Community Voices: Postville Project Oral Histories
Keywords
Goldsmith, Aaron--Interviews; Postville Immigration Raid, Postville, Iowa, 2008;
Genre
Oral History
Interview Description
Aaron Goldsmith moved his family and his business, Transfer Master Products, Inc., to Postville in 1997. He enjoyed the safety and pace of rural America. In the interview Goldsmith discusses the way Postville has changed over time including the expansion of the kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors, and the multiethnic population of Postville. Goldsmith shares his experience working on the city council, his thoughts on the media’s portrayal of Postville, and some insights into the growth of the Jewish community in Postville. The interview also includes his experience around the time of the raid, how Postville has rebuilt since then, and his work as coauthor of the book Postville U.S.A: Surviving Diversity in Small-Town America alongside Mark Gray and Michelle Devlin.
Interview Number
06
Interview Date
11-19-2014
File Format
audio/mp3
Disciplines
Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | United States History
Project Title
Community Voices: The Postville Oral History Project
Project Description
The Community Voices: Postville Oral History Project sought to capture the remembered past of those who experienced the “Postville story,” that is, the social context leading up to, including, and following the ICE immigration raid that occurred on May 12th, 2008. The Interviews available here showcase the unique memories of 16 interviewees living and working in or near Postville. The interviews will leave listeners with a sense of how a small town in rural Iowa has dealt with and continues to deal with vast demographic change and the aftermath of an ICE raid that threw Postville into the national conversation on immigration reform.
Publisher
Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa
Copyright
©2014 The Postville Project
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Language
en
Recommended Citation
Goldsmith, Aaron, "Community Voices: The Postville Oral History Project Recording with Aaron Goldsmith" (2014). Community Voices: Postville Project Oral Histories. 6.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/postville_oralhistory/6
Project Title
Community Voices: The Postville Oral History Project
Project Description
The Community Voices: Postville Oral History Project sought to capture the remembered past of those who experienced the “Postville story,” that is, the social context leading up to, including, and following the ICE immigration raid that occurred on May 12th, 2008. The Interviews available here showcase the unique memories of 16 interviewees living and working in or near Postville. The interviews will leave listeners with a sense of how a small town in rural Iowa has dealt with and continues to deal with vast demographic change and the aftermath of an ICE raid that threw Postville into the national conversation on immigration reform.
Comments
Click image to play interview:
Interview Conducted by RaeAnn Swanson-Evans
Interview Transcribed by RaeAnn Swanson-Evans