“Those who complain often don’t come back”: Stories of Migrant Life

Pink Camp, NC, by SAF interns Angelita Maldonado and Devin Gibbs, 2010.

Former farmworker Martha packing lunch for a male worker at the packing house, VA, by SAF interns Eva Lamas and Jelissa Suarez 2010.

Ed. Note: While working as part of the Student Action with Farmworkers program between his junior and senior year of college, Kyle was placed with Southern Migrant Legal Services, based in Nashville, Tennessee. Through his work, he met frequently with farmworkers contracted under the H-2A and H-2B guest worker programs across a five-state area, investigated farms historically known for labor violations, and researched legal precedent aiding and informing decisions in migrant farmworker cases. His stories are a collection of those interactions, both the lived experiences of his clientele and accounts from his firm’s previous work.

Luis

Luis lived in the storage facility where his company stored old sweet potatoes from last year’s harvest, his bed among a large “bedroom” where about thirty other workers slept. The rank smell of rotting sweet potatoes lingered in the air, molding in their crates just a few feet away from where Luis slept at night. He told us everyone got used to the smell. But what he never got used to were occasional threats by snakes, scorpions, and spiders that lived in the crates and often came out at night. Luis hadn’t been bitten or stung (yet), nor did he know anyone who had, but he was waiting for the day when someone would eventually get hurt.

Watching “El Chavo del Ocho” farmworker camp, SC, by SAF interns Daniel Guzmán and Julie King, 2013.

Basic amenities appeared scarce. Luis showed us the breakroom-turned-kitchen, which had two stoves—only one of which worked—and two refrigerators. But there was no real bathroom. Toward the back of the warehouse, the musky smell of rotting produce mingled with the pungent odor of raw sewage. The showering facilities where more than thirty workers lined up to bathe was nothing more than a spigot with a tarp fashioned around it. On the other side, raw sewage seeped up from the ground just inches away. Luis said it was difficult but there wasn’t anywhere else to go that he knew of and patron Jack had tried to “do good by them.” They would make do so long as they were provided with steady work and an honest paycheck.

Liliana showing a picture from her phone, SC, by SAF intern Jesse Smith-Appelson, 2014.

Sylvia

Sylvia loved the bright color of the tomatoes. There was something beautiful about plucking them from their vines each and every day. But that fruit often came at a high cost. Sylvia often spent an entire day picking tomatoes by the bushel, returning home with blisters, sores, and boils underneath her arms. The first couple months of work, she thought it was from repeatedly carrying a full basket to the truck. She was half-right. Hay una síntoma de las pesticidias. Her farm had been using very strong pesticides and herbicides to keep the tomatoes red. But she and other workers were never informed when the grower or crew leader sprayed the crops. There were no signs, just the hope that they would learn through word-of-mouth that it wasn’t safe to go into the fields. Once, Sylvia was directly sprayed with chemicals while she was picking tomatoes under the hot sun. In such cases, Sylvia and others hoped to get to Wal-Mart in time for ointment that would reduce the swelling, but they paid for it out of their own pockets and knew better than to complain. “Those who complain often don’t come back,” she said. She worked with people whose skin began to peel because of prolonged exposure—so burned and so raw that it shined like a ruby...