Extra!
Reporter Jacob Kushner and photographer Jake Naughton went to Darlington, Wis., for the latest installment of our Dairyland Diversity package (it’s here: Immigrant dairy workers transform a rural Wisconsin community). And they came back with an unusual coming-to-America story. One in which the old guard and the new wave are actually living in relative harmony.

An influx of immigrants into Wisconsin’s dairy industry is giving a new Hispanic flavor to rural areas.

The state senate rejected a measure to impose strict penalties on companies found to have employed an undocumented worker. The bill’s failure is big news for Wisconsin’s dairy farmers, who increasingly rely on Hispanic immigrants to milk their herds. A report by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism in November revealed the difficulties dairy farmers face finding legal workers for their operations.