Hard Workers, Poor Conditions
Migrant farmworkers--a portion of the United States population who contribute so much to our agriculture, economy, and food resources--are of the most looked over and neglected. This becomes apparent through the conditions to which they’re relegated, both living and working. These conditions then carry over to affect the health and well-being of migrant workers, where disease and injury is much more common, and life expectancy is greatly shortened: 49 years as compared to 72 for the average American. As recorded by Robert Lynch in the “Migrant Heritage Studies Kit: A Teaching Tool,” these conditions often are overcrowded and lack privacy, have inadequate and antiquated sanitation, and foster poor nutrition (29). A narrative from Alice Mathis, a seasonal agricultural worker from Florida, further recalls that a lack of running water and electricity were common; thus, residents would have to walk a distance and carry it back in buckets in addition to their daily toil (19). It is clear these conditions are not up to par with what an average American would expect for themselves or allow to be provided by landlords.
Marginal conditions stem from a long history of designating farm labor to “lower classes” of people, and concieving negative stereotypes about hired farmworkers. These ideas often are on display in the Genesee Farmer. It’s clear there was a stark divide of acceptable conditions, one example being in transportation, where the Genesee Farmer disparaged “the dirty emigrant trains” which the general public should avoid (“S.W.’s Notes” 238). Such laborers were often then relegated to their hand-work and lacked recognition of their personhood. A young farmer quoted his father saying that “very few laborers can be hired that will cut more than an acre of grass in a day, and that the machine will do the work of ten men. Many of the men hired for haying and harvesting take advantage of the farmer, by ‘the scarcity of hands,’ to charge exorbitantly; and this is in a great measure obviated by the mower” (1858, 19.6: 183). Given the denial of personhood and desire to automate their jobs, poor working and living conditions continued and even worsened in the years to follow.
In the photos here, we see a small glimpse of a camp household at Blue Eagle Farm. Gloria Mattera, director of the Geneseo Migrant Center, described such places varying “from barrack-type concrete block structures to trailers” (“BOCES” 8). A functional, “communal” kitchen becomes a crowded one, when even five people are occupying it. Although not all migrant housing is the same, it seems they relate to each other in at least one way: their inadequacy. One narrative that was collected by the Migrant Center is entitled “May 23, 1975 — Where We Lived.” “We are all living on Rt. 1, Mitchell, Nebraska,” it recounts. “The house is real small; three rooms, the kitchen, four beds, but they are little cots where only one person can sleep and two big beds. The adults sleep on the beds and the children on a mattress or the floor. We don’t have hot water or a shower to bathe. The bathroom is falling; two boards hold it up and the door is broken and it can’t be closed. Needless to say, the conditions are poor” (Mattera et al. 135).
Most Americans are in positions of comparative privilege to overlook where their food comes from and the people who work to provide it; the poor conditions in which those people work and eat and sleep. We know they work hard, yet are willing to ignore their lives. How can we be surprised each time we see photographs like these, which remind us of what we already know?
Works Consulted
-- Alexander, Wm. “A Boy on the Mowing Machine Question.” The Genesee Farmer 16.9 (Sept. 1858): 183. Courtesy of Internet Archive.
-- Lynch, Robert. “Migrant Heritage Studies Kit: A Teaching Tool.” New York Folklore 13.1-2 (Winter-Spring 1987): 29-48.
-- Mattera, Gloria. “The BOCES-Geneseo Migrant Center: History and Development.” New York Folklore 13.1-2 (Winter-Spring 1987): 7-27.
-- Mattera, Gloria, et al, eds. “’No One Sees Me, No One Cares:’ Migrant Workers Speak.” New York Folklore 13.1-2 (Winter-Spring 1987): 117-160.
-- “S.W.’s Notes for the Month.” The Genesee Farmer 11.10 (Oct. 1850): 238-239. Courtesy of Internet Archive.