by Danny Burridge
On Tuesday October 25, about twenty Ohio University students received a rare and informative glimpse into one of the most overlooked segments of the population of southeastern Ohio- migrant workers.
United Campus Ministries and the Latin American Student Union sponsored a lecture/ discussion led by Humberto Gonzalez, the Regional Administrator for the non-profit organization Rural Opportunity Inc. (ROI). Humberto gave a presentation about his group, which focuses on helping migrant farm workers find permanent employment, and providing social services to the migrant worker communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.
Also present at the discussion were Lucy and Dora, two migrant workers from Oaxaca, Mexico who have been in the United States for two years and have been aided immensely by ROI.
Here in Athens, we are not overly exposed to the world of migrant workers, but right next door in Meiggs County there is a thriving and growing community of migrant workers, primarily from southern Mexico.
Humberto said, “We did not even know there was a migrant camp in Meiggs County. We found them about a year ago and have been working with them ever since.”
He estimated that at any one time there are at least 400-500 migrant workers in the largest camp in Meiggs County. In the county as a whole, he said, there could be close to 1,200. In the state of Ohio, there are about 16,000 migrant workers, half of which are undocumented. By government regulations, ROI is not permitted to provide services to any undocumented workers.
Workers like Lucy and Dora typically stay in Appalachian states like Ohio for the summer and fall seasons. During the fall, many migrant workers work in plant nurseries. During the summer months, they pick vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, and lettuce- typically from sunup to sundown.
Lucy mentioned, “You know its time to stop for the day when you cannot tell if the tomato is ripe or not because it is too dark.”
This was in Spanish, though. A representative from UCM, Kerri Shaw, interpreted for them. Lucy and Dora both expressed the desire to learn English but have no access to any type of classes and probably would not have the time to take them anyway, because of their work schedules.
Very few migrant workers are proficient in English. Not only does this make it difficult for them to get anything but a minimum wage, labor intensive job, but it also makes it almost impossible to integrate fully into U.S. society.
For many Latinos, U.S culture can be quite an obstacle, but at the same time, they take a certain amount of pride in maintaining their own communities and cultures. Humberto, who was a migrant worker for ten years before joining ROI said, “You can put us wherever you want, but you are not going to brainwash us. You are not going to change us. A lot of people try to intimidate us. They say we are taking their jobs. But Americans do not want the jobs we take.”
On the other hand, Lucy and Dora said they have never felt any intimidation from U.S. citizens. Perhaps times have changed since Humberto was a worker and U.S. citizens are treating migrant workers with more respect.
However, migrant workers still face grave conditions as they try to make lives for themselves in the U.S. For this reason, ROI attempts to make it easier for migrant workers tosustain themselves through the National Farm Workers Job Program, which provides job training that migrant workers need to acquire permanent employment in fields such as nursing, early childhood development and retail. ROI also provides social programs dealing with housing, mentoring, drug and alcohol abuse prevention, economic development, and women’s reproductive health. Lucy and Dora have both received benefits from the reproductive health program.
Kerri Shaw worked for ROI for a year and was the person who picked up Lucy for her bi-monthly doctor visits when she was pregnant. Shawwould right now be getting ready to do the same for Dora who is currently five months pregnant, but federal funding for ROI has been drastically cut, causing ROI to drop Shaw’s former position. This year alone, grant money for ROI from the Department of Labor, who is the organization’s largest donor, was cut by $250,000.
Dora has been hitching rides to the medical clinic with various members of the migrant camp. Unfortunately, she has no interpreter such as Kerri to tell her what is truly going on with her pregnancy.
ROI does not only deal directly with migrant workers and communities, but also works to educate and raise awareness about migrant issues in the U.S. Congress and among the farmers who employ the workers. Effectively lobbying Congress is becoming more and more difficult, as shown by ROI‘s funding cut, but farmers have started to become more receptive of working with representatives of ROI.
“They (the farmers) used to think we were trying to bust them for hiring undocumented workers, but now they are starting to realize that we just want to ease their relations with the workers,” said Humberto.
Of late, ROI has been working extensively to try to get farmers to train their workers in the proper use of potentially harmful pesticides and fertilizers. Lucy and Dora said that they were exposed to pesticides during the summer when they worked on the farms, but did not feel any adverse side effects. Many effects of exposure to harmful chemicals are not seen until years after the exposure, so their testimony is not too reassuring.
Agriculture is one of the driving forces of the U.S. economy, and migrant workers are one of the driving forces of Ohio agriculture.
