FARMWORKERS RISE UP AGAINST TRUMP AND LABOR EXPLOITATION
By David Bacon,
Truthout August 10, 2019
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2019/08/farmworker-rise-up-against-trump-and.html
https://truthout.org/articles/farmworkers-rise-up-against-trump-and-labor-exploitation/
Marchers take part in the Farmworker March for Dignity 2019, on August 4, 2019, in Whatcom County, Washington. David Bacon
Washington State today is ground zero in the effort to hold back the massive use of agricultural guest workers by U.S. growers, and to ensure that farmworkers, both those living here and those coming under the H-2A visa program, have their rights respected. For a second year, on August 4 workers and their supporters marched 14 miles in 90-degree heat through berry fields just below the Canadian border, protesting what they charge is widespread abuse of agricultural labor.
"Farmworker families have been living and working in local fields since the early 1950s," according to Rosalinda Guillen, director of Community to Community, a farm worker organizing and advocacy group in Whatcom County. "But we've seen a big increase in growers' use of the H-2A guest worker program in the last few years, and it's had a huge impact on working conditions in the fields. We've had to feed guest workers who come to us hungry, fight to get them paid their wages, and help them deal with extreme work requirements. At the same time, our local workers find they're not being hired for jobs they've done for many seasons."
Rosalinda Guillen, director of Community to Community. David Bacon
At dawn on August 4, two hundred marchers gathered in front of the immigration detention center in Ferndale, about three hours north of Seattle. Before starting the 14-mile peregrination, Guillen told the crowd that most of the immigrants detained there, and later deported, are farmworkers. "The Trump administration is targeting our local community, deporting people who have been living here for years," she charged. "Then growers complain there aren't enough workers, and begin using the H-2A program to bring in guest workers. It is a vicious revolving door of exploitation."
Marchers gather in front of the immigrant detention center in Ferndale before setting out on the rest of their route.David Bacon
According to the U.S. Department of Labor's National Agricultural Workers Survey, there are about 2.5 million farmworkers in the U.S., about three quarters of whom were born outside the country. Half are undocumented and the rest are visa holders or people born in the U.S.
Last year growers were certified to bring in 242,762 H-2A workers - a tenth of the total workforce and a number that in just four years has increased from 139,832.
In 2017, Washington State growers were given H-2A visas for 18,796 workers, about 12,000 of whom were recruited by WAFLA (formerly the Washington Farm Labor Association, a H-2A labor contractor). "We predict growers will request more than 30,000 H-2A workers during 2019," according to Washington Employment Security Department Commissioner Suzi LeVine.
The department estimated that 97,068 farm workers were employed in Washington State in 2016, so the projected number of H-2A workers would be a third of the entire workforce.
At the same time as H-2A employment is rising, deportations are increasing. The Trump administration deported 256,000 people in 2018, just slightly more than the number of people brought to the U.S. under H-2A visas. Local deportations are increasing as well in Washington. In August last year 16 people were arrested and held at the Ferndale center. Half were deported immediately, and others were charged bail as high as $18,000 to be released pending hearings. A month earlier 19 others had also been arrested for deportation.
Stories are common, according to C2C, of people stopped for traffic violations, and then held for detention by immigration authorities. In 2017, Gov. Jay Inslee signed an executive order barring state agents from helping to enforce federal immigration laws in most cases, ordering them not to ask about immigration status. Nevertheless, immigration detention centers are scattered around the state, including one of the nation's largest in Tacoma, three hours south of Whatcom County, where the GEO Group holds around 1500 people.
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For a full set of march photographs, click here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums/72157710187529022 PODCAST: Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen: Erasing Unsettling Truth: The San Francisco Mural Controversy Art, by its nature, is often about challenging the viewer. You may have heard of the controversy about large Depression-era murals on the walls of San Francisco's George Washington High School. After 80 years, why did the school board vote to spend $600,000 to now cover it up? Painted as part of the New Deal's WPA by Victor Arnautoff, these frescoes show the real George Washington - slave owner - and the white settlers whose progress meant destruction of native people. It is disturbing. SF photographer and author David Bacon says racism is the cause of students' trauma, and argues that participatory solutions are an alternative to covering it up. Click http://bit.ly/2O5COCO to listen to the podcast. Exhibition Schedule Exhibitions of photographs are scheduled for the following venues and dates: In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte Scheduled exhibitions: June 16, 2019 - August 18, 2019 The Museum of Ventura County's Agricultural Museum, Santa Paula September 1, 2019 - December 22, 2019 Hi-Desert Nature Museum, Yucca Valley January 5, 2020 - March 1, 2020 Community Memorial Museum of Sutter County, Yuba City March 15, 2020 - June 21, 2020 Los Altos History Museum, Los Altos March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021 Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock In Washington’s Fields Scheduled exhibition: February 5, 2020 - July 15, 2020 Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, WA More Than a Wall - The Social Movements of the Border Scheduled exhibition: August 29,, 2020 - November 29,, 2020 San Francisco Public Library In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte Photographs and text by David Bacon University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte 302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9” paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.) order the book on the UC Press website: ucpress.edu/9780520296077 use source code 16M4197 at checkout, receive a 30% discount En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF: https://www.colef.mx Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte - clickhere En los campos del Norte documenta la vida de trabajadores agrícolas en Estados Unidos - Entrevista con el Instituto Nacional de la Antropologia y Historia http://www.inah.gob.mx/es/boletines/6863-en-los-campos-del-norte-documenta-la-vida-de-trabajadores-agricolas-en-estados-unidos Entrevista en la television de UNAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSaBKZ_k0o David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agrícola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia http://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0038-18 Trabajo agrícola, migración y resistencia cultural: el mosaico de los “Campos del Norte” Entrevista de David Bacon por Iván Gutiérrez / A los 4 Vientos http://www.4vientos.net/2017/10/04/trabajo-agricola-migracion-y-resistencia-cultural-el-mosaico-de-los-campos-del-norte/ "Los fotógrafos tomamos partido" Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.html Das Leben der Arbeiterschaft auf Ölplattformen des Irak http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=25973 Die Kunst der Grenze http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=24304Notruf für "eine andere Welt" http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=24087 Die Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990 "Documenting the Farm Worker Rebellion" "The Radical Resistance to Immigration Enforcement" Havens Center lectures, University of Wisconsin, click here San Francisco Commonweallth Club presentation by David Bacon and Jose Padilla, clickhere EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE: Farm worker photographs on the U.S./Mexico border wall http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fc67a76dbb9c31aaee896aff7&id=0644c65ae5&e=dde0321ee7 Entrevista sobre la exhibicion con Alfonso Caraveo (Español) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeE1NO4c_M&feature=youtu.beTHE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com Cat Brooks interview on KPFA about In the Fields of the North https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=263826 - Advance the time to 33:15 Book TV: A presentation of the ideas in The Right to Stay Home at the CUNY Graduate Center http://booktv.org/Watch/14961/The+Right+to+Stay+Home+How+US+Policy+Drives+Mexican+Migration.aspx Other Books by David Bacon The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Beacon Press, 2013) http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328
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/Illegal-People-P780.aspx Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006) http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350 The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726 En Español: EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA (Critica - Planeta de Libros) http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo) http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1 For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums | |
