One Border, Two Sides

As you might be able to tell by now, I have a very love-hate relationship with some foods and food practices. Some things sit very heavy on my conscience, and some days I feel helpless in my pursuit of environmental and social food justice (and slowly learning I'm not superwoman). But the important thing I suppose is to keep going, to keep talking, and keep fighting. Like any right we enjoy today, our brothers and sisters before us fought long and difficult battles to secure those privileges we can sometimes now take for granted. But today, we think of these things as rather commonplace and do not always appreciate the struggle it took to secure these rights. 

Where am I going with this? 

Found on weknowmemes.com, 13 January 2012

Perhaps what I mean to say is best summarized by an illustration of what I observed recently as I drove through what some folks refer to as the Salad Bowl of the World - the Salinas Valley of Central California. This is a drive I have done countless times commuting from my home town south of San Luis Obispo to my college town in Santa Cruz, but on this particular day I was more moved, and disturbed, than ever before by what I saw. Perhaps it was the gloomy storming weather that day; perhaps it was all that National Public Radio I was listening to. Perhaps it was the white unmarked bus that looked like it was chauffeuring a load of prisoners to do some highway clean-up as I sometimes see in California... Upon approaching it though, I realized the bus was not filled with prisoners, but with hooded and masked fieldworkers on their way to a day of work in the artichoke fields.
  
It was scary. I had an unsettled feeling when I looked at this bus of laborers on their way to work.  It is no secret by any means that the bulk of America’s agriculture is supported by masses of migrant laborers coming in from Mexico every year. This sets up a stage for numerous problems.
Obviously, there is a lot of controversy around illegal immigration and pathways to citizenship in America. How does a nation already faced with enormous debt and unemployment deal with a growing population of immigrants presumably living in the grey area of our laws? How do we reconcile the fact that politically and socially we still tend to exclude certain ethnic or racial groups, yet economically our nation's food supply largely depends on (sometimes illegal) migrant labor? Because many of these laborers are not  American citizens they do not enjoy the same labor rights we do. These include wages, breaks, overtime, all those other kinds of rules and regulations meant to protect laborers from exploitative bosses looking to cut corners. Additionally, because they lack citizenship, they risk persecution and deportation if they stand up for or challenge their rights. The meager pay they do earn is not nearly enough income to entice most American citizens, who are guaranteed a federal minimum wage and basic labor rights. Therefore, although the observation of “they come in and take our jobs,” is basically true on a superficial level, it is just not enough to explain what is going on else here, and finger pointing is getting us no where.

Why do we accept the slave-like conditions the majority of farm and field laborers must endure? Decent pay, basic rights, and reasonable working conditions for this type of labor are not often topics of dinner discussion, but perhaps they should be. These are the contested rights that I am concerned with when I talk about the long hard fight for equality in America. The way I see it, if there is a profession that deserves respect, decent wages, and expanded labor rights, it is the one which produces the food supply we all depend on. Instead, we not only forget these people do back breaking work for very little pay, we demonize them for taking jobs that honestly very few people are actually willing do. Last fall I watched a news piece about a blueberry farmer who wanted to create more jobs for the unemployed Americans in his area, and posted ads for job openings on his farm with the state board of labor and other local entities. This farmer wanted to give seasonal jobs to the local unemployed instead of drawing from the migrant masses from Mexico, as so many other in his position do. Much to his surprise, and despite the growing number of unemployed adults, almost no one responded to him other than a handful of black (or African-, if you prefer) Americans. Almost no one was willing to work so hard for so little.  

While it is easy to scapegoat these masses for taking potential positions of employment from Americans, we must first remember that these are jobs no one seems to want in the first place, as some research by United Farm Workers has shown (The Economist, 12/16/2010). The wages earned by farmers and laborers are grossly disproportionate to the labor required, and are far below minimum wage in most circumstances. Secondly, let us remember that because these migrant laborers do not have the rights of citizens, they are one of the most vulnerable populations to extreme exploitation. I do not mean to say that every farmer that employs migrant laborers from Mexico is evil, or wants exploit their workers. Farm work is expensive, our government mismanages the way subsidies are dispersed, and farmers often are left with few choices on how they will employ enough cheap labor necessary to maintain their farm. But this does not change the fact that effectively, “slave” labor still occurs in America today, and unfortunately it is largely accepted and rarely discussed.  

Let us remember, only 150 years ago, it was another vulnerable population, without the protections of rights of American citizens, who were forced to do back breaking work in the fields all day for no pay. Have we really come so far? This labor was also crucial to the economy, and was a hotly contested issue when some brave Americans began to support their freedom and rights. Even today many Americans think these people do not deserve the equal rights of citizens, and reject the idea of granting migrant labor increased protection. But has such fierce immigration policy really changed anything? 

If we begin thinking of the bodies in our fields as people- as persons, mothers and fathers, young people without the opportunity of education- instead of as “illegals” or “aliens” we will be off to a good start. Thinking of real people as subhuman in this way is not productive for innovative thought, the struggle for equality, or any dream of a better tomorrow. In fact, thinking in this way effectively, and dangerously, puts us back in the 1860s all over again. It is true that the times have indeed changed, and no struggle is completely identical to another, but there are multiple parallels when you begin thinking about the scenario in a different way. The struggle to abolish slavery only gained momentum once a few privileged Americans began to think of those laborers as fellow humans, and spoke out against those injustices. 

How do we, today, remind the American public that migrant laborers are in fact human beings, and should be seen as and treated as so? Demanding, advocating for, and supporting the expansion of their rights, as well as a bit of reflection on what the causes of our current situation are, will be crucial in this endeavor. There are many Americans who feel that these people have no right to be living and working in our country undocumented, but even they might agree with me that the system needs to be reformed. Borders are effectively imaginary lines in the sand, but people are mobile, and we have to deal with this. Seeing as throwing away taxpayer money on increasing boarder "security" is not actually keeping anyone out,  turning the other cheek on this issue clearly is no longer an option and we must look for new solutions. 

I envision a future food system that does not depend on exploitable migrant labor to sustain itself. I envision a system that can feed itself and be maintained by fairly compensated labor. Some may think I am being far too idealistic and optimistic at this point, but I think these are important dreams to have. The struggle for fair labor practices and rights for migrant workers will be a long and very hard fight, but it starts somewhere, and it starts as a dream.


-H. BOMB 


TO LEARN MORE:


Brie Mazurek, "A Fair Deal for California's Farm Workers," Civil Eats, 4/10/2012. 
http://civileats.com/2012/04/10/a-fair-deal-for-californias-farm-workers/

"Feilds of Tears," The Economist, 12/16/2010. http://www.economist.com/node/17722932

John Robbins, "Why Are Twinkies Cheaper Than Carrots?" Huff Post, 6/1/2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-robbins/farm-bill_b_1553955.html

Linda Levine, Congressional Research Service, 11/9/2009. http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL30395.pdf

United Farm Workers. http://ufw.org/