This atlas shows the spatial distribution and socioeconomic characteristics of Wisconsin's more than sixty ethnic groups based on data from the 1990 United States Census.

Wisconsin is one of the most linguistically rich places in North America. It has the greatest diversity of American Indian languages east of the Mississippi, including Ojibwe and Menominee from the Algonquian language family, Ho-Chunk from the Siouan family, and Oneida from the Iroquoian family. French place names dot the state's map. German, Norwegian, and Polish—the languages of immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—are still spoken by tens of thousands of people, and the influx of new immigrants speaking Spanish, Hmong, and Somali continues to enrich the state's cultural landscape. These languages and others (Walloon, Cornish, Finnish, Czech, and more) have shaped the kinds of English spoken around the state. Within Wisconsin's borders are found three different major dialects of American English, and despite the influences of mass media and popular culture, they are not merging—they are dramatically diverging. An engaging survey for both general readers and language scholars, Wisconsin Talk brings together perspectives from linguistics, history, cultural studies, and geography to illuminate why language matters in our everyday lives. The authors highlight such topics as: • words distinctive to the state • how recent and earlier immigrants have negotiated cultural and linguistic challenges • the diversity of bilingual speakers that enriches our communities • how maps can convey the stories of language • the relation of Wisconsin's Indian languages to language loss worldwide.

Unknown to many Americans at the time, the Hmong helped the US government fight Communists in Laos during the Secret War of the 1960s and 1970s, a parallel conflict to the Vietnam War. When Saigon fell and allies withdrew, the surviving Hmong fled for their lives, spending years in Thai refugee camps before being relocated to the United States and other countries. Many of these families found homes in Wisconsin, which now has the third largest Hmong population in the country, following California and Minnesota. As one of the most recent cultural groups to arrive in the Badger State, the Hmong have worked hard to establish a new life here, building support systems to preserve traditions and to help one another as they enrolled in schools, started businesses, and strived for independence. Told with a mixture of scholarly research, interviews, and personal experience of the author, this latest addition to the popular People of Wisconsin series shares the Hmong’s varied stories of survival and hope as they have become an important part of Wisconsin communities.

"I'm embarrassed to say I thought I knew anything substantial about Wisconsin agriculture or its history before I read this book. 'Wisconsin Agriculture' should be required reading in history classes from high school to the collegiate level. It makes me thankful that Jerry Apps has such a sense of commitment to Wisconsin's agricultural heritage--and to getting the story right." --Pam Jahnke, Farm Director, Wisconsin Farm Report Radio Wisconsin has been a farming state from its very beginnings. And though it's long been known as "the Dairy State," it produces much more than cows, milk, and cheese. In fact, Wisconsin is one of the most diverse agricultural states in the nation. The story of farming in Wisconsin is rich and diverse as well, and the threads of that story are related and intertwined. In this long-awaited volume, celebrated rural historian Jerry Apps examines everything from the fundamental influences of landscape and weather to complex matters of ethnic and pioneer settlement patterns, changing technology, agricultural research and education, and government regulations and policies. Along with expected topics, such as the cranberry industry and artisan cheesemaking, "Wisconsin Agriculture" delves into beef cattle and dairy goats, fur farming and Christmas trees, maple syrup and honey, and other specialty crops, including ginseng, hemp, cherries, sugar beets, mint, sphagnum moss, flax, and hops. Apps also explores new and rediscovered farming endeavors, from aquaculture to urban farming to beekeeping, and discusses recent political developments, such as the 2014 Farm Bill and its ramifications. And he looks to the future of farming, contemplating questions of ethical growing practices, food safety, sustainability, and the potential effects of climate change. Featuring first-person accounts from the settlement era to today, along with more than 200 captivating photographs, "Wisconsin Agriculture" breathes life into the facts and figures of 150 years of farming history and provides compelling insights into the state's agricultural past, present, and future.

For the past five years, American public schools have enrolled more students identified as Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian than white. At the same time, more than half of US school children now qualify for federally subsidized meals, a marker of poverty. The makeup of schools is rapidly changing, and many districts and school boards are at a loss as to how they can effectively and equitably handle these shifts. Suddenly Diverse is an ethnographic account of two school districts in the Midwest responding to rapidly changing demographics at their schools. It is based on observations and in-depth interviews with school board members and superintendents, as well as staff, community members, and other stakeholders in each district: one serving “Lakeside,” a predominately working class, conservative community and the other serving “Fairview,” a more affluent, liberal community. Erica O. Turner looks at district leaders’ adoption of business-inspired policy tools and the ultimate successes and failures of such responses. Turner’s findings demonstrate that, despite their intentions to promote “diversity” or eliminate “achievement gaps,” district leaders adopted policies and practices that ultimately perpetuated existing inequalities and advanced new forms of racism. While suggesting some ways forward, Suddenly Diverse shows that, without changes to these managerial policies and practices and larger transformations to the whole system, even district leaders’ best efforts will continue to undermine the promise of educational equity and the realization of more robust public schools.

Women's Wisconsin: From Native Matriarchies to the New Millennium, a women's history anthology published on Women's Equality Day 2005, made history as the first single-source history of Wisconsin women. This unique tome features dozens of excerpts of articles as well as primary sources, such as women's letters, reminiscences, and oral histories, previously published over many decades in the Wisconsin Magazine of History and other Wisconsin Historical Society Press publications. Editor and historian Genevieve G. McBride provides the contextual commentary and overarching analysis to make the history of Wisconsin women accessible to students, scholars, and lifelong learners.

Population Geography: Social Justice for a Sustainable World surveys the ways in which geographic approaches may be applied to population issues, exploring how human populations are embedded in natural and social environments. It encourages students to evaluate population issues critically, given that population topics are at the heart of many of today’s most contentious subjects. Through introducing students to different lenses of analysis (ecological, economic, and social equity), the authors ask students to consider how different perspectives can lead to different conclusions on the same issue. Identifying and tackling today’s population problems therefore requires an understanding of these diverging, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives. The text covers all the key background information critical to any book on population geography (population size, distribution, and composition; fertility, mortality, and migration; population and resources) but also pushes students to think critically about the materials they have covered using the perspectives of sustainability and social justice. In this way, students move beyond simple fact learning toward higher-level skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of materials. This textbook will be a valuable resource for students of human geography, population geography, demography, and diaspora studies.