{"id":29984,"date":"2024-04-29T10:01:16","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T17:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/?p=29984"},"modified":"2024-04-29T10:01:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T17:01:16","slug":"the-human-cost-of-a-strawberry-wage-by-david-bacon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/the-human-cost-of-a-strawberry-wage-by-david-bacon\/","title":{"rendered":"The human cost of a strawberry wage | By David Bacon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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THE HUMAN COST OF A STRAWBERRY WAGE
By David Bacon
Civil Eats, 4\/24\/24
https:\/\/civileats.com\/2024\/04\/24\/strawberry-farmworkers-fight-for-a-living-wage\/<\/a>
https:\/\/davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com\/2024\/04\/the-human-cost-of-strawberry-wage.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guillermina Diaz, a Mixtec immigrant from Oaxaca, picks strawberries.\u00a0 She and her sister Eliadora support three other family members, all of whom sleep and live in a single room in a house..<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Driving north on California’s Highway 101 through the central coast, a traveler approaches the Santa Ynez Valley through miles of grapevines climbing gently rolling hills.\u00a0 Here humans have mastered nature, the landscape seems to say – a bucolic vision of agriculture with hardly a worker in sight.\u00a0 Perhaps a lone irrigator adjusts drip pipes or sprinklers.\u00a0 Only during a few short weeks in the fall can one see the harvest crews filling gondolas behind the tractors.\u00a0 Even then, you’d have to be driving at night, when most grape picking now takes place under floodlights that illuminate the rows behind the machines.

As 101 winds out of the hills, the crop beside the highway suddenly changes.\u00a0 Here endless rows of strawberries fill the valley’s flat plane. Dirt access roads bisect enormous fields, and beside them dozens of cars sit parked in the dust.\u00a0 Most are older vans and sedans.\u00a0 Inside this vast expanse dozens of workers move down the rows. \u00a0

From the highway, many fields are hidden by tall plastic screens.\u00a0 Growers claim they keep animals out, but they are really a legacy of the farmworker strikes of the 1970s.\u00a0 Then growers sought to keep workers inside, away from strikers in the roadway calling out to them, urging them to stop picking and leave.\u00a0 The abusive and dangerous conditions of strawberry workers today, and the eruptions of their protests over them, make the screens more than just a symbol of past conflict. \u00a0

Picking strawberries is one of the most brutal jobs in agriculture.\u00a0 A worker picking wine grapes in the hills can labor standing up.\u00a0 But the men and women in the strawberry rows have to bend double to reach the berries.\u00a0 As strawberries ripen, they hang over the side of raised beds about a foot high, covered in plastic.\u00a0 In a ditch-like row between them, a worker pushes a wire cart on tiny wheels.\u00a0 Each holds a cardboard flat with 8 plastic clamshell containers – the ones you see on supermarket shelves.
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Eduardo Retano plants root stock of strawberry plants.<\/em>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pain of this labor is a constant.\u00a0 Many workers will say you just have to work through the first week, when your back hurts so much you can’t sleep, until your body adjusts and the pain somehow gets less.\u00a0 At the start of the season in March, rain fills the rows with water and the cart must be dragged through the mud.\u00a0 When summer comes the field turns into an oven by midday.

Through it all, workers have to pick as fast as possible.\u00a0 \u00abAt the beginning of the season there aren’t many berries yet,\u00bb Matilde told me.\u00a0 She’d been picking for three weeks, her fifth year in the strawberries.\u00a0 \u00abThe mud makes heavy work even heavier.\u00a0 It’s hard to pick even 5 boxes an hour, but if I can’t make that, or if I pick any green berries, it gets called to my attention.\u00a0 The foreman tells us we’re not trying hard enough, that they don’t have time to teach us, and if we can’t make it we won’t keep working.\u00a0 Some don’t come back the next day, and some are even fired there in the field.\u00bb \u00a0

