Walking into the future
There is no arguing that Marathon County — both the urban centers, like the city of Wausau, but also the rural hinterland dotted with small villages — has become significantly more diverse over the past decade.
Look at the dairy industry. Hispanics perform much of the labor. Look at the cheese packaging and processing business. Southeast Asians are a key part of that industry’s workforce. Industries across the county — manufacturing, health care or insurance — are no longer parochial, local enterprises. They are connected to the world. They buy and sell products to people of all races. Residents across the county are similarly global citizens. The U.S. Census reports that 83 percent of county residents have an internet subscription.
There is also no arguing that this change will slow. It’s all about demographics. The state’s Department of Workforce Development projects that northcentral Wisconsin will see a 26,740 increase in jobs (2016-2026), but Marathon County, a regional population hub, has only grown by less than half of this number over the past decade (2010-2019 estimate).
The math is the math. Employers will need to woo people from around the country, if not the world, to take jobs here. These people will be all colors, shapes and sizes.
The city of Abbotsford on the county’s west end provides an illustrative example of what’s going on. Two decades ago, it was a standard homogeneous community. Now, it is a center of diversity.
Lots of Hispanics work in the city’s slaughterhouses. At the same time, a significant population of Amish and Mennonites have bought up old, nearby dairy farms. It is not unusual to hear a horse and buggy clip-clop the city streets followed by a shiny, new truck playing mariachi music. It’s the sound of change.
While there is no real argument that the county is more diverse than in the past and that this change will, if anything, accelerate, there is plenty of argument over what to make of all this.
The recent focus of this argument, it seems, has been on a Community For All resolution festering at the county courthouse. The resolution, now in its seventh draft, has been labeled Marxist, discriminatory, pro-abortion and an insult to local community pride.
At last Thursday’s meeting, town of Easton fourth generation dairy farmer James Juedes came up with a new reason not to like a new, compromise resolution. It would, he argued, try to turn Marathon County into something like Chicagoland.
“Are you trying to turn the county into a metropolis?” he asked, earnestly. “Not like the county we know?”
Juedes’s question is poignant, but misses the mark. No flowery-worded county board resolution will have any impact on who migrates to Marathon County. The current resolution only asks us to welcome this change, not fear it.
The truth is that Marathon County, even in most rural townships, is probably now more of a metropolis connected by highways and broadband than any idyllic rural paradise that Juedes’ forefathers might have recognized. The county “like we know” is passing into history.
It is proper for county supervisors and citizens to argue over every word in a Community For All resolution. In that dispute, we must try, if possible, to find common ground that all of us, both right and left, can agree on.
The Community For All resolution alone can’t change the future. It can be a consensus document, however, that shows us how we walk into that future together.
Editorial by Peter Weinschenk, The Record-Review
