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A labor camp, a Super 8 and a long bus ride home: What happened when COVID-19 hit migrant workers at a Wisconsin canning plant
Maria Perez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Published
6:02 pm UTC May. 20, 2021
Pedro Quiroz was the last migrant worker to board the bus.
The 77-year-old walked slowly and breathed heavily as a co-worker helped him get on. He wasn’t wearing a mask, and someone rushed to find him one.
The migrant workers were leaving a labor camp in the northern Wisconsin town of Gillett where they had lived for four months. Their employer, a green bean canning plant, had abruptly closed early for the season after numerous workers contracted COVID-19. Now, they were heading home to Texas and Mexico.