Mathilde didn’t want to use her last name because being identified might bring retaliation from her boss, a fear shared by another worker, Juana.\u00a0 \u00abNot many people can do this job,\u00bb Juana told me in an interview.\u00a0 She came to Santa Maria from Santiago Tilantongo in Oaxaca and speaks Mixtec (one of the many indigenous languages in southern Mexico), in addition to Spanish, like many strawberry pickers living in the Santa Ynez Valley.\u00a0 She’s been a strawberry worker for 15 years.\u00a0 \u00abI have permanent pain in my lower back,\u00bb she said, \u00aband when it rains it gets very intense.\u00a0 Still, I get up every morning at 4, make lunch for my family, and go to work.\u00a0 It’s a sacrifice, but it’s the only job I can get.\u00bb
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Eliadora Diaz, a Mixtec immigrant from Oaxaca, picks strawberries with her sister Guillermina.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Low Wages, High Cost of Living<\/strong>

On April 1 the Alianza Campesina de la Costa Central (Farmworker Alliance of the Central Coast) organized an event timed to gain public notice at the beginning of the strawberry season.\u00a0 The objective was to pressure growers to raise the wages.\u00a0 The Alianza issued a powerful 44-page report, Harvesting Dignity, The Case for a Living Wage for Farmworkers, that documents in shocking statistics what Mathilda and Juana know from personal experience. \u00a0

Those statistics reveal that the mean hourly wage for farmworkers in Santa Barbara County was $17.42 last year, which would produce a yearly income of $36,244 for a strawberry picker working fulltime, all twelve months.\u00a0 But this calculation includes the higher wages of foremen and management employees.\u00a0 Juana, after 15 years, made $16, the state minimum wage, and Mathilde after five years made the same. \u00a0

In reality, their annual income was much lower because even working the entire season, they would get no more than eight months of work, and often less.\u00a0 At the beginning of the season there are not enough berries for 8 hours each day, so Mathilda only got 6 hours, or 36 hours in a week working on Saturday too.\u00a0 Juana’s week in late March was 15-20 hours. \u00a0

At the height of the season wages go up because growers begin to pay a piece rate, which last year was usually $2.20 for each flat of eight clamshell boxes.\u00a0 To make the equivalent of the minimum wage, a worker would have to pick over 7 flats an hour, and earning more than minimum wage on the piece rate means working like a demon, ignoring the physical cost.\u00a0 At the beginning of the season, \u00abchampion pickers can do 8 or 9 an hour,\u00bb Mathilde explains.\u00a0 \u00abbut not everyone can.\u00a0 6 or 7 is normal.\u00bb\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0

Fulltime work at minimum wage for eight months would produce $21,760.\u00a0 Out of her strawberry wages Juana and her husband, who works in the field with her, are paying $2000 a month rent, or $24,000 a year.\u00a0 Three of her children are grown, and the other three are still at home.\u00a0 \u00abWe have to save to pay the rent during the winter when there’s no work.\u00a0 If we don’t, we don’t have a place to live,\u00bb she explains.\u00a0 \u00abDuring those five months there are always bills we can’t pay, like water.\u00a0 By March there’s no money at all, and we have to get loans to survive.\u00bb\u00a0 The loans come from \u00abfriends\u00bb who charge 10% interest.\u00a0 \u00abPlus, I have to send money to my mama and papa in Mexico.\u00a0 There are many people depending on me.\u00bb
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Sabina Cayetano and her son Aron lived in an apartment complex in Santa Maria.\u00a0 In the spring and summer she worked picking strawberries.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mathilde and her husband and their two children share a bedroom in a two-bedroom house.\u00a0 Another family of three lives in the other, and together they pay $2,200 in rent.\u00a0 \u00abFortunately, my husband works construction, and gets $20 an hour,\u00bb she says, \u00abbut the same months when there are no strawberries the rain cuts his hours too.\u00a0 It would be much harder if we didn’t have his work, and we try to save and save, and look for work in the winter, but often there’s just enough money for food.\u00a0 We don’t eat beef or fish, just economical foods like pasta, rice and beans.\u00a0 And even with that sometimes we have to get a loan too.\u00bb

According to Harvesting Justice, the median rent in Santa Barbara County is $2,999 per month.\u00a0 Using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculation formula, the report estimates the annual food cost for a family with two children at $12,880, and the total income required for all basic expenses at $99,278. As a result, a UC Merced\/California Department of Public Health survey found that a quarter of all farmworkers sleep in a room with three or more people. \u00a0

