied opportunities of social mobility granted to previous European immigrants (Dávila, 2008). These racialized divisions built on personhood and language continue to be mobilized by employers to maintain occupational segregation and reproduce discrimination and inequality in the workplace.

In addition to race and language, gender was also embedded within formal colonial economies’ roles. Battles of class have marked some human activity as “work” and defined other labor as “non-work,” despite being essential to productive human life (Bhattacharyya, 2018). Carried into the 21st-century, labor recognized as feminine or domestic often comes with reduced wages. Harassment and discrimination toward women in the kitchen may represent men’s attempts to keep their occupation male-centered and segregated, thus keeping their positions privileged and higher on the pay scale (Harris & Giuffre, 2015). When women are included in the workforce, certain functions become geared explicitly toward men over women. “Masculine” jobs may require more physical ability or industry proficiency, and in return, are paid more than “feminine” jobs regulated to food preparation or cleaning tasks. Women who desire to gain upward mobility in the field may claim “gender neutrality” as a way of “reclaiming power and coping with inequality over which they may have little control” (Harris & Giuffre, 2015, p. 130).

Race, language, and gender always remain at play within the elements of colonial capitalism. White privileges become amplified as assimilation becomes the measure of socioeconomic attainment and success. Although dreams of achieving American middle class seem attainable, the pathway to socioeconomic progress is enmeshed in racialized divisions. Immigrants, women, non-English speakers, and Brown and Black bodies are systematically prevented from achieving the same levels of success as their non-Hispanic, White male counterparts (Zhou & Lee, 2007). As long as colonial privileges remain intact, hegemonic ideologies will continue to uphold discrimination and segregation through processes of social and economic hierarchies (Bhattacharyya, 2018; Dávila, 2008). The labor structure at the Midwest dairy farm embodies the challenges racial capitalism projects toward today’s immigrants and Latino communities. White privileges remain protected for employees, management, and customers through divisions of labor and spatial separation of White and Brown bodies. Although some overlook these segregations as byproducts of employee limitations, barriers to employment across generations situate colonial and border imperialism within the workplace as racialization becomes a fixed determinant for economic movement or marginalization (Bhattacharyya, 2018).

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Some days at the farm were better than others. As with most food jobs, there is a blurry line between being busy enough that time flies and feeling stressed and overworked. Slow days meant the hours would be filled with tedious work. “If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean!” People threw each other under busses to avoid the jobs that inevitably only get done once a year. Dusting, scraping, and scrubbing tended to put workers in foul moods. On steady days, the hustle and bustle of the café would create an energy between workers. These days were my favorite. To get through the mealtime rush, all hands were on deck. There was certain synchronicity between cooks, cleaners, and cashiers, where each job was understood and appreciated as part of the whole. After lines died down and patrons moved on, employees had just enough time to regroup. Cashiers wiped down counters, cooks stretched their backs, and cleaners drained their buckets, pausing to catch up with one another—“What are you up to this weekend?” “¿Cómo está tu hija? Did she make the team?” These pleasantries did not appear on hectic days. When days were busy and the work grueling, divisions became more explicit. “That’s not my job.” “Leave it for them.” “When do I get to leave?” What was once a collective is again siloed. I should state that no matter how long the lines grew in the café, the adjacent building never offered support. Biting my tongue when “I wouldn’t even know how to help!” was feigned for empathy, as though one cannot comprehend how to pick up trash or wash a dish. So while many employees clocked out late, grease-stained, and looking worse for wear, others clocked out with soft hands.

My career at the dairy farm was not long-lived. I wish I could say I shook up the system and fought for greater equality among workers, but in reality, I kept my head down and trudged along. During the year-and-a-half I spent overseeing the café, I learned a lot about cows and cheese, and I learned a lot about ways people are exploited for the bottom line. When your business is built on symbolizing the experience of the American farmer and their contributions to American culture, it should come as no surprise that certain personhoods and histories stay in the margins. And I maintained that status quo. As graduating seniors and disgruntled employees moved on, new employees shuffled in. Throughout the turnovers, hiring divisions between male and female, Brown and White, English and Spanish stayed the same. Inevitably, it was my time to leave when prospects of promotion faded out. My boss was resigning, and with him, the only person in management who witnessed the long hours and commitment I put into my work. I was passed up for his job as general manager when they promoted a recently rehired, White, middle-aged woman who previously worked at the exhibition/tour center some years earlier. I cannot say for sure that my Brownness prevented me from reaching that opportunity. Looking back, I take stock of my limitations and wrestle with the what ifs—“What if I spent less time working the floor?” “What if I had worked harder to increase sales?” Inevitably, I believe upper management gave her the job because they knew her more than they did me. They knew her because she had a history there, because her office was closer to theirs, and because maybe they just saw more of themselves in her.

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Although the setting may be novel, my experiences on the dairy farm are not unique to restaurants and kitchens across the Midwest. Discussing my entry into the industry alongside day-to-day practices does not explain “how capitalism is formed,” but instead extends how capitalism “continues and becomes part of our own sense of self” (Bhattacharyya, 2018, p. 4). Despite being a woman of color, I hold certain privileges, such as language, education, and citizenship, that make my involvement within racial capitalism easier to endure. Stacy Holman Jones (2008) describes writing an autoethnography as a “balancing act” (p. 207). Working through my past accounts raises questions concerning how I preserved political and economic power, though that same power was not made accessible to me. Before writing this article, I had not taken the time to analyze my position within a colonized system. For the most part, I was blind to how my movements (privileged or restricted) were connected to histories of exploitation and injustice. Returning to academia has afforded me the space to reflect on my career in an industry where “racialism and its permutations persist, rooted not in a particular era, but in the civilization itself” (Robinson et al., 1983, p. 26). The wage crises we see among hourly workers, exacerbated by today’s post-COVID economy, are not a result of the state system breaking down but rather racial capitalism working as intended. As agricultural, manufacturing, and fast-food industries struggle with supply and labor shortages, time will reveal how resistant the American economy is to dismantling exploitative labor practices.