Audio Recording Day Day interview conducted by John W. McKerley, 2016-02-18.

Title

• Day Day interview conducted by John W. McKerley, 2016-02-18.

Summary

• Day Day was born to Burmese parents in a refugee camp in northwestern Thailand in 1991. His father was from the Karen ethnic group, and his mother was Kareeni; both were Christians. His father had been a soldier fighting in opposition to the Burmese central state's rule. In Thailand, his family worked as farmers, growing produce in or near the refugee camp. Work outside the camp required Thai authorization, although some refugees sought employment in a nearby city despite the threat of the Thai police. Day Day's parents eventually sought refugee status in the United States in an effort to procure more opportunity for him and his brothers. In 2009, they arrived in Richmond, Virginia. Despite the assistance of a local church, the family (and Day Day in particular) found life in Richmond difficult. He struggled in school, where he was one of only two Asians, eventually leaving with no more than a ninth-grade education. The family found an opportunity to work in a chicken plant in North Carolina, recruited by one of the plant's managers through their church. In North Carolina, Day Day and his mother and brothers (his father had been injured and was unable to work) labored in the chicken plant alongside large numbers of other Asian, "Mexican," and African American workers. Although the work was difficult and dangerous, Day Day did well both on the line (where the knife skills he had learned as a Thai farmer came in handy) and as an interpreter. (Since he spoke Karen, Karenni, Burmese, and Thai, in addition to English, he could serve as an interlocutor for many of the diverse Asian linguistic groups in the plant.) By 2011, he was ready to move out on his own. especially after learning about opportunities in the pork plants in Iowa, to which he had been introduced by a friend from the Thai refugee camp with whom he reconnected via Facebook. That same year, he moved to Des Moines. Like many other Burmese residents, he enjoyed living among the city's relatively large Burmese community, but worked in a JBS-owned pork plant in Mitchellville, Iowa, a small town an hour away. Eventually, even Des Moines's community proved too small, and he followed friends to Waterloo, Iowa, where he began work in a Tyson pork plant. In Waterloo, he joined his first union, UFCW 431, attracted by its values of "equality," which he associated with Martin Luther King, Jr., who became a personal inspiration. As of 2016, he had become a union steward and bought a home in Waterloo. He looks forward to the possibility of someday taking what he had learned in the US (and in the US labor movement) back to Burma to assist the people there.

Names

• Day, Day, 1991- interviewee.
• McKerley, John W., interviewer.
• Occupational Folklife Project, sponsor.

Created / Published

• 2016-02-18

Headings

• -  Day, Day,--1991---Interviews
• -  Refugees--Burma--Interviews
• -  Slaughtering and slaughter-houses
• -  Education
• -  Employees--Training of
• -  Factories
• -  Hazardous occupations
• -  Income
• -  Industrial safety
• -  Labor unions
• -  Blue collar workers
• -  Meat industry and trade--Iowa
• -  Packing-house workers--Iowa--Interviews
• -  Waterloo (Iowa),--event place

Genre

• Sound recordings
• Digital photographs--Color--2010-2020
• Interviews
• Oral histories
• Personal narratives

Notes

• -  Recorded at Mr. Day's home, Waterloo, Iowa, February 18, 2016.
• -  Recent immigrant workers in Iowa's meatpacking industry : Archie Green Fellows Project, 2015-2016 (AFC 2015/026: 02820) Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• -  To honor the memory of Archie Green (1917-2009), a fellowship program was established at the American Folklife Center in 2010. Archie Green Fellowships support new research in the contemporary culture and traditions of American workers.
• -  In English.

Medium

• 1 sound file (wav) (00:54:12) : digital, sound.
• 1 photograph : digital, Camera Raw, color.
• 1 manuscript : digital, pdf file.

Source Collection

• Recent immigrant workers in Iowa's meatpacking industry : Archie Green Fellows Project, 2015-2016 AFC 2015/026: 02820

Repository

• Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, DC USA 20540-4610 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home

Digital Id

• http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc2015026.afc2015026_02820_sr01
• afc2015026.afc2015026_02820_ph01
• afc2015026.afc2015026_02820_ms02

Library of Congress Control Number

• 2020655369

Rights Advisory

• Duplication of collection materials may be governed by copyright and other restrictions.

Access Advisory

• Collection is open for research. To request materials, please contact the Folklife Reading Room at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.contact

Online Format

• image
• audio
• pdf

LCCN Permalink

• https://lccn.loc.gov/2020655369

Additional Metadata Formats

• MARCXML Record
• MODS Record
• Dublin Core Record

IIIF Presentation Manifest

• Manifest (JSON/LD)