{"id":472,"date":"2017-07-21T14:44:41","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T14:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/?p=472"},"modified":"2017-07-24T15:14:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T15:14:08","slug":"reflections-from-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/reflections-from-the-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections from the Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Patricia Patterson, Policy Advocacy Intern<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just twenty minutes outside of Raleigh, North Carolina is a white house with blue shutters, blue doors. The exterior of the house is composed of an eroding material that seems to eat at itself from the inside out. I have lived in this house for over fourteen years. I have watched the house grow older and rustier and become more of a cardboard box than a home. As a child, I would walk through a field behind my house. Most of the time, this field was barren, a seemingly deserted terrain, with symmetrical rows of mounds of dirt. I used to trudge carefully in between the rows, leaving footprints in my wake. When I would wander too far, I would retrace my footprints back to my cardboard house. It never occurred to me that this may have been a commercial field where I was unwelcome, that my curiosity had a name\u2014trespassing.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u00a1No vayas tan lejos!\u201d (Don\u2019t go so far!<\/em>) my mother would scold.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until much later that I started to notice my surrounding area, the many acres of tobacco and corn and sweet potatoes and crops I couldn\u2019t recognize from a car window. At the time, I didn\u2019t fully understand what I was looking at or the greater implications. Even as I watched a truck of migrant farmworkers pass by from a school bus window at 5 a.m. one morning in middle school, I still didn\u2019t understand. It wasn\u2019t until I recently accompanied a group\u2014consisting of representatives from Toxic Free NC and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services\u2014to visit and meet local migrant workers that it finally sunk in\u2014these workers put their lives in danger every day to complete their work. This is real.<\/p>\n

The farmworkers we met gave us a warm welcome. One worker stopped mowing the lawn when he saw us approaching and only resumed after we left. They offered us peaches and plums and apologized for not having refreshments available for us. When we attempted to assure them that we were grateful for their hospitality and not to worry, one man continued to insist that he should have gone to the grocery store prior to our visit. They were eager to share their stories with us. When asked about what they perceive as the most dangerous aspect of their job, a 50-year-old worker mentioned his fear of potential pesticide exposure.<\/p>\n

\u201cCon los pesticidas, uno tiene que tener cuidado con el trabajo porque muchos plantas llevan pesticidas,\u201d he said. \u201cY tienes que tener cuidado con el calor. Usar m\u00e1s camisas con manga larga, pa\u00f1o, guantes\u2026 Ahorita que esta un calor\u00f3n feo\u2014nombre\u2014tiene que tomar mucha agua y tener cuidado al tomar su paso.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne has to be careful when handling pesticides while working because many plants have pesticides,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd one has to be careful with the heat. Use more long sleeves, washcloths, and gloves\u2026. Now when there\u2019s a terrible heat\u2014no way\u2014you need to drink a lot of water and watch your step.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When asked about their work, they all replied with a version of, \u201cIt\u2019s rough.\u201d To my astonishment, none of the workers dwelled on negative aspects of working in the fields. They recognized that their work is difficult, especially working in the heat, but they were not resentful or indignant in regards to their situation. Despite acknowledging the danger of fieldwork, they stated that several other jobs are just as difficult and hazardous. Many worked other arduous jobs prior to fieldwork\u2014roofing, warehouse work, slaughterhouse work, packaging, factory work, and many others. To them, it was just work, work that no one else would complete due to the laborious conditions. Many workers declared their pride in the work they do in the fields.<\/p>\n

One 48-year-old woman discussed the obstacles she had to overcome in order to work in a new country. She maintained that her motivation to work was always to provide food and housing for her children. As of today, she has worked in agriculture for twenty years.<\/p>\n

\u201cPara m\u00ed era muy dif\u00edcil [ser trabajadora agr\u00edcola] porque yo nunca he trabajado as\u00ed en la labor,\u201d she said. \u201cEn M\u00e9xico yo hab\u00eda trabajado solo de ama\u00a0de casa. El trabajo s\u00ed es muy pesado para uno, m\u00e1s cuando una trae familia. Tiene uno que dar los ni\u00f1os a cuidar\u2026 Para ellos [mis ni\u00f1os] era un poco dif\u00edcil. Era dif\u00edcil porque como yo no conoc\u00eda y no ten\u00eda nadie que los cuidara, yo ten\u00eda que cargar con ellos al trabajo. Y pues, por eso los complicaba mucho. No les gustaba. Ellos quer\u00edan regresar pero era dif\u00edcil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it was very difficult [being a farmworker] because I had never worked this way before,\u201d she said. \u201cIn Mexico, I had only been a house wife. The work is very difficult for one, even more difficult when one brings their family. You have to give the kids to someone that will take care of them\u2026 I didn\u2019t know anyone, so I had to bring the kids to work with me. They hated it. They complained about wanting to go home, but I had no one to leave them with, no one I knew who would babysit them.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The woman explained that the language barrier was another obstacle she had to overcome. At first, she could only use eye contact and body language as a means to understand her employers. Many American employers were considerate and sympathetic to her situation, trying their best to use creative alternatives in communication until she learned the language. Other employers, however, grew angry and frustrated when she couldn\u2019t understand them.<\/p>\n

\u201cM\u00e1s que nada hay que tener m\u00e1s cuidado para la gente que trabajan en el campo porque es muy dif\u00edcil,\u201d she said. \u201cMuy pesado. A veces tienen que trabajar\u2014yo he visto c\u00f3mo trabajan bajo la lluvia y en calorones tan fuertes\u2026 Yo llegue a trabajar cuando a veces estaban\u00a0tirando veneno y uno lo traen as\u00ed trabajando. Tirando veneno y otras atr\u00e1s de la m\u00e1quina cortando tabaco.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than anything, one has to be more mindful of the people who work in the fields because it is very difficult work,\u201d she said. \u201cVery laborious. Sometimes they have to work\u2014I have seen how they work in heavy rain and in unbearable heat\u2026 I arrive to work sometimes when they are applying poison, and they still have them [farmworkers] work. Spilling poison and another behind the machinery, cutting tobacco.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What some workers suggested when asked what could be done to implement positive change in the system was increased visits to work sites. They explained that visiting workers more often would likely create a greater understanding between groups of people, especially in terms of workers and employers. Some discussed the importance of education, wishing that their children or grandchildren or younger people they know would recognize the difficulty of fieldwork and decide to continue their studies. Through education, they hoped that the youth might have the opportunity to seek a better life.<\/p>\n

When I went home that night, I thought about the migrant farmworkers. I thought about the 52-year-old man who never gets to go home, who sends money to his family in Mexico and calls them every week. I thought about what it must feel like to never be able to see your family. I thought about the 70-year-old man who works just as much as the others, despite his bad back. When was the last time he has seen a doctor? I thought about the 50-year-old man who works before sunrise to after sunset every day and still has the will power to mow the lawn after his workday. I thought about the 48-year-old woman who lifts heavy boxes every day despite her small frame, who comes home late to feed her children and her grandchildren. Worst of all, I thought about wandering the field behind my house as a child and never realizing that workers like the ones I met might have been in my backyard all along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Patricia Patterson, Policy Advocacy Intern   Just twenty minutes outside of Raleigh, North Carolina is a white house with blue shutters, blue doors. The exterior of the house is composed of an eroding material that seems to eat at itself from the inside out. I have lived in this house for over fourteen years. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,22,34],"tags":[16,17,11,37],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-farmworkers","category-indigenous-rights","tag-agriculture","tag-farmworkers","tag-pesticides","tag-wps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479,"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions\/479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/box2219.temp.domains\/~toxicfr2\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}