Program connects Midwest dairy farmers with migrant worker's family in Mexico

NINA MOINI: Dairy farms in Minnesota and around the country rely on immigrant workers, many of whom are undocumented. And dairy workers' families often rely on the portion of their wages they send back to their home countries. A group of farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin has been following these connections to Mexico to meet the families of their employees.

Mercedes Falk is the president of Wisconsin-based organization Puentes/Bridges, which leads these trips. And Cole Hoscheit is a board member and dairy farmer from Caledonia in Southeastern Minnesota. Mercedes and Cole, thank you so much, both of you, for joining us.

MERCEDES FALK: Thanks for having us.

COLE HOSCHEIT: Nice to be here.

NINA MOINI: Thank you very much. Mercedes, I'll start with you. This is a really wonderful-sounding idea. How did you get the idea to build these bridges in this way and plan these trips?

MERCEDES FALK: Well, it was an idea that started before my time. Back in the early 2000s, our local extension agent in the county here, in Buffalo County, where we live, saw that there was a need for better communication between dairy farmers and their new employees that were mostly from Mexico.

And so he contacted Shaun Duvall, who was the local Spanish high school teacher at the time, and asked her to work with dairy farmers. And so she started doing classes and realized really quickly that there were so much more to learn, just besides the language, that there were some cultural pieces where maybe miscommunications were happening.

So they planned a trip to Mexico to do a full immersion program for two weeks back in 2001. And when they were planning that trip, John Rosenow, a dairy farmer over here in Waumandee, Wisconsin, said, hey, you know what? I would really love to meet the families of my employees.

And Shaun kind of was like, oh, duh, why didn't I think of that? And so she planned that at the very end of the trip. And it was only a one-day thing, but it was the most meaningful and most powerful part of the trip. So when they got back, John wanted to make sure it was not just a one-time thing. So he and Shaun put their heads together and were able to incorporate Puentes as a non-profit two years later in 2003. And we've been going ever since.

NINA MOINI: Amazing, so more than more than two decades. And Cole, I understand you've been to Mexico a few times to visit the homes of the workers that you work with on your farm. Can you tell me about these experiences? Where did you go? And who all did you meet?

COLE HOSCHEIT: Well, how much time do we have?

[LAUGHTER]

So I visited San Juan, Veracruz, and I met the families of some former employees initially. And then I also met a lot of the families of current people that are working at our dairy farm.

NINA MOINI: OK, so I'm--

COLE HOSCHEIT: And--

NINA MOINI: Oh, go ahead.

COLE HOSCHEIT: You're fine.

NINA MOINI: Well, I'm just curious to know if you were nervous going into the trips and meeting the family members or how you felt, and then how you felt on the end of the trips.

COLE HOSCHEIT: Yeah, very nervous, because at that point, I had never been really out of the country on my first trip down there. And so I went with, actually, Mercedes and another neighbor farmer from Caledonia. And it was nervous just because I didn't know what to expect, you know?

And it was really eye-opening for me to kind of see where our people came from. The terrain is different. The climate is different. It's a lot more challenging than where we live. So yeah, I would say I was nervous. Yeah.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, that's a great thing to experience, just the climate and all the differences, and then also the emotional experiences of being with the families. Has it changed your approach? Or have you adapted your approach at all to just your profession of farming or to being a boss?

COLE HOSCHEIT: Yeah. Yeah, that was one of the things that I had actually wrote down here was, helped me learn about their culture, where they're coming from, how-- yeah, absolutely, all those things. And I manage differently now. So if I walk into the farm and I see, for example, something isn't quite right, as far as like a stupid gate being off a hinge, right?

NINA MOINI: Mm-hmm.

COLE HOSCHEIT: And they just tied it up with a rope. Well, oh, I understand that because where they come from, they use a lot of different rope for different-- I'm looking for that-- I'm lost for a word there, but yeah.

