hurricanes and farmworkers

[Guest guest]

from the NY Times, of interest.

Tina

September 10, 2004

More Fruit in Central Florida Is on Ground Than on Trees

By JENNIFER 8. LEE

WAHNETA, Fla., Sept. 8 - The citrus trees, once pregnant with fruit, have

been stripped by the winds. The grapefruits and oranges, which once held the

promise of months of steady wages, lie scattered in the muddy ground like

brightly colored spherical pebbles.

" What are we going to pick now? " asked Hugo González in Spanish, as the

22-year-old agricultural migrant worker sat at the door of his trailer two

nights after Hurricane Frances rattled his home. " You can't see oranges on

the tree any more. "

The eyes of both Hurricanes Frances and Charley passed through Central

Florida's Polk County, one of the state's top citrus producing areas,

destroying as much as 90 percent of the local grapefruit harvest and as much

as 50 percent of the orange crop. Statewide, the losses to the citrus crop

are estimated at 20 percent.

" It's not worth staying here, because you don't make enough to pay

expenses, " said Mr. , who has worked for the last two years as one

of Florida's estimated 25,000 citrus pickers and 150,000 agricultural

workers. About 70 percent of them are illegal immigrants, according to the

Migrant Farmworker Justice Project of Florida Legal Services.

Mr. González said he came to central Florida from Mexico three months ago to

wait for the beginning of the orange-picking season, which stretches from

October to May. As he sees the promise of work decomposing in the fields, he

wants to leave, but he said he could not afford to relocate. He said he paid

smugglers $2,200 to bring him into the United States in a three-day desert

walk. Now, he said, he barely has enough money to cover the $230 bus ticket

back to his hometown, Pachuca, Mexico.

" Right now if I left, I would leave with just the fare and no money to eat, "

Mr. González said. He plans on working odd jobs over the next few weeks.

The discussions about the oranges swirl around the taco cafe, the Winn-Dixie

supermarket and the coin laundry here. The talk in other migrant

agricultural communities is much the same. Where to go? What type of work to

do?

Some migrants have begun to leave Central Florida for Mexico, others in

search of work elsewhere in the United States - Michigan for blueberries,

Georgia for watermelons, Kentucky for tobacco.

Still others are scraping together work after the storm. Construction jobs

pay $8 an hour and up. Collecting fallen branches off the streets brings in

$4.50 a cubic yard. Collecting and selling scrap aluminum can be lucrative.

But all this work is temporary at best.

Mr. González said he had hoped to take home as much as $5,000 to help build

the four-bedroom house he plans for his wife-to-be, who is waiting for him.

This year, he said, he will leave with almost nothing but debt.

The force of the hurricanes created a foot-wide split in the floor of the

mobile home that Mr. González shares with another Mexican worker, but many

other trailers in Polk County fared much worse.

County inspectors have put red condemned stickers on trailers crushed by

trees or stripped by winds, like those at THE Christmas Tree Mobile Home

Park. The isolated park, which is predominantly Mexican-American, was

neglected for days by the outside world after it was devastated by Hurricane

Charley.

It was days after Fort Meade residents received ice, water and other goods

before neighbors realized the destruction at the park. " They were pretty

much fending for themselves, " said Angel Catano, an area resident who was

among the first outsiders to go to the park after the hurricane. Mr. Catano

took 40 cases of water, 90 bags of ice and 15 boxes of food, then called his

daughter, who works for the sheriff's office, for additional help.

Florida's agricultural workers, many who originally come from Mexico, are

among the most vulnerable victims of the double hurricanes. " Not only are

many migrant workers out of a job, they have lost what little they have, "

said Cheryl Little, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy

Center.

The Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, using state surveys, estimates that

the winds and rain destroyed about 40 percent of the migrant housing that

was legally occupied in Hardee and Desoto Counties. The destruction is

expected to worsen an overstrained housing market for migrant workers. Only

a small fraction of migrant housing has legal permits, the justice project

said. Fears among some workers of revealing their illegal immigration

status, along with cultural barriers, make many reluctant to come forward to

ask for help. " They don't want to give their information because they feel

immigration is going to get a hold of it, and they're going to be deported, "

said Bernard Pita, a Spanish-speaking code inspector for Polk County who has

been working with the Christmas Tree community. " They usually are

self-sufficient. They have a lot of pride. "

Rob , director of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, who has

been pushing to liberalize immigration laws governing agricultural jobs,

said of the illegal immigrant workers, ' " They are an essential part of our

economy, but when there is a storm, when they are at risk, we say, 'Well you

are on your own now, you shouldn't have been here.' "

Churches have tried to fill in the social safety net gap. " For one thing, we

don't ask who has documents or papers, who is illegal or not, " said the Rev.

Tom Rush, a pastor with First Baptist Church in Fort Meade. " All of us have

political opinions, but the issue of ministering to people in need isn't a

political issue. "

Those who cannot leave will cope, said Carmen Escobar, 15, who has been

helping her family pick oranges on weekends since she was 6. Ms. Escobar,

who dropped out of junior high school, shrugs at the destruction. Already,

her boyfriend's family has converted the orange truck to hauling fallen

branches. They earned $100 for one truckload recently.

" You don't need to be cutting down anything, " she said. " You just need to

put it in the truck. It's easy. "