21 Things I Have Learned about Farmworkers in North Carolina
Two years ago, after volunteering for some time with agencies that support migrant farmworkers, I decided to go deep and learn all I could about this world. After consulting with dozens of farmworkers and others who know this world well, reading what others have written, and sifting through more than six hundred H-2A job orders,…
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The Decent Farm Labor Camps of North Carolina
My post on the low quality of farm labor camps in North Carolina received a comment that deserves a response. And an admission. The full comment is at the end of this post, but the essence is that I am not being fair to the farmers who provide good housing to their farmworkers, and that…
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Finding North Carolina’s Labor Camps
Here’s a little quiz. In North Carolina, which of the following is not required at migrant labor camps: air conditioning, washing machines, or flush toilets. Answer just below. I’ve been a volunteer outreach worker, trekking from time to time to farmworker labor camps, for a little more than a decade. In North Carolina there…
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To Feed Those Who Feed Us
Note: This post is published twice today, below in English and separately in Spanish On a recent Saturday, more than 200 families lined up their cars, bumper to bumper, in a sopping wet soccer field in eastern North Carolina. Some would then sit there for hours. In return for their patience, each would go home…
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Alimentar A Los Que Nos Alimentan
Nota: Este post se publica dos veces hoy, a continuación en español y por separado en inglés En un sábado reciente, más de 200 familias alinearon sus autos, de parachoques a parachoques, en un campo de fútbol húmedo en el este de Carolina del Norte. Algunos se sentarían allí durante horas. A cambio de su…
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The Death of a Farmworker
We know he was 30 years old, a citizen of Mexico, working at a North Carolina tobacco and sweet potato farm. It was just the second week of his first year working there, authorized by an H-2A temporary seasonal work visa. We know area temperatures neared 100 on the fifth day of September. It was…
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The New Bracero
In 1981, the travel writer Tom Miller made a spot-on prediction. President Reagan was then planning an experimental program to allow US growers to hire 50 thousand Mexican farmworkers each season on temporary contracts, a program that would be enacted into law in 1986 as the H-2A visa program. Writing in The New York Times,…
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You grow what?
“Qué tipo de cultivo están cultivando aquí?” I asked the men. “What type of crop are you growing here?” We were huddled in the frigid and rundown trailer where these North Carolina farmworkers cooked and ate their meals. I was just starting some research for a book, visiting labor camps to introduce myself. It was…
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The crux of the farmworker debate
We live in an era of deeply polarized politics. But anyone who gives it much thought is likely agree on this: Our nation’s agricultural economy would grind to a halt without farmworkers, nearly 400 thousand of whom leave their families in Mexico for the better part of each year to plant, cultivate, and harvest crops…
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The Secret Lives of America’s Migrant Farmers
Published on Narratively on September 3, 2014… An innovative college program opens privileged young eyes to the million undocumented laborers who toil away in an invisible America. Story and photos by Michael Durbin… It’s early June at Camp Chestnut Ridge in Efland, North Carolina. Towering pines outside the dining hall are still dripping after a…
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Michael Durbin 