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Who Will Pick Our Fruits & Veggies? Prisoners
I’m eternally grateful that in my Sophomore year of high school, my history teacher assigned us to read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair.
It absolutely blew my doors off. If you’re not familiar, it’s the fictional story story of Jurgis, a Lithuanian immigrant to Chicago in the early 1900s. As has long been the story in this country, Jurgis is only able to find work in the Chicago meatpacking plants. Because of bigotry, other businesses wouldn’t hire the immigrants, and “real Americans” didn’t want to work in the slaughterhouses.
It’s an absolutely brutal tale of twelve-hour days, low pay, and horrific working conditions. Jurgis also sees how his bosses save money by processing rancid meat into sausage, as well as throwing in chemicals and even the body of a worker who dies in the plant.
Every single one of Sinclair’s illuminating whistleblowing on the Chicago meatpacking industry was proven true — except for the human sausage.
I was disappointed, though, to get to the end of the book and realize it was basically an oversized pamphlet for Socialism. I was a typical Midwestern white girl raised to be Republican, and I hadn’t yet…