Anyone who has flown over California's Central Valley will note the agriculture presence. A Patchwork of farms blanket the ground with green, brown, and gold throughout the region. California's agricultural sector accounts for about 13% ($36.2 Billon dollars) of the nation’s agricultural production in the 2008-2009 farm cycle and is the largest share of farm revenue in the US, dwarfing Texas and Iowa, the second and third largest producers. The Central Valley is 500 mile region encompassing both the Sacramento Valley to the north San Joaquin Valley to the south. Fresno County had an agricultural production value in 2008 was $5.67was the largest agricultural production county in California. Yet, Fresno County boasts a median income of only $15,495.00 and is one of the poorest counties in California. How is it possible a land so rich could have people who are so poor? And what does the price of my strawberries have to do with it?
Like so many other social issues we deal with today, the stage for poverty was set during World War II. In 1942, the Bracero Program, began as a joint effort between the U.S. and Mexico. This program allowed Mexican workers to come to this country and work for less than the U.S. minimum wage. From the Mexican point of view, this program helped the “peasant problem” they were experiencing after the Mexican Revolution by removing the poor from their country and for the US, there was now a steady stream of skilled workers who cost only a fraction of what the American worker did.
In the short term, the Bracero Program did improve the lives of Mexican families, but is also created an excellent opportunity for U.S. corporations to exploit these workers, often charging them rent to live in unsanitary shacks while sometimes paying entire families less than a dollar a day. The Bracero Program had created an environment where immigrant workers were essentially slaves, living in squalid conditions with little to no access to health care and certainly could not afford to purchase the food they were picking. After World War II, American’s returned but few were willing to do the backbreaking work for the fractional wages Mexicans accepted.
By 1962, the farm workers began to revolt. The United Farm Workers of America (UFW) was formed in order to organize farm workers in the Central Valley.
In conjunction with Filipino farm workers, the UFW launched the Delano Grape Boycott, which would become a five year effort to both unionize farm workers and a consumer boycott of all table grapes to bring the grape companies to the bargaining table. The boycott propelled the UFW and its organizers, particularly Cesar Chavez, into the international spotlight and for the first time, many Americans, started to think about where their food came from. At the end of the boycott, the grape growers recognized the union and migrant workers had some form of protection.
Partially in response to the growing visibility of Mexican farm workers, concerns over “illegals” started popping up in government memos and by 1965 the Bracero Program was discontinued. Of course, there were still plenty of Mexican farm workers in the field; they just suddenly found themselves without the papers to legally work in the U.S.
Although conditions have somewhat improved, farm workers still routinely make less than minimum wage in the Central Valley. In 1996, according to a UFW study, "the typical California strawberry worker spends as many as 12 hours a day stooped over the low berry plants. Workers report that foremen sometimes demand sexual favors from women field workers in exchange for employment. After years of loyalty, workers must line up each season to be rehired and face firings on a whim. Sometimes there is no fresh drinking water in the fields. Bathrooms are often filthy. Workers labor amid pesticides and suffer chronic back injuries, but often have little or no health insurance." The average farm worker was paid $8,500.00 per season. The UFW calculated paying workers a living wage and giving them access to health care would increase the price of strawberries five cents per pint. In 2001, the UFW succeeded in negotiating minimum wage and health insurance for the workers.
However, since 1985 there has been a disturbing slide in the conditions of farm workers, Discussions of trade agreements similar to the Bracero Program continue to circulate among lawmakers, and corporations still search for ever cheaper labor. In addition to the horrible conditions faced by Mexican workers, the wage is so low American citizens cannot work these jobs as the violate labor practices, so the immigrants are abused and the Americans are locked out of work by this economic setup.
The war for fair wages and working conditions among migrant workers is still being fought in our fields and orchards, but we as consumers must decide whose side we are on. Are we willing to support our fellow humans, regardless of language, skin color or origin, by agreeing to buy products produced by fair means, or do we follow only our wallets? When we stop believing the lie that progress means the disintegration of human rights, perhaps then we can all enjoy dinner at the same table.
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