Audio Recording Zabdiel Morales Algandar interview conducted by John W. McKerley, 2016-05-04.

Title

• Zabdiel Morales Algandar interview conducted by John W. McKerley, 2016-05-04.

Summary

• Algandar was born in Mazatlan, a city in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico. As a young child he moved with his mother and brother to San Luis Rio Colorado, on the Mexican border with Arizona. From family stories, he learned that his ancestors included people of French and Chinese background. His mother worked in a restaurant and in a clothing store before becoming a migrant fieldworker who would cross over into Arizona and California for seasonal employment. She and her fellow farm workers (including her older son) would often have to travel several hours for work, sometimes without the assurance of being paid. This movement sometimes took the whole family over the border for long stays in California or Arizona (a period during which his mother began the process of seeking permanent resident status for her children). In the late 1990s, when Algandar was in his early teens, he and his mother followed his brother to Beardstown, Illinois, where his brother had secured employment in a (then) Cargill-owned meatpacking plant. Although the work was dirty and dangerous, it was better than the seasonal farm work. In Beardstown, Algandar remembers some police harassment of "Hispanics" and racial tensions between white and Hispanic students. After graduating from high school and spending a brief stint in community college, Algandar went to work in the plant, which offered comparatively good-paying work for young people with relatively little education and skills. He started work boxing loins and later moved to "pack off," where finished product was prepared for shipping. Packing was difficult--especially the lifting--and he described how he and his co-workers found ways to make it easier and more enjoyable. He avoided knife work, which, despite its better pay, was difficult and dangerous. In pack off, he met more senior employees who introduced him to union activism: ultimately encouraging him to become a steward. This activism prepared him to take a leadership role during workers' organizing in preparation for the 2006 Great American Boycott; the plants' Hispanic workers succeeded in pressuring the company to declare a holiday rather than face a large percentage of its employees (perhaps as many as 60 percent) halting production through a boycott. Recently, his union local (UFCW 431, headquartered out of Davenport, Iowa) tapped him to become a traveling organizer. When the interview was conducted in 2016, Algandar was taking part in an organizing campaign in Waterloo, Iowa.

Names

• Algandar, Zabdiel Morales, 1983- interviewee.
• McKerley, John W., interviewer.
• Occupational Folklife Project, sponsor.

Created / Published

• 2016-05-04

Headings

• -  Algandar, Zabdiel Morales,--1983---Interviews
• -  Slaughtering and slaughter-houses
• -  Children of working parents
• -  Wages
• -  Work and family
• -  Working mothers
• -  Employee rights
• -  Day laborers
• -  Age and employment
• -  Diversity in the workplace
• -  Education
• -  Employees
• -  Employees--Training of
• -  Factories
• -  Families
• -  Hazardous occupations
• -  Hours of labor
• -  Industrial safety
• -  Labor unions
• -  Migrant labor
• -  Blue collar workers
• -  Seasonal unemployment
• -  Discrimination in employment--United States
• -  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 in Waterloo, Iowa, May 4, 2016.
• -  Recent immigrant workers in Iowa's meatpacking industry : Archie Green Fellows Project, 2015-2016 (AFC 2015/026: 02840) 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) (01:12:19) : 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: 02840

Repository

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

Digital Id

• http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc2015026.afc2015026_02840_sr01
• afc2015026.afc2015026_02840_ph01
• afc2015026.afc2015026_02840_ms02

Library of Congress Control Number

• 2020655370

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/2020655370

Additional Metadata Formats

• MARCXML Record
• MODS Record
• Dublin Core Record

IIIF Presentation Manifest

• Manifest (JSON/LD)