This poverty affects all farmworkers in the state, in all aspects of life.\u00a0 Less than a quarter of undocumented field laborers have health insurance, and the Harvesting Dignity report estimates that people without immigration documents make up 80 percent of those living in Santa Maria.\u00a0 Because reporting bad conditions, and even more so protesting them, is much riskier for undocumented workers, having no papers affects survival at work as well.\u00a0 \u00abIn Santa Barbara County in 2023 there were two farmworker deaths,\u00bb it noted, \u00abboth related to poor supervision and training. In one instance, farmworkers reported they were told to continue working in a Cuyama carrot field alongside the body of their fallen coworker.\u00bb

Workers Calling for Change: The Wish Farms Strike<\/strong>

Santa Maria strawberry workers have mounted many challenges to this low wage system.\u00a0 In 1997 a Mixteco worker group organized a strike that stopped the harvest on all the valley’s ranches, which lasted three days.\u00a0 More recently workers at Rancho Laguna Farms protested the owner’s failure to follow CDC guidelines during the pandemic, and won a 20\u00a2 per box raise by stopping work.\u00a0 In 2021 forty pickers at Hill Top Produce used the same tactic to raise the per-box piece rate from $1.80 to $2.10, which was followed by similar action by 150 pickers at West Coast Berry Farms.\u00a0 At the beginning of the next season in 2022 work stopped at J&G Berry Farms in another wage protest.

Last year, workers carried out a dramatic and well-organized strike at Wish Farms, a large berry grower with fields in Santa Maria and Lompoc, and headquarters in Florida.\u00a0 At the height of the season, to increase production the company promised a wage of $6\/hour plus $2.50 per box, a rate they’d paid the previous year.\u00a0 When workers saw their checks, however, the piece rate bonus was a dollar less.\u00a0 They met with Fernando Martinez, an organizer with the Mixteco Indigenous Community Organizing Project (MICOP), which belongs to the Alianza Campesina.\u00a0 Martinez and MICOP organizers had helped workers during the earlier work stoppages, and urged the Wish Farms strikers to go out to the fields to call other workers to join.\u00a0 \u00abWe helped them form a committee,\u00bb Martinez says, \u00aband in a meeting at the edge of the field they voted to form a permanent organization, Freseros por la Justicia [Strawberry Workers for Justice].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\ufeffStrawberry workers on strike against Wish Farms, a large berry grower in Santa Maria and Lompoc\u00a0 Most were indigenous Mixtec migrants from Oaxaca and southern Mexico, but who now live in the U.S. \u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Workers say they discovered, however, that after they walked out the company brought a crew of workers with H-2A guestworker visas into one of the fields to replace them.\u00a0 The H-2A program allows growers to recruit workers in Mexico and other countries, and bring them to work for less than a year, after which they have to return home.\u00a0 Workers are almost all young men.\u00a0 Those who can’t work fast enough, or who protest conditions, can be fired at any time and sent back.\u00a0 Federal regulations establish a wage for them, which last year in California was $18.65 per hour.

Replacing domestic workers with H-2A workers during a labor dispute is a violation of Federal regulations.\u00a0 Wish Farms did not respond to requests for comment about the strike.

Concepcion Chavez, one of the strikers, told me in an interview that \u00abwhen we would work by the hour, the company was paying them [the H-2A workers] $18.65 [per hour], and us $16.25.\u00a0 Many of the workers who live here felt the company really wanted us to leave.\u00a0 We are always afraid they’ll replace us, because they give a preference to the contratados [H-2A workers].\u00a0 That’s what the supervisors say, that they’ll replace us and send in the contratados.\u00bb

After two days strikers reached an agreement with Wish Farms and went back to work.\u00a0 In September, however, as the work slowed for the winter, Chavez asked if she would be hired again the following season.\u00a0 \u00abIn the office they told me they had no job because the company was already filled up,\u00bb she recalled.\u00a0 \u00abBut when I went back to my foreman, he said the company had told him not to give me a job.\u00a0 That happened to other workers who were in the strike too.\u00bb

Another Roadblock to Change: Union Busting<\/strong>

According to Martinez, \u00abThere were a lot of strikes until last year, mostly to challenge low wages.\u00a0 But after the strikes, workers usually don’t want to continue organizing because the company brings in anti-union consultants.\u00a0 Wish Farms brought in Raul Calvo, who has been in other farms also.\u00a0 We’ve heard from workers that growers tell them not to participate in meetings with community organizations like us. They’re trying to intimidate people, because they’re afraid workers will organize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strawberry workers on strike call out to other workers to leave the field and join them.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Calvo has along history as an anti-union consultant.\u00a0 At the Apio\/Curation Foods processing facility in Guadalupe, a few miles from Santa Maria, Calvo was paid over $2 million over eight years to convince workers not to organize with the United Food and Commercial Workers.\u00a0 After the union was defeated in 2015, Curation Foods was bought by ag giant Taylor Farms for $73 million.

Following huge wildfires in 2017, Calvo appeared in Sonoma County in 2022 to oppose proposals for worker protections.\u00a0 A coalition of labor and community groups, North Bay Jobs with Justice, proposed hazard pay, disaster insurance, community monitoring and safety training in indigenous languages like Mixteco, for farmworkers laboring in smoke and other dangerous conditions.\u00a0 Calvo organized a committee of pro-grower workers, who testified at hearings in opposition.\u00a0 An ordinance including some of the protections was finally passed by the county Board of Supervisors later that year.\u00a0 Most recently, Calvo was hired by the Wonderful Company to organize another anti-union committee to oppose nursery workers in Wasco, CA, who are trying to join the United Farm Workers.

Opposition to unions and worker organizing activity is one reason why strawberry wages remain close to the legal minimum, according to the Harvesting Justice report.\u00a0 One of its authors, Erica Diaz Cervantes, feels strongly that the wage system is unjust.\u00a0 \u00abDuring the pandemic, these workers provided our food, even though as consumers we can be oblivious of that fact.\u00a0 So when the workers have initiated these strikes, it has put more attention on their situation.\u00bb\u00a0 Diaz Cervantes is the Senior Policy Advocate for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE), which formed the Alianza with MICOP.

Nevertheless, the strikes haven’t resulted in permanent worker organizations.\u00a0 \u00abThere are a lot of union busters who discourage workers,\u00bb she says.\u00a0 \u00abThey win small improvements and wins, but always in the piece rate, never the basic hourly wage.\u00a0 And the actions don’t go on longer because workers can’t afford to.\u00bb

Jamshid Damooei, professor and director of the economics program at California Lutheran University, and executive director of the Center for Economics of Social Issues, was a principal advisor for the report.\u00a0 \u00abProfit seeking by growers is greatly responsible for the low wages,\u00bb he told me.\u00a0 \u00abIf they can depress wages, the profit is greater.\u00a0 Unionization can help workers because the function of a union is to give them the ability to negotiate.\u00bb
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The Diaz family, Mixtec immigrants from Oaxaca, slept and lived in a single room in a house in Oxnard, where other migrant families also lived.\u00a0 The Diaz family are strawberry workers.\u00a0 From the left, Guiillermina Ortiz Diaz, Graciela, Eliadora, their mother Bernardina Diaz Martinez, and little sister Ana Lilia.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Impact of H-2A Workers<\/strong>

But workers’ bargaining leverage is undermined by their immigration status, he believes.\u00a0 \u00abEighty percent of farmworkers in Santa Maria are undocumented, and without them there is no agriculture.\u00a0 Yet the median wage, which in 2019 was $26,000 a year for farmworkers born in the U.S, was only $13,000 – half that – for the undocumented.\u00bb

While undocumented labor is cheap, nevertheless strawberry growers in Santa Maria increasingly use the H-2A program to bring workers under labor contracts from Mexico and Central America.\u00a0 About 2 million workers labor in U.S. fields. Last year, the Department of Labor gave growers permission to bring 371,619 H-2A workers – or about a sixth of the entire U.S. farm labor workforce – a fourfold increase from 98,813 in 2012.

Growers provide food and housing for the workers, although there is a long record of complaints over crowding, substandard conditions, and enforce isolation from the surrounding community.\u00a0 Because employment is limited to less than a year, workers must apply to recruiters to return each year.\u00a0 \u00a0

Growers say they face a labor shortage making this necessary.\u00a0 According to Western Growers President & CEO Tom Nassif, \u00abFarmers in all sectors of U.S. agriculture, especially in the labor-intensive fruit and vegetable industries, are experiencing chronic labor shortages, which have been exacerbated by recent interior immigration enforcement and tighter border security policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This trailer, at 1340 Prell St., was listed as the housing for six H-2A workers by La Fuente Farming, Inc.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That is not the case, at least in Santa Maria, Diaz Cervantes responds.\u00a0 She says the 2022 census reported 12,000 workers in the Santa Ynez Valley.\u00a0 Martinez believes the true number is double that, and that 60% are Mixtecos.\u00a0 \u00abI do not think there’s a shortage of farmworkers here,\u00bb Diaz charges. \u00abWe know it’s a lot more because many undocumented people are afraid to be counted.\u00a0 There are always people ready to work and put in more hours.\u00a0 It’s just a way to justify increasing the H-2A program.\u00a0 Overall there are a lot of local workers in the county.\u00bb

What makes the H-2A program attractive to growers, Damooei says, is that \u00abworkers do not have much ability to negotiate their labor contracts.\u00a0 Their living environment and mobility are restricted, and they face repression if they protest.\u00a0 That has an impact on workers living here.\u00bb

One recent case highlights the vulnerability of H-2A workers.\u00a0 Last September at Sierra del Tigre Farms in Santa Maria, more than 100 workers were terminated before their work contracts had ended and told to go back to Mexico. The company then refused to pay them the legally required wages they would have earned. The company’s alter ego, Savino Farms, had already been fined for the same violation four years earlier,.

One worker, Felipe Ramos, was owed more than $2,600. \u00abIt was very hard,\u00bb he remembers. \u00abI have a wife and baby girl, and they survive because I send money home every week. Everyone else was like that too. The company had problems finding buyers, and too many workers.\u00bb\u00a0 In March Sierra del Tigre Farms declared bankruptcy, still owing workers their wages.\u00a0 Last year Rancho Nuevo Harvesting, Inc., another labor contractor, was forced by the Department of Labor to pay $1 million in penalties and back wages to H-2A workers it had cheated in a similar case<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bars on the windows of the complex at 1316\/1318 Broadway, was listed as the housing for 160 workers by Big F Company, Inc. and Savino Farms.\u00a0 It was formerly senior housing, and the contractor built a wall around it, with a gate controling who enters and leaves.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Rick Mines, a statistician who designed the original National Agricultural Workers Survey for the U.S. Department of Labor, \u00abThere are about 2 million farmworkers in the U.S., mostly immigrant men and women who live as families with U.S- born children.\u00a0 They are being displaced by a cheaper, more docile labor force of single male H-2A workers.\u00a0 The H-2A program should be phased out and replaced with a program of legal entry for immigrants who can bring their families and eventually become equal American citizens.\u00a0\u00a0 We should not become a democracy that is half slave and half free.\u00bb

A New Way Forward<\/strong>

As the strawberry season unfolds in Santa Maria, warmer weather will dry out the mud.\u00a0 The berries will ripen faster and become more numerous.\u00a0 It will be the time growers feel the most pressure to get them from the fields to supermarket shelves.\u00a0 It will also be the time Juana and Mathilde depend on each year to pay past bills and hopefully save for future ones.\u00a0 They will need the work.\u00a0 How the Alianza Campesina uses this moment could have a big impact on their wages and lives.

