I read an article this morning, and I felt a guttural need to respond. I'm using my personal blog to do so, because I'm not sure how else to share it. I fully understand that while some people may agree with my opinion, many will not. That is okay with me. To view the original article, you'll have to view the Dixon Tribune's FB page.
This morning I came across an article that had been
published in my hometown’s newspaper. I
wouldn’t have seen it except that some Facebook friends had shared it, along
with some pretty harsh and scathing opinions.
The article was titled “A new place to call home,” and it was about a
new apartment complex that has been built to accommodate farm laborers and
their families. When I read the article,
I was immediately brought back to my youth.
Images and memories flooded my brain, and I’d like to share some of them
with you.
I grew up on our family’s farm on the outskirts of
Dixon. We farmed thousands of
acres spanning through Dixon, Davis and Winters. We grew nearly every vegetable, grain and
melon you can think of. I started
working when I was eight years old, and knew how to drive a tractor before I
ever sat behind the wheel of a car.
Farming is not for the faint of heart; the days, hours, weeks, months
and years seem endless, and the physical labor is something that’s unfathomable
to those who have never done it.
If you haven’t read the article I’m talking about, I highly
urge you to do so before continuing on with what I’m about to say. I’m somewhat at a loss for where to begin,
because this is a topic that has gotten people heated and impassioned since
long before my parents were even born. The
blaming and criticizing of migrant farm workers for California’s economical duress
can be seen at a microcosmic level dating back to the Great Depression. It truly baffles me when I hear people say
things like, “they’re taking all of our jobs,” or “no wonder our state has no
money when those people keep having
babies.” In the comments of the article
and on peoples’ Facebook pages, I read some really hateful and ignorant
opinions. What saddens me most is that
the majority of people won’t even take the time to educate themselves, and so
these feelings of animosity and hatred will just continue to trickle down
through future generations.
The article touched on the idea that the farm laborers and
their families are, for the first time, being given access to livable housing
that they can be proud of. The apartments
are new, they are clean, and they are affordable to people that make very
little money. A couple of facts for you: The California Agricultural Industry makes
nearly 20 billion dollars in revenue each year.
Our country relies heavily on the agriculture that we produce in our
beautiful state. Farmers rely heavily on
the hard, back breaking work that the Hispanic population provides, because let’s
face it, the rest of the population isn’t willing to do that sort of work. Even if we were willing to do it, you can bet
your ass that we’d demand more than $6 per hour. We’d also demand health insurance, because
let’s face it, farm labor is hard work and it’s dangerous! I’d bet the farm that most people complaining
about this subject have absolutely NO IDEA what these laborers and their
families go through on a daily basis.
I’m starting to get angry again.
The average agriculture labor worker earns approximately
$11,000 per year. Think about that for a
second. Imagine that the bread winner in
your family makes a whopping $917 per month.
With that sort of income, where will you live? What will you eat? What sort of transportation will you
use? How will you visit the doctor? How will you pay your electricity bill? I can hear the arguments already: our taxes
pay for these people! That’s why our
state’s deficit is so huge! Ok, so let’s
pretend for a minute that the laborers don’t exist. Who is
doing the work? Who is physically
keeping our Ag industry going so that our state can make 20 billion dollars in
revenue each year? I guarantee you that
the people saying “maybe I should just become a Mexican farm worker so that I
can live cheaply like them,” are not willing to do that work.
I’m about to share a dark secret with you from my childhood,
about what it feels like to own a farm and to employ Hispanic workers; all the
while going to school with their children, being friends with their children,
and seeing the squalor that most of them live in. Here is a memory that still haunts me to this
day:
Taking the country bus home from elementary school, one of
the stops along the way was to what I can only call a migrant camp. These giant tracts of housing where my
schoolmates were being dropped off were old and they were falling apart. Each unit connected to the other was a single
room in which entire families lived.
There was no grass, no flowers, no parks, only dry dusty dirt. Their parents worked hard (I know because
they worked for our family), and this was the best they could afford. I felt guilty because I know their parents
are working just as hard as mine, but they had nothing to show for it. I felt ashamed because I know they are embarrassed
to be dropped off at their “houses” in front of their schoolmates. As one of the kids on the country buses, you
were either the child of a farm owner, or the child of a farm laborer. The dichotomy of this situation if you stop
to think about it, is incredible.
What bothers me most about this topic is the lack of empathy
that people feel for their fellow human beings and neighbors. We are all here on this planet together. Someone was excited when each of us was
born. Each of us feels happiness,
sadness, joy and despair. Each of us has
worries about money and about providing for our children. It doesn’t matter what language we speak or
where our ancestors are from: we are all humans doing the best we can in this
world, and in our lives.
For those of you who think that farm laborers are being
given a handout and ultimately taking something away from you, I urge you to
seek out the truth before getting angry.
I remind you that your children are friends in school, that you are
sitting next to these “free-loaders” at church, and that they (like you) are
just doing the best they can. Because of
these new apartments, a handful of families have the opportunity to be proud of
where they live, and finally have something to show for all of the hard work
they’ve been doing; and you have the opportunity to be proud of treating your
neighbors and fellow-citizens with the dignity they deserve as human beings.
