Packinghouse Daughter, just published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, merges personal memoir and public history to tell a compelling story about family loyalty, small-town life, and working-class values in the face of a violent labor strike in 1959. The daughter of a Wilson & Co. packinghouse worker, Cheri Register recalls the meatpackers' strike that devastated and divided her hometown of Albert Lea, Minnesota. The violence that erupted when the company "replaced" its union workers with strikebreakers tested family loyalty and community stability, and attracted national attention when the governor of Minnesota called in the National Guard, declared martial law, and closed the plant. Register skillfully weaves her own memories, historical research, and first-person interviews of participants on both sides of the strike into a narrative that is thoughtful and impassioned about the value of blue-collar work and the dignity of those who do it.

The more Register researched and wrote about the strike, the more she had to admit that she could no longer divide labor issues into the simplified terms of her youth. As part of the first generation of her family to attend college, much less attain a Ph.D., Register struggles to acknowledge such complexities without dishonoring her working-class roots. Packinghouse Daughter also testifies to the hold that childhood experience has on personal values and notions of social class, despite the upward mobility that is the great promise of American democracy. Register's journey reflects the inner conflict felt by a generation that came of age in the 1960s, propelled into the middle-class by post-war prosperity, people like herself who feel"caught between the blue-collar values of the communities we left behind and our new status as the 'rich' people we used to scoff at".

Cheri Register is a freelance writer and teacher of creative writing, living in Minneapolis. The opening chapter of Packinghouse Daughter was cited as a "Notable Essay" in Best American Essays 1996. Other excerpts have appeared in Hungry Mind Review, the University of Chicago Magazine, and the book, Is Academic Feminism Dead? Her work on this memoir earned her a Jerome Travel and Study Grant, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship Grant, and a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. Her other books include Living with Chronic Illness: Days of Patience and Passion and "Are Those Kids Yours?": American Families with Children Adopted from Other Countries.

The question "Are those kids yours?" has a familiar ring to parents who have adopted children from South Korea, India, Colombia, the Philippines, and other countries. As natural and normal as it feels to them to be together, such families are often asked to explain their obvious difference. In rich personal stories drawn from her own experience as the mother of two Korean-born daughters and from interviews with other parents and with adopted children from six to thirty, Cheri Register both affirms the normality of internationally adoptive families and highlights the special challenges they do indeed face. The book addresses many central questions about international adoption: why children are in need of adoption outside the country of their birth, why parents choose to adopt from other countries, and how parents and children of very different origins become a "real" family. International adoption is a controversial matter in countries from which children are coming to the United States, but adoptive families have had little voice as yet in the debate. With honest, thoughtful analysis honed by personal experience, Register addresses the ethical issues inevitably raised by adoption across lines of culture, race, and social class: Are parents in the wealthier nations entitled to raise children left homeless in other parts of the world by poverty or social stigma? Is placement in another country an appropriate solution for children whose parents cannot raise them? Insightful, comprehensive, and eloquent, Are Those Kids Yours? is a unique resource for parents raising internationally adopted children and for those who are contemplating intercountry adoption as well as for the children as they grow up, their extended families and friends, and adoption and mental health professionals.

A unique blend of memoir and public history, Packinghouse Daughter, winner of the Minnesota Book Award, tells a compelling story of small-town, working-class life. The daughter of a Wilson & Company millwright, Cheri Register recalls the 1959 meatpackers' strike that divided her hometown of Albert Lea, Minnesota. The violence that erupted when the company "replaced" its union workers with strikebreakers tested family loyalty and community stability. Register skillfully interweaves her own memories, historical research, and oral interviews into a narrative that is thoughtful and impassioned about the value of blue-collar work and the dignity of those who do it.