When we buy produce, do we really know what we are paying for, or the story behind the produce? Most likely the produce you recently purchased is produced with the help of migrant workers. Migrant workers, year after year, separate themselves from their families to work the season, which is usually eight months. Children are left without their fathers, and wives without their husbands, all because the economy of their home country is struggling and jobs aren’t available. When we purchase produce, we don’t think about the terrible living and working conditions the migrant workers are subjected to, the medical effects, or the non-economic effects.
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| The mountain in Amatlán |
As consumers we are made to believe
that a large, red tomato is the best and what we should buy, but we don’t see
what is behind the big, red tomato. We
don’t know about the effects from the pesticides and other chemicals the
workers work with, or the living and social conditions many migrant workers
encounter. These hard working men and
women migrant workers endure all of this because they see a light and hope to
better their life and their family’s.
Something to think about as I
return back to the U.S is if there are migrant workers in my community and if
so, what I can do to not seclude/discriminate against them. Also I think
we should think of ways to advocate for migrant workers, whether it be concerning
working conditions, living conditions, medical rights, long term effects, and
community involvement. How can we get involved to make the already
trecherous journey a little better? What rights to legal and/or non legal
migrant workers really hold in the U.S?
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| Erica Lippitt and AnnMarie Eliason with their host family - the family of a worker who told his story |
Wow, Erica. Thanks for this moving account. The trip to Amatlán was a very powerful one for me. I’d read and heard about the conditions of migrant workers in the U.S. before but it was a whole other experience to listen to actual migrant workers who have returned to Mexico. It is hard to describe how I felt listening to them. Family is very important to me so it’s hard for me to imagine having to make the choice between being with your family and providing for them.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of the visit that really stood out to me was the viewing of the documentary Matices by Aaraón Díaz Mendiburo. It was a documentary about documented Mexican and Caribbean migrant workers in Canada. Of course, the film touched on the inhumane living and working conditions for many of the workers. But really stood out to me was how isolated many of the workers felt in the communities they worked in. Many described themselves as feeling “invisible.” This is especially difficult for people who often come from small communities where everyone knows and relates to each other. In the documentary, there was a woman who made it a point to talk to the migrant workers and invite them over for tea and general company. It was really just a reminder of the small things we can do on a daily basis to better the lives of the people who literally feed us.
Oh yes thank you for this last point! I am looking forward to our life-changing journeys once we've returned to our vast and privileged (for some) country. For me it will be a journey to reach out to those in my community who are experiencing the hardships of migrant work that eventually and directly make my life easy. Listening to personal stories in Amatlán renewed my intentions of humility and commitments to supporting equality in every place that I live.
DeleteErica, thank you for so accurately describing the emotions and thoughts we had after hearing the immigration panel in Amatlan. You are right that in general we don't think about the source of our produce when we buy it in the store. We don't consider the suffering behind its production. I remember looking around the circle while Cesar and Alvaro were speaking about their experiences. So many of us were tearing up or crying. I was both sad and irate. I felt anger that we have allowed this system to continue. It reminds me of the book we are reading in the Globalization class called "Illegal People" by David Bacon. The book explains the reason that conditions are so bad for farmworkers and why the system is perpetuated year after year. It makes a link between the profit incentive of companies and businesses that hire farmerworkers through the H2-A Guest Worker program, for example, and the ill-treatment. It also ties a link between immigration policy that resists the provision for amnesty for undocumented migrants and bad conditions that allow companies to make a greater profit. I now can see that it is in the corporate interest for undocumented migration and guest-worker programs to continue. In addition, the political rhetoric that demonizes migrants as "illegal aliens" only further perpetuates these corporate crimes of exploitation. This rhetoric keeps the U.S. public from demanding change.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that small steps can make a big difference in creating change. We can bring awareness to the suffering of migrants among our friends and family, and help replace the political rhetoric of lies with facts about the rates of poverty among migrants and the reasons they are forced to leave their families behind. We can also volunteer with organizations that help people who are migrants. On a day to day basis, we can be aware in our own life when we see someone being mistreated in a restaurant or in a hotel. We can covertly ask them if they need help. In addition, we can support policies the support amnesty and family reunification. I think that if we draw the connections for the people around us between something as "simple" as a tomato to immigrant exploitation, things will change.