“Katherine Esau, the Immigrant Beet Biologist who Transformed Plant Science”
Lady Science
18 February 2021
“During the 19th and 20th centuries, the temperate world tried to turn beets' sugar content into a cash crop that could compete with tropical sugarcane. The industry made the rural, semi-arid American West and Midwest into fields dominated by corporate capitalism and brought German-Russian, Mexican, Chicano, Japanese, Chinese, and Native workers to work them. In the 79,000 acres planted in sugar beets in Colorado in 1909, for instance, 5,870 workers were German-Russian, 2,160 were Japanese, and 1,002 were Hispanic southern Coloradans and northern New Mexicans.
Esau was part of these flows of beet geopolitics, but in an unusual and privileged way. Esau’s life took her from refugee to ranch foreman, industry scientist to National Medal of Science winner. Yet by leaving the beet industry to become a research scientist, she enacted a politics of refusal, resisting the global, capitalist industry that defined her own mobility, seeking to understand plants rather than control them.“
Lady Science
18 February 2021
“During the 19th and 20th centuries, the temperate world tried to turn beets' sugar content into a cash crop that could compete with tropical sugarcane. The industry made the rural, semi-arid American West and Midwest into fields dominated by corporate capitalism and brought German-Russian, Mexican, Chicano, Japanese, Chinese, and Native workers to work them. In the 79,000 acres planted in sugar beets in Colorado in 1909, for instance, 5,870 workers were German-Russian, 2,160 were Japanese, and 1,002 were Hispanic southern Coloradans and northern New Mexicans.
Esau was part of these flows of beet geopolitics, but in an unusual and privileged way. Esau’s life took her from refugee to ranch foreman, industry scientist to National Medal of Science winner. Yet by leaving the beet industry to become a research scientist, she enacted a politics of refusal, resisting the global, capitalist industry that defined her own mobility, seeking to understand plants rather than control them.“
Caroline Eaton Tracey writes about the environment, migration, and the arts in the US Southwest, Mexico, and their borderlands. She speaks and works in English, Spanish, and Russian. Her first book, SALT LAKES, will be published by W.W. Norton.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant. In 2024, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant. In 2024, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline Eaton Tracey escribe sobre el medioambiente, la migración, el arte y la literatura en México, el Suroeste de Estados Unidos y su frontera. Habla ingles, español y ruso. Su primer libro, SALT LAKES, será publicado bajo el sello de la editorial W.W. Norton.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers. En 2024, recibió una beca para escritura sobre el arte de la fundación Andy Warhol.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers. En 2024, recibió una beca para escritura sobre el arte de la fundación Andy Warhol.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.