NINA MOINI: That's OK. Yeah, I love that these are such practical examples, too, of just how the work gets done. And it's fascinating to learn about that because the easier getting through the work day and everything is for everyone, and the easier you're able to communicate, the better experience that everybody is having. And I'm sure it's even more efficient.

Mercedes, how about this last trip that you went to beginning of February? It was the first in the new president, Donald Trump's new administration. Can you tell me about what that trip was like?

MERCEDES FALK: Yeah, it was really powerful. We went with two farmers and about eight community members. And we went with a mission to learn more about the stories of the women, the moms and the wives and sisters and everybody that are keeping households going and running, why their loved ones are up here trying to earn as much money as possible, send it back home so that they can create a better life for their families, whether that be through building a house or making sure that their kids get as good of an education as possible.

And it takes a lot to be able to not only raise your child on your own physically. Even though your spouse is not there, they're still supporting. And luckily with technology, people are doing several video calls a day, so the distance feels a little bit less. But it was really powerful for us to see how much the women are holding the households together and to learn their stories and learn about their backgrounds. It kind of gave new meaning for the trip.

NINA MOINI: And Mercedes, we know that there are people across the country and there are lawmakers and politicians and President Trump who support more deportations and want to see stricter enforcement of immigration laws. And even if that means big changes for farmers and how they're able to operate, how do you respond when you hear those types of concerns in your work, Mercedes?

MERCEDES FALK: Yeah. So that was actually a big concern on the trip. Many of the families that we went to visit, they wanted to talk about it. Even one of Cole's former employees, we went to have dinner at her family's house. And as we arrived, she and a couple of her sisters were joking like, oh, welcome. You guys are the first gringos that have been deported by Trump, you know, just to kind of make light of the situation, what they're seeing on the news there.

And so what comes across people's newsfeeds is concerning or was concerning at that time about a month ago. I think everything has calmed down a little bit. And people see that the plan of the new administration seems to be-- at least their actions are showing that they're deporting people that have records or going after that in particular.

And so when people express concerns, we do our best to educate, to let folks know what can really happen legally with deportations. And we have red cards that we hand out that shows people what their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights are, and that someone cannot just be deported randomly. Like, an ICE agent can't just walk up to somebody.

And we also try to communicate how much not only the dairy industry, but many industries in Minnesota and the Midwest depend on work from folks that were not born here.

NINA MOINI: So you're doing a lot of education. And really, it's the people who are concerned for their livelihoods, right, that if their loved ones can't continue to work on a farm like Cole's farm, how are they going to be able to send as much back? Or what's going to happen?

And then, Cole, from your perspective, I'm curious to know, are you concerned about if part of that immigrant workforce were no longer available to you, would you be able to operate in the same way? Or what are some of your concerns?

COLE HOSCHEIT: Yeah, it would get to be quite challenging if all the workforce was deported. We would not be able to operate the same as we are today. Yeah.

NINA MOINI: Sure. And Mercedes, what do you hope that these trips mean to the people who are there, both from Minnesota and Wisconsin? What do you hope people ultimately take away from these?

MERCEDES FALK: We hope that people take away a greater understanding to see how hard folks are working to create a better life for themselves, to see how challenging it is to navigate an environment that's not your own, kind of like Cole mentioned when he first went to Mexico. He was out of his comfort zone. He really didn't know what to expect.

And for us to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of somebody who's coming up here and not for a learning experience-- out of necessity because they want to make sure that their children can have a better life than they had.

And then the folks that we visit down there, we hope that we can bring the message of how much we care about them, and we see the efforts they are making, both up here and down in Mexico, and that we recognize that. And it's important for them to know how important they are.

NINA MOINI: Mercedes and Cole, thank you both so much for stopping by. We really appreciate your time.

MERCEDES FALK: Thank you.

COLE HOSCHEIT: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. Mercedes Falk is the president of the organization Puentes/Bridges, based in Wisconsin. And Cole Hoscheit is a board member of the group and a dairy farmer in Caledonia, Minnesota.