[R-G] With or Without Papers—The Same Life in a Labor Camp

Thu Sep 2 20:21:35 MDT 2010

With or Without Papers—The Same Life in a Labor Camp

         New America Media,

News Report,

David Bacon, Posted: Aug 31, 2010

 Editor’s note: Undocumented workers and guest workers face the same 
problem when it comes to working: jobs are few and far between. Three 
such workers talked with David Bacon about their lives. Their names have
 been changed for their protection.

 http://newamericamedia.org/2010/08/with-or-without-papers---the-same-life-in-a-labor-camp.php

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA - On a ranch north of the Bay Area, several dozen 
men live in a labor camp. When there's work they pick apples and grapes 
or prune trees and vines. This year, however, the ranch has had much 
less work, as the economic recession hits California fields. State 
unemployment is over 12%, but unemployment in rural counties is always 
twice what it is in urban ones. Despite these statistics, however, 
unemployment among farm workers is largely hidden. 

In the case of these workers, it's hidden within the walls of the camp, 
far from the view of those who count the state's jobless.  Because they 
work from day to day, or week to week, there are simply periods when 
there's no work at all, and they stay in the barracks. 

In the past, the ranch's workers were mostly undocumented immigrants. In
 the last several years, however, the owner has begun bringing workers 
from Mexico under the H2-A guest worker program. While there are 
differences in the experiences of people without papers and guest 
workers, some basic aspects of life are the same. For the last several 
weeks, all the workers in the camp have been jobless, and neither 
undocumented workers nor guest workers can legally collect unemployment 
benefits.  Everyone's living on what they've saved. And since the 
official total of the state's unemployed is based on counting those 
receiving benefits, none of the men here figure into California's 
official unemployment rate.

The camp residents share other similarities. Poverty in Mexico forced 
them all to leave to support their families. Living in the camp, they do
 the same jobs out in the fields. All of them miss their families and 
homes.  And that home, as they see it, is in Mexico. Here, in the U.S., 
they don't feel part of the community that surrounds them.

A permanent resident visa, or "green card," would allow them to bring 
their families, and perhaps eventually to become integrated into the 
community. But for people coming from Mexico to look for work in 
California fields, green cards are not available. Their only alternative
 is what they call "walking through the mountains" -- that is, crossing 
without papers -- or signing up as a guest worker. In addition, as one 
man points out, because farmers are in the U.S. during planting season, 
the fields they'd normally cultivate at home go unplanted.

Some of their options as unemployed workers are different, however, 
because of their different immigration status. Ironically, in one way, 
guest workers have a disadvantage they don't share with the 
undocumented. Guest workers have a visa, but they can only work for the 
rancher or contractor who brought them to the United States.  If they're
 out of work and leave the ranch to look for a job with another 
employer, they violate the terms of their visa and can be deported.

Undocumented workers, however, can and do look for jobs outside the 
ranch when work there gets slow. The dangers of deportation and working 
without a visa hang over their heads every day they're in the United 
States. 

JOSE CUEVAS:

I'm 38 years old, and I come from Leon, Guanajuato, where there are a 
lot of factories making shoes.  I spent 10 years working in those 
factories as a cutter. If you work a 10-hour day, you can make 1,100 
pesos (about $100) a week. That's not enough to support a family, even 
there. And I have three kids, who are still living there with my wife.

I came to the U.S. because of the economic pressure of trying to provide
 for them. I wanted them to get an education and just eat well, just so 
they'd be healthy. We all felt terrible when I decided to come here nine
 years ago. The kids were little -- they didn't really understand. But 
when they got older, they'd ask me why I had to be gone so long. 

It's been five years since I've been able to go home. I came without any
 papers, just crossing the border in the mountains.  When I think about 
my friends with papers, I wish I'd had the chance.  But the truth is, I 
couldn't come that way. 

There always used to be times when you could go back to Mexico. But it's
 too difficult now. To begin with, it costs about $5,000 now to cross 
the border coming back. And the border has become very dangerous. It's 
not like it was before.  If you leave, you're not sure you'll be able to
 get back, even walking through the mountains. 

So I've been trapped here for five years.  But I tried to take advantage
 of it, and not think too much about going back.  I work here in the 
grapes and the apples. I knew about the work here from my wife's 
brothers. Years ago, a lot of people came here from Leon. Now I'm the 
only one.  Lots of those other folks left, and I was the only one who 
stayed. 

This year it's been harder.  I've hardly worked on the ranch this year 
-- just a couple of months.  I looked for other work, but there wasn't a
 lot. In January and February, I went to the day labor center near here,
 and got work pruning apple trees.  I'm very grateful to them.

Even when there wasn't work on the ranch here, we could work other 
places and still live in the camp. They never charged us rent.  When 
they have work, they expect you to work for them.  You're living in 
their housing.  Some of the jobs are paid by piece-rate.  When they pay 
by the hour, it's about $9.85 per hour.

Sometimes, if we're working, we eat meat every day.  But when you're not
 working, you eat tortillas and salt. That's the normal thing. Before 
coming here, when I was living in Mexico, we didn't eat meat very often.

