Who are the migrant farm workers? Where do they come from, and what do they find when they get here?
“The explosion of the Latino immigrant population has been driven by the rapid creation of hard-to-fill jobs in industries that require large amounts of manual labor.” Cornelius (2009, p. 168).
Migrant Farm Work in Pennsylvania
The 1,300 farms provide thousands of jobs. According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, there were 103,453 farmworkers in Pennsylvania in the year 2000.[1] These migrant workers do not only come to Pennsylvania, they travel to many other rural, agricultural areas across the United States in search of work picking tobacco, oranges, blueberries, melon, and grapes among many other crops. As the workers travel from place to place they create a patterned route that depends on factors such as what season it is, and when and where certain produce grows. During their travels, the migrants inevitably come into contact with non-Latinos, and as more migrant workers travel, the more visible they are to the outside community and the places they travel to. The Latin migrant farmworkers are very different than resident Latino immigrants in that they do not settle in one place, develop roots in a particular community, and they tend not to integrate or assimilate into the local community and culture. They tend to stand out because often they are different than other people in the communities in which they are working.
Various sources estimate that between 45,000 and 50,000 migrant farm laborers come to Pennsylvania each year to work (National Center for Farmworker Health, 2009; Center for Rural Pennsylvania, 2004).
According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Adams County is the primary producer of apples in Pennsylvania, which in turn is the fourth largest apple producer in the nation (U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2010). The county is home to seventy-five fruit growers, ranging from small family farms to large-scale operations. They collectively occupy 20,000 acres of land and produce about 300 million pounds of apples every year, which are valued at about $4.3 million. Not only are there many fruit growers in Adams County, but there is also an extensive network of support industries such as fruit packers and processors in the area (Komancheck, 2010). In 2002, Mott’s Inc., arguably the nation’s best known producer of applesauce and apple juice, opened its largest U.S. manufacturing and distribution plant in Aspers, Pennsylvania (PR Newswire Association, 2002). Adams County isn’t nicknamed “Apple Capital USA” for nothing.
It is this immense industry that attracts the tens of thousands of Latino migrant laborers who flock to Pennsylvania for the apple-picking season. “The explosion of the Latino immigrant population has been driven by the rapid creation of hard-to-fill jobs in industries that require large amounts of manual labor,” writes Cornelius (2009, p. 168).Farmers depend on migrant farmworkers who will quickly and cheaply pick their crop. Adams Countyfruit grower and owner of Bonnie Brae Farms Jim Lott admitted, “If these guys don’t show up one year I’m sunk. I gotta have them want to come back or I can’t provide for my family” (Lott, 2003). Indeed, Adams County’s prosperity would be nothing if not for migrant and seasonal farm laborers.
Who harvests our food?
Cornelius (2009) continues “…it is difficult to envision a realistic scenario for reversing the incorporation of Latino immigrant labor into the U.S. economy” (p. 168). There is no doubt that Latino immigrants are an essential and integrated feature of our economy. Politicians often call for guest worker programs as mechanisms to both satisfy the demand for labor while controlling immigration to the U.S. (Barndt, 2008, p. 188). It is interesting, though, that those who essentially constitute the “backbone” of our nation are still so invisible – they go unseen in population counts and their voices are all too often unheard in the national discourse. Products like apples, picked by migrant farmworkers, appear as if by magic, polished and gleaming in grocery store bins. Barndt (2008)appropriately asks: “Whose hands have planted, cultivated, picked, packed, processed, transported, inspected, sold and cooked” our produce and our food? (p. 2). Former migrant worker Miguel Morales, now a social service employee in Adams County, echoes this idea: “…it’s nice to get an apple in the morning, and a banana and a lettuce, a strawberry, nice and clean . . . but who did it? Do you think who did it?” (1998).
Indeed, who harvests our food? According to the most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey (2005), the average farmworker in the U.S. is an undocumented Mexican man in his mid-thirties; he is a veteran migrant agricultural worker making minimum wage and he does not benefit from public assistance; he does not have a good handle of the English language; he is separated from his family by his work. As a volunteer interpreter for a health clinic, I’ve been able to see that this profile accurately describes the typical farmworker in Adams County. Here, most migrant and seasonal farmworkers originate from Mexico, though there are also Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and other Central and South Americans among them, as well as Haitians and Jamaicans. They may be just young adults or older men with wives and children in Mexico, whom they may see once a year around Christmas. Virtually all of them come to Adams County with the hope of saving enough money to send back to their expectant families.