Some of them may not speak English too well, but migrant workers are here to stay, and here to grow. Tuesday’s discussion forged the kind of links between the Latino community and the dominant U.S. community that will be vital in ensuring that these cultures can coexist in mutually beneficial ways.
Showing posts with label latinamerica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label latinamerica. Show all posts
Feb 19, 2008
La Chinatla Journal
by Jimmy & Danny Burridge
This is an excerpt of an email from Jimmy Burridge, who is a volunteer with a Catholic Marianist Mission in La Chinatla, Mexico. La Chinatla is in the southern, impoverished, and highly indigenous state of Vera Cruz. Burridge works specifically with a program which distributes farm animals to needy families. He also gives workshops on gender relationships and baking bread, and tries to grow vegetables.
Things here are about the same as ever, but maybe a little different. I am getting frustrated with the way we work because we are supposed to be promoting development, or changing the way people relate to each other, but I do not think we do that. We are just like a boss that has lots of animals, and we do not actually change anything. We simply enable people to have more animals and thus a slightly larger income.
Also, we do not have any idea how to relate to the indigenous people here. Nearly all of us are mestizos, and we totally lack an understanding of indigenous history, culture, society, and values, which significantly inhibits our ability to work with and for them. If we do not even understand the people that we work for, the reality that they come from, their vision of the world, their dreams, and how they hope to attain those dreams, how are we supposed to help them to help themselves?
I decided that we needed to change and expand the way we work. I set up meetings with some groups in Chiapas because I know that there they have a wealth of organizations that deal with development and indigenous identity. Raymundo, who is one of three indigenous people that work here, and I drove to San Cristobal last Sunday and came back Wednesday. For me, in was reinvigorating to be in that environment again, and for Raymundo, it was totally new. He, like most people in my community, has never been exposed to different ways of seeing the world before.
First, we met up with the sister that was my guide the first time I went through Chiapas. We talked to her about the reality of Chiapas during the 70’s and 80’s. The indigenous people had to work against structural racism, and against the wealthy, white landholders who controlled virtually every aspect of their lives- from the church, to the schools, to the community store.
In 1994, the Zapatistas rebelled and many of the large landowners fled. The peasants occupied the abandoned land, and continue to occupy it today, which is the source of a huge amount of conflict. After the ‘94 rebellion, the landowners formed paramilitary groups which fight and intimidate the peasant groups, and are often backed by the Mexican army and political parties like the IRP (Institutionalized Revolutionary Party).
The next day, we talked with an organization that works almost exclusively with the autonomous municipalities, or the communities in rebellion, or the Zapatista communities. In the years following the rebellion, the Zapatista communities formed their own system of governance. This occurred not only because the Mexican government had historically disrespected and abused them, but because they felt that as indigenous people, they had a different culture and different needs from other Mexicans, and therefore, a right to govern themselves.
Now, the communities are arranged in what they call “juntas de buen gobierno,” (committees of good government). The organization we talked with works through these juntas. A group of people in a community presents a proposal for a project to their local junta, and then the junta presents it to the organization we talked with. So, all the projects stem directly from a popular need of a community.
The next day we talked with a doctor that directs a program which educates and trains indigenous people that have received little or no education. He runs a mechanic shop, a carpentry shop, metal working and sodering instruction, a bakery, and a tortilla factory. He also has a sewing shop, an architecture school, a women’s center and even a university. All the programs are run for and by indigenous people. The programs are not focused on preparing people to go out into the larger world, compete in the job market, and become like any other working Joe, but rather to acquire a trade, become educated and aware of the world, themselves, their culture, and the value of that culture. They are educated to work in their communities for the benefit of their communities. Maybe that does not sound so special, but it is. Many people in Mexico, and even more so in indigenous communities, see the only way to succeed as leaving their community/Mexico to work somewhere else, leaving behind, or even denying their indigenous identity. We have all been sold the idea that it is desirable to have a high paying job in the city, to be able to buy lots of things, in short, to participate fully in the capitalist society. This organization takes a very different view of development, and with other grassroots groups, elements of the Catholic Church and the Zapatistas, is revitalizing indigenous culture and community.
Throughout our stay in Chiapas, we saw people working for a different world- one where people work, live, and relate to one another in better ways- one where people are not caught up in a culture that only values things that are efficient and profitable, and seeks to diminish culture itself into trinkets and folklore that can be bought and sold, or only appreciated as quaint or romantic. Many people have the desire to do away with the dominate culture and create a different one. They think this can and must be done from the bottom up- that initiatives must come from groups, organizations, and communities, traveling from group to group, and spreading knowledge about alternative ways of living and learning.
