Except the Minnesota State Fair looks like a picture of the past. Those halcyon days when fair-skinned Europeans populated every corner and the word immigrant meant someone from Scandinavia or Germany. It's still fun to people-watch. They come in all shapes and sizes, munching on spam sushi or deep-fried cheeseburgers. But not too many colors.
When I'm teaching my adult ESL class, I sometimes describe myself as European. But other times I just say pink. It's a better descriptor. "I'm not white like this paper," I say. "I was only white when I was very sick in the hospital." The fair seems more pink, less brown than I would expect if the entire state came to eat together.
I still love it, though, and wouldn't miss it. Like many fair-going families, we have a routine. We used to park across the street and come in near the animal barns. The sheep, horses, pigs and cows were first, followed by the all-you-can-drink milk booth and a Pronto Pup. Now we take a shuttle bus and come in a new entrance. Near new food. So now we start with a walleye taco.
Before we head off to the French fries, ice cream, and points beyond, we go to the Miracle of Birth barn, where urban Minnesotans get to see farm animals being born right in front of them. "Eew! Gross!" say my kids. They like to see the newborns, but not their births.
It was the brilliant idea of a veterinarian who happens to be a member of my husband's extended family. This year, we spotted her at work. Two sows were giving birth, and the crowd around was cheering the arrival of the first piglet, but she was kind enough to come and chat with us.
"Have you been to the hen house?" she asked. We shook our heads.
"You have to go check it out. You can learn where your eggs come from."
If you're thinking that the correct answer is "chickens", then you, like me, have something to learn.
I like to feel good when I spend my money. I'm not in a very lucrative profession, and I work very hard for what I earn. There are two ways I can feel good about parting with it. First, I can get a good deal. Find the best product at the lowest price and I feel smarter than everyone who paid regular price. I feel like I'm good with money. Second, I can pay more for something worthwhile. Something that will last. Something that will make a difference. Free range. Cage free. It makes me feel good to spend more on eggs if I know the chickens led better lives.
But here is what I learned: chickens aren't people. They don't languish in their cages, beaks pressed against the bars, longing to roam free in the barnyard.
It turns out that what is most important to chickens is pecking order. Their very small brains can only remember seven or eight other chickens. Keep the group small enough and they don't care how much space they have. They are content.
But what about free range? I had assumed that I was paying more for eggs from free range chickens because they were pampered. Not so. Free range chickens are more vulnerable to predators, disease and injury. I'm paying more for the higher mortality rate.
Cage free? A large flock of chickens in unrestricted space makes them miserable. They are stressed and fight more. Chickens need to know their place in the pecking order to be content.
"Every time they open their eyes, they see a new chicken," explained the vet.
In the hen house we saw two cages. The enriched space was larger, but contained more chickens. They could go off to a small private space to lay their eggs. The other cage had about eight chickens. They could walk around in it, but it was very small.
"See how content they are?" asked the young worker? "Even in the smaller cage?"
I'm not sure what a happy chicken looks like, but they certainly weren't fighting. They weren't droopy or listless either. They just looked like they were getting on with the business of being chickens.
It's the same with dogs. We can't resist thinking of them as people, and we derail their training with our affection. We don't want to hurt their feelings. We want them to return our love.
But dogs aren't people. The most important thing to them is their place in the pack. They don't feel ashamed if they aren't the alpha. They don't secretly scheme House of Cards style to take over power. Submitting is as natural to dogs as dominating. If they don't know their place, they are stressed. They need to keep checking on their status in relation to every pack member, human or canine. If they know when to submit, they can get on with the business of being dogs.
We like to impose our own ideas about happiness on other cultures, too. We look at women who cover themselves—Muslim or Amish or Catholic or Jewish—and say, "They are imprisoned. They are dominated." We assume they must long to be free from their cages. Free from domination. If only they could strip off that clothing, they could be happy like us.
But the problem isn't too many clothes. I've heard many women in hijabs talk about their dreams. They sound similar to women in jeans and t-shirts. They want to be doctors or nurses or to start their own businesses. They want that ubiquitous thing known as "a better job."
No. The problem is when women and girls are forced to take off their clothes. I was sickened to learn about the link between sex trafficking and sports. While athletes competed in the Olympics, young girls who had been brought to Rio were satisfying the throngs of spectators. The same with the Super Bowl. The Ryder Cup.
It suits those who pay for sex assume that these women and girls are free. That it's their career choice to sell sex for money. That they are entrepreneurs.
No. They are imprisoned in a nightmare of abuse—physical, emotional, substance abuse. They are not free to go about the business of being women.
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