Migrant farmworkers in Adams County often engage in what Rothenberg (2000) terms the eastern “migration stream” (p. 10). They spend their winter months picking citrus in Florida and move up and down the coast through the course of the year to catch other harvest seasons. Some of the workers I’ve spoken with only migrate between their hometowns in Mexico and Adams County; others have picked blueberries in New Jersey and harvested tobacco in New York.[c1] Of these stops, though, migrant farmworkers say that they prefer Pennsylvania above all; they cite better pay and better general living conditions.
Still, one wonders how migrant farmworkers coming from Mexico and working in Florida hear of opportunities all the way up in Pennsylvania. Social networks are critical to migrant workers, both with respect to how they will get to the U.S., where they will go, and how they will find work, among other things; such important information is transmitted via word-of-mouth. Other than the few “pioneer migrants” who establish routes, the majority of migrants depend on those who’ve gone before them for support and guidance (Hellman, 2008, p. 215). Additionally, Adams County growers largely depend on labor contractors or crew leaders to recruit laborers on their behalf. A crew leader is often “a guy who maybe was a farm worker years ago but now has a couple of old vans and goes down to Florida and recruits the workers and brings the workers up” (Norton, 2003). Carlos “Rico” Fernandez Jr. (and his late father Carlos Fernandez Sr.) is such a man: he gathers a crew of about twenty men each year for farmer Jim Lott. Not only is Rico a crew leader, but he is “a boss, a driver, a financial advisor, a friend…Cupid sometimes!” (Fernandez, 2011). The crew leader is many times an important link in the migrant social network. In this case, Rico is also one of the migrant workers’ few links to the world outside the orchard.
In Adams County, migrant farmworkers’ anonymity is heightened by the fact that farm laborers are often housed in secluded labor camps, usually trailers or low, dormitory-style cinder block buildings nestled in the orchards. They work six days a week, sleep nights, and generally only go out to buy groceries or go to the laundromat. Often they do not have cars of their own. The migrant farmworkers of Adams County seldom interact with residents, even Latino residents who may have been farm workers themselves in the past.(Jeanne)
The voices and faces of migrant farm work
“[We’re] like a little tiny screw in a very expensive watch – no one pays attention to the screw, but if suddenly after all the abuse, all the mistreatment the little screw wears out, the watch will breakdown.”
–Eduardo, a Latino day laborer in the Farmingville documentary
Marilyn Romero’s Photovoice Project
The stories and lives of those who informed this research are rich, lively and defy a linear narrative. Often when thinking about Latinos in Adams County, an image of a migrant worker emerges. A transient population, dispersed amongst the fields and hidden in the folds of endless farmland that are emblematic of the county’s agricultural heritage. A population that has a distinct life cycle: bloom, labor, and an exit accompanied by the leaves of the trees on which they labor on all season as autumn arrives. However, this neat route and migration of Latino farm workers in Adams County and throughout the United States is far more complex. Each worker has a unique history within this larger web of labor-driven movement. In recent years, the settled Latino population within Adams County has been growing.
The stories and lives of those who informed this research are rich, lively and complex – they defy a linear narrative. Often when thinking about Latinos in Adams County, an image of a migrant worker emerges. A transient population, dispersed amongst the fields and hidden in the folds of endless farmland that are emblematic of the county’s agricultural heritage. A population that has a distinct work cycle: bloom, labor, and exit, accompanied by the falling of leaves on the trees on which they labor all season until autumn arrives. However, this neat migration of Latino farm workers in Adams County and throughout the United States is far more complex. Each worker has a unique history within this larger web of labor-driven movement (JJ Luceno).
Settling
The presence of a settled Latino population is an emerging one; they are woven into the fabric of the community with an increased permanence as larger numbers begin to establish more settled residency outside the migration loop. School teachers have had now had generations of Latino families sit in their classrooms. Latinos are an emerging seat at the community table. Mexican stores, traditional dance groups, and nopales can now be found on menus in Adams County. Shifting demographics have produced new community networks, businesses, and services to address developing community needs. The labor of Latinos both in Adams County and nationally has become a vital component of our national food system, and has taken root in countless sectors of the economy. Yet these workers are more than the sum of their labor or economic contributions. They are both the product of globalization and neoliberal policies, volatile national politics, and means to understand the entanglements of history, politics, and economics. All too often however, the voices and lived experiences of individuals is lost within a narrative that is frequently told for them by academics, politicians and others that are louder, whether in cultural capital, rapport or socially granted acceptance. Listening to these voices is important in developing a meaningful, indigenous understanding of a community that holds growing importance in our local and national discourse and composition .The lives of these workers should not only be acknowledged, but also celebrated as a part of our ever-evolving communities’ histories (JJ Luceno).
[1] National Center for Farmworker Health: Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Demographics.