So that is what I see happening with some of the organizations in Chiapas. I think it’s pretty exciting how these people believe that another world is possible, and that they want to invent this other world that allows us to live and to relate to each other as real human beings.
This is an excerpt of an email from Jimmy Burridge, who is a volunteer with a Catholic Marianist Mission in La Chinatla, Mexico. La Chinatla is in the southern, impoverished, and highly indigenous state of Vera Cruz. Burridge works specifically with a program which distributes farm animals to needy families. He also gives workshops on gender relationships and baking bread, and tries to grow vegetables.
Things here are about the same as ever, but maybe a little different. I am getting frustrated with the way we work because we are supposed to be promoting development, or changing the way people relate to each other, but I do not think we do that. We are just like a boss that has lots of animals, and we do not actually change anything. We simply enable people to have more animals and thus a slightly larger income.
Also, we do not have any idea how to relate to the indigenous people here. Nearly all of us are mestizos, and we totally lack an understanding of indigenous history, culture, society, and values, which significantly inhibits our ability to work with and for them. If we do not even understand the people that we work for, the reality that they come from, their vision of the world, their dreams, and how they hope to attain those dreams, how are we supposed to help them to help themselves?
I decided that we needed to change and expand the way we work. I set up meetings with some groups in Chiapas because I know that there they have a wealth of organizations that deal with development and indigenous identity. Raymundo, who is one of three indigenous people that work here, and I drove to San Cristobal last Sunday and came back Wednesday. For me, in was reinvigorating to be in that environment again, and for Raymundo, it was totally new. He, like most people in my community, has never been exposed to different ways of seeing the world before.
First, we met up with the sister that was my guide the first time I went through Chiapas. We talked to her about the reality of Chiapas during the 70’s and 80’s. The indigenous people had to work against structural racism, and against the wealthy, white landholders who controlled virtually every aspect of their lives- from the church, to the schools, to the community store.
In 1994, the Zapatistas rebelled and many of the large landowners fled. The peasants occupied the abandoned land, and continue to occupy it today, which is the source of a huge amount of conflict. After the ‘94 rebellion, the landowners formed paramilitary groups which fight and intimidate the peasant groups, and are often backed by the Mexican army and political parties like the IRP (Institutionalized Revolutionary Party).
The next day, we talked with an organization that works almost exclusively with the autonomous municipalities, or the communities in rebellion, or the Zapatista communities. In the years following the rebellion, the Zapatista communities formed their own system of governance. This occurred not only because the Mexican government had historically disrespected and abused them, but because they felt that as indigenous people, they had a different culture and different needs from other Mexicans, and therefore, a right to govern themselves.
Now, the communities are arranged in what they call “juntas de buen gobierno,” (committees of good government). The organization we talked with works through these juntas. A group of people in a community presents a proposal for a project to their local junta, and then the junta presents it to the organization we talked with. So, all the projects stem directly from a popular need of a community.
The next day we talked with a doctor that directs a program which educates and trains indigenous people that have received little or no education. He runs a mechanic shop, a carpentry shop, metal working and sodering instruction, a bakery, and a tortilla factory. He also has a sewing shop, an architecture school, a women’s center and even a university. All the programs are run for and by indigenous people. The programs are not focused on preparing people to go out into the larger world, compete in the job market, and become like any other working Joe, but rather to acquire a trade, become educated and aware of the world, themselves, their culture, and the value of that culture. They are educated to work in their communities for the benefit of their communities. Maybe that does not sound so special, but it is. Many people in Mexico, and even more so in indigenous communities, see the only way to succeed as leaving their community/Mexico to work somewhere else, leaving behind, or even denying their indigenous identity. We have all been sold the idea that it is desirable to have a high paying job in the city, to be able to buy lots of things, in short, to participate fully in the capitalist society. This organization takes a very different view of development, and with other grassroots groups, elements of the Catholic Church and the Zapatistas, is revitalizing indigenous culture and community.
Throughout our stay in Chiapas, we saw people working for a different world- one where people work, live, and relate to one another in better ways- one where people are not caught up in a culture that only values things that are efficient and profitable, and seeks to diminish culture itself into trinkets and folklore that can be bought and sold, or only appreciated as quaint or romantic. Many people have the desire to do away with the dominate culture and create a different one. They think this can and must be done from the bottom up- that initiatives must come from groups, organizations, and communities, traveling from group to group, and spreading knowledge about alternative ways of living and learning.
So that is what I see happening with some of the organizations in Chiapas. I think it’s pretty exciting how these people believe that another world is possible, and that they want to invent this other world that allows us to live and to relate to each other as real human beings.
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