I was up at midnight last night when Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy came out on Netflix. I couldn’t remember what I had said in my interview, and so I went to sleep without watching it. The interesting (nail-biting) thing about being interviewed for a documentary is that you usually don’t see a preview of the work. My film agent negotiated the contract, so I knew that I was in the documentary and that the title of my book was included in the credits. But beyond that, much was unknown.
The production team filmed interviews with me in 2025, and the host, comedian Mo Gilligan, went to Arkansas to spend time with Venceremos, the labor rights organization that I write about in my book, Life and Death of the American Worker.
I watched the documentary this afternoon and was delighted to see Mo Gilligan and Venceremos co-founder Magaly Licolli in Springdale filming in front of one of the Tyson Foods plants that I wrote about in my book. In one scene in the documentary, when the police show up outside the Tyson Foods plant, Mo, who is crossing the street with Magaly, says, “I’m black, you’re Hispanic, we have not got a chance.”
It was a relief to find out what I said in the documentary: I compared the meatpacking company model of vertical integration to a black hole, and I talked about the brutality of chicken catching. I continue to love a good Arkansas story, a good southern story, a story about immigrant poultry processing workers in the Ozarks organizing to improve labor conditions at one of the largest corporations on this earth.
After my book came out, I got invited to the Miami Book Fair where I met Patti Smith. She was supposed to talk about her newest book, but everyone in the audience wanted her to sing “People Have the Power.” I close my eyes, and I can hear her singing.
I awakened to the cry
that the people have the power
to redeem the work of fools
upon the meek the graces shower
it’s decreed the people rule
The people have the power,
Love,
Alice
In June, Celia Vidal of Radio Nacional España interviewed me about “The Reality Behind the US Meatpacking Industry.” I interviewed legendary labor rights activist Dolores Huerta for the summer print edition of Elle Magazine. This fall, I will be in Italy for a book tour of the Italian translation of Life and Death of the American Worker. And in October, I will attend one of my favorite gatherings of journalists from around the globe at the Congress of Mérida Migration Journalism: Migrant Children and Youth in Mérida, Spain.
You can order LIFE AND DEATH OF THE AMERICAN WORKER: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company HERE.
An extraordinary feat of reporting—a gripping investigation into the brutal, often life-threatening conditions faced by America’s most vulnerable workers. It’s hard to imagine a more urgent or timely book, one written with rigor, deep compassion, and moral clarity. A vital, infuriating book - an absolute must-read.
—BRIAN GOLDSTONE, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of There Is No Place For Us