Iowa is lodged firmly in the American psyche as a place of traditional American values – hard work, family, and religion. Iowa is an important player in the United States’ vaunted agricultural industry, having been ranked first in the country in soybean production, corn production, and pork production. America has also slowly learned over the past decade, with ICE raids and COVID, is that a significant number of immigrants and refugees do the difficult and hazardous work of slaughtering and processing the meat products we purchase at our local grocery store. What is of interest to us at the National Museum of American Religion is whether religion plays critical roles in the lives of these workers, and if so, how.

To help us understand this, we have with us today Kristy Nabhan-Warren, Professor and the inaugural V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Iowa, and author of Meatpacking America: How Migration, Work and Faith Unite and Divide the Heartland. Kristy received her PhD from the University of Indiana; her research interests include American Religions; Ethnographic approaches to the study of religion; Catholic Studies; Latinx Studies. She is committed to making scholarship meaningful to non-academics as well as academics, and prides herself on writing for a wide audience. She works hard to stay true to her working class and Midwestern roots. She embraces a Humanities for the Public Good approach to her research, writing, and dissemination of information.