Journalist and Studs Terkel Media Award-winning writer Gabriel Thompson, last here with his book, There's No José Here, traveled the U.S. working as a lettuce cutter, chicken killer, delivery person. These jobs—unseen, unacknowledged work that help maintain the U.S. economy and its first world standard of living—are some of the jobs performed by immigrant laborers. He relates his experiences in his book, Working in the Shadows: A Year Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do (Nation Books). "The author pushes his body and his patience to the limits, all the while deferring attention to the true heroes: his co-workers, whose dignity, perseverance, physical endurance, and manual skill are no less admirable for being born of sheer necessity. What emerges are not tales of downtrodden migrants but of clever hands and clever minds forced into repetitive and dangerous labor without legal protections. Thompson excels at putting a human face on individuals and situations alternatively ignored and vilified." - Publishers Weekly.