Many students at the university have experienced the "Newark Stench," an odor that occasionally drifts through campus and its surrounding areas. For most, it is a passing nuisance, but for the laborers behind it, it is the cost of earning an income.
The sulfuric odor comes from mushroom farms just a few miles north in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Known as "the mushroom capital of the world," Kennett Square produces 68% of the nation's mushrooms.
The managers at these farms lovingly dub it "the smell of money," according to Dongsheng Li, a researcher who has studied the industry closely. But for the laborers picking mushrooms in the dim humidity, that scent is not wealth – it is sacrifice.
Kennett Square's booming mushroom industry has relied on migrant labor for generations. Originally, their workforce was mainly comprised of people from Puerto Rico. In the 1970s came an influx of Mexican laborers, who were granted jobs easily due to the constant labor shortage in the industry.
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