work and poverty in the date palms - photos

WORK AND POVERTY IN THE DATE PALMS Photographs by David Bacon The Progressive, 3/30/20 https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2020/04/work-and-poverty-in-date-palms.html https://progressive.org/dispatches/poverty-in-the-date-palms-bacon-200330/ These photographs document the date palm workers, or "palmeros".  They are a window into their lives, showing their living conditions and the pain of exploitation.  They document families, homes, and the culture of indigenous Purepecha people from the Mexican state of Michoacan - the main indigenous group in the farm labor workforce of the Coachella Valley. In the Coachella Valley, where the date farms are concentrated, the industry brings in $65 million a year.  Despite this, many Coachella farm workers live in trailer parks in colonias, or informal settlements, near the fields under the valley's intense sun.  There are not many "palmeros" - perhaps only two hundred.  Outside of Arabia, Iraq and North Africa, date palms are only grown here. The work is dangerous - the palms rise from twenty to sixty feet above the sandy desert floor of the Valley.  The photographs show the work process in which workers climb into the trees on ladders, or in more recent years on cherry pickers - mechanical lifts - and then walk around the tree's crown on the palm fronds as they work.  In the course of a year, a "palmero" has to go up into the palm trees seven times. The first operation is depicted here - the pollenization.  Date palm trees are dioecious - they come in sexes.  The flowers of the male palm produce the pollen.  It is the female tree that produces flowers that become the seeds, and which therefore bear the fruit. These photographs are part of a larger body of images and oral histories that I began in Coachella in 1992, and which continues today.  The archive of this work is in the Special Collections of the Green Library at Stanford University. COACHELLA VALLEY, CA - 2017 - Jose Cruz Frias, a "palmero", works in a grove of date palms.  He climbs the trees on a ladder, and once up in the tree he walks around on the fronds themselves.  This is one of seven operations that must happen to the trees each year to get them to bear fruit.  Cruz has been doing this work for 15 years.  He originally came to the Coachella Valley from Irapuato, Guanajuato in Mexico.

[. . .]

TAKE A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION - IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH
at the History Museum of Tijuana

HAGA UN RECORRIDO VIRTUAL DE LA EXPOSICIÓN - EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE
en el Museo de Historia de Tijuana

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=659536991515786
 

---

TARTINE HARDSHIP FUND
Newly organized Tartine Bakery workers in the Bay Area need your help and assistance!  This fund, supported by the International Longhsore and Warehouse Union, will help hose workers unable to collect unemployment insurance.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/tartine-union-hardship-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

 

---

The exhibitions in the following list were scheduled before the current COVID-19 crisis.  Public gatherings are not now taking place and these exhibitions have now been postponed or rescheduled.

Stay healthy!

DOCUMENTING RESISTANCE -
Community Organizing Beyond the Farmworkers' Movement
Photographs by David Bacon

February 18 - March 27
Powell Library Rotunda, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA

IN WASHINGTON’S FIELDS: Photographs by David Bacon

February 1-May 10, 2020
Washington State History Museum
1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, WA

IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE

March 15, 2020 - June 21, 2020
Los Altos History Museum, Los Altos
March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021
Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock

MORE THAN A WALL - THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF THE BORDER

August 29,, 2020 - November 29,, 2020
San Francisco Public Library

DEPORTATIONS

April 10, 2020 - May 1, 2020
Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago

 

---

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 - click here
 

---

 "The Criminalization of Migration: A Socialist Perspective" with David Bacon and Rafael Pizarro.
http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/David-Bacon-The-Criminalization-of-migration.mp4 
 

---

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.htmlDie Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990
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.be
 

---

THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com

---

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