When you're here, you're always thinking about Mexico. This is going to 
be my last year. I've decided to stay in Mexico, and to try not to think
 about coming here anymore. I've put some money into a house and a 
little land.  I'll go back to work in those shoe factories. I still know
 how to do all the work there.  We'll suffer economically, but I hope 
we'll be OK. Who knows?

Here everything is just work.  It's all very serious. Mexico feels more free. Living here, it's not your country. 

My oldest son is studying psychology, and will go to the university in 
Leon. He has a good future because he studies, and I support him.  I 
hope for a good future for my other kids too, and I'm hoping that 
they'll have a future in Mexico. I don't want them to leave. With more 
education, I hope they won't have to. 

RODRIGO HUERTA:

I'm 21 -- not married yet.  I come from Tlazezalco in Michoacan, where 
my father works in the fields.  My grandfather has some land, and so his
 sons rent from him.

My father worked in the U.S. many years ago, in the 80s, before I was 
born. He just worked one year and never went back.  Then my brother went
 to Atlanta eight years ago.

I actually never planned to come here. I always said, I'm not going.  But now look.  Here I am.

I have a dream -- to build a house, get married, and have a family. I 
have someone in mind, but you can't rush it.  She told me to go, so I'm 
hoping she'll wait for me. 

I never wanted to come to the U.S. by walking through the mountains. But
 one Christmas Eve, my aunt asked me if I'd ever thought about coming 
here. At first I wasn't that enthusiastic, but then I began thinking 
about it.

Every Christmas, she goes back to Michoacan. She said, "They're hiring 
people, and they asked me to give them a hand."  So they brought me 
here, on an H2-A visa. Now I've been coming this way for three years. 

The bosses here on the ranch arrange for the visa. Then the foreman 
meets us at the border. We have to pay our own expenses to get there 
from our town. They pay for transportation and food from the border to 
the ranch here. The first two times we came in at Nogales, and this last
 time through Tijuana. 

The foreman takes us to the appointment with the consulate, where they 
tell you if you've been approved or not.  If they don't approve you, you
 have to go back home. This last time, two of us weren't approved. The 
consulate asked them if they had experience working in the fields. 
They'd worked in factories. They said you need two months experience 
working in the fields to come here.

The visa only lasts for six months.  We're only supposed to work on this
 ranch. I guess we could work other places but you'd be breaking the 
agreement, so it's better not to risk it. But we haven't had work here 
for several weeks. 

In the last two years, I really haven't made a lot of money. But the pay
 is better here. It's easier to save, because you're not spending so 
much. In six months, you can save what it might take you two years at 
home. 

In my town there aren't any factories so the work is all in the fields, 
but there's not much work there. Some weeks you work three days, and in 
other weeks, you don't work at all. The economy is bad all over. Here 
you can eat meat every day if you want. The way things are in Mexico, 
you can't buy meat every day. 

To me, I just have a temporary life here. I have friends here who invite
 me to play football, but it's not a real team. I could never join one, 
because I'm not here during part of the football season.  So I just play
 with friends. 

Here I'm always living against the clock. I'm not here to make a home. 
That's just the way my life is here. Temporary. In reality, my home is 
my town, Tlazezalco.  I wouldn't trade it for any other. 

ANTONIO PEREZ:

I came here because of the poverty. There's work at home, but just a 
little. I rent a little land on which I plant corn and garbanzos, and 
raise some animals. But you can't actually live on the money you make 
farming. It just helps a little. 

I'm always working in other jobs, in someone else's fields, or on a hog 
farm. When I work for someone else, I get paid by the day.  When I work 
for myself, it depends on the price of what I'm able to grow, or how 
much I get for an animal I raise. The corn price has been the same for a
 while -- 70 or 80 pesos. Sometimes, you can sell it, but other times 
you just feed it to the animals. 

There are times when my family can survive this way. But if you have a 
big family, it doesn't really give you anywhere near enough money.

So my aunt got me to come here on an H2-A. We'll see how it works out. I
 haven't decided if it's worth it yet. We're not here for that long, but
 you always want to be with your family.

I'm not planting anything this year either, because I'm here during the planting season.

For more articles and images, see  http://dbacon. igc.org

See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and 

Criminalizes Immigrants  (Beacon Press, 2008)

Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008

http://www.beacon. org/productdetai ls.cfm?PC= 2002

See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US

Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)

http://www.cornellp ress.cornell. edu/cup_detail. taf?ti_id= 4575

See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border 

(University of California, 2004)

http://www.ucpress. edu/books/ pages/9989. html

-- 

____________ _________ _________ ____

David Bacon, Photographs and Stories

http://dbacon. igc.org

NOTE: Forty years ago, I spent a summer organizing for the Farmworkers Union in the Salinas Valley, near my hometown of Monterey, California.  It seems like nothing has changed since then.  The Union got a few contracts after the successful grape boycott, but the living conditions of so many farmworkers are still terrible.  The decimation of the Mexican farm economy by NAFTA has contributed immeasurably to the misery.  
    I really don't know what the solution is, and maybe someone can tell me, but public awareness of the price of the fruits and veggies on your dining room table wouldn't hurt.
   ~ Hajja Romi