\u00abPerhaps there are different ways to change things,\u00bb Martinez speculates.\u00a0 \u00abWe’ve thought about a local ordinance like ones we’ve seen for other kinds of workers.\u00a0 A union could also raise pay and bring benefits and holidays.\u00bb

MICOP and CAUSA are holding house meetings with workers, and a general meeting every two weeks. \u00abRight now we’re trying to popularize the idea of a sueldo digno [dignified wage] and explain the justice of this demand.\u00a0 The idea is to increase workers’ knowledge.\u00a0 And since so many of us are Mixtecos, we’re getting workers to reach out to their workmates from the same home communities in Oaxaca.\u00bb\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alondra Mendoza, a community outreach worker for MICOP, talks with a farmworker outside the Panaderia Susy early in the morning before work<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Diaz adds that workers can see the labor activity happening elsewhere in the country.\u00a0 \u00abOur report is adding to what workers are already doing.\u00a0 Whatever they do we’re right behind them.\u00bb

Mathilde has already made up her mind.\u00a0 \u00abIt’s necessary to pressure the ranchers so they value our work,\u00bb she says.\u00a0 \u00abWithout us they have nothing.\u00a0 We do all the work, so why should we get $2 or $2.20 per box when $3 or $3.50 is what’s fair.\u00a0 People have to unite, and we need big demonstrations.\u00a0 I am willing to help organize this, because it will make life a lot better.\u00a0 I hope it will happen soon.\u00bb
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BROOKE ANDERSON PODCAST #8<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s How the Light Gets In<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of my most significant mentors and photographic collaborators, my dear friend and comrade David Bacon, joins me in conversations this week.

LISTEN: https:\/\/linktr.ee\/thatshowthelightgetsinpodcast<\/a> (or anywhere you get your podcasts)

David came up as a union organizer with the United Farm Workers and United Electrical Workers, then spent decades as a photographer, photojournalist, labor reporter, and radio host covering labor, migration, and global economy. In this week\u2019s episode, we talk David\u2019s journey from organizer to photojournalist, his early influences, the role of movement photographers, the importance of media workers taking collective action to support their labor rights, journalists speaking out to support a ceasefire in Gaza, and advice for new photographers developing their photographic practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MAS QUE UN MURO<\/strong>
\nLas comunidades fronterizas y sus movimientos de justica social
\nFotografias de David Bacon

\nFototeca de Zacatecas Pedro Valtierra
\nFernando Millapando 406, Centro Historico, Zacatecas
\nMarzo – Mayo, 2024

\nCinco Entrivistas sobre esta exposicion, en el Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo, CDMX:

\nPart 1:  https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6eix0HEStpc<\/a>

\nPart 2:  https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FO4IIBPs06U<\/a>

\nPart 3:  https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VHtY-fgtsjs<\/a>

\nPart 4:  https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Xm_MNrEX2Mw<\/a>

\nPart 5:  https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MpwSuBbgAQs<\/a>

\nLa imagen de una cruz en el cementerio de \nHoltville, en California, Estados Unidos, con la leyenda \u201cNo olvidados\u201d,\n con la que activistas religiosos reconocen a los migrantes muertos sin \nidentidad, recibe al p\u00fablico de la exposici\u00f3n M\u00e1s que un muro, de David \nBacon.

\nDurante la inauguraci\u00f3n, la directora del MNCM, Alejandra G\u00f3mez \nColorado, manifest\u00f3 que, desde hace a\u00f1os, este recinto complementa su \ndiscurso hist\u00f3rico y etnogr\u00e1fico con reflexiones que vienen desde la \nfotograf\u00eda y el arte contempor\u00e1neo. Una l\u00ednea acorde con el trabajo de \nBacon, \u201cuna expresion dura y cruda de la vida que transcurre de uno y \notro lado de la frontera M\u00e9xico-Estados Unidos\u201d.

\nEsta obra fotogr\u00e1fica dijo por su parte la jefa de la Unidad de Pol\u00edtica\n Migratoria, Registro e Identidad de Personas, de la Segob, Roc\u00edo \nGonz\u00e1lez Higuera, permiten acercarse a las historias, retos, \u00e9xitos y \nfracasos de cada persona que migra, desde dos puntos:

\n\u201cEl primero, la protecci\u00f3n de la memoria contra el paso del tiempo, es \ndecir, colocar la lente y los sentimiento sobre objetos y personas que \nnos permiten evocar que la frontera es un c\u00famulo de historias en \ndesarrollo; el segundo, es la expresi\u00f3n de posturas frente a los \nprocesos de movilidad, particularmente la migraci\u00f3n irregular\u201d.

\nBacon, fot\u00f3grafo, escritor y activista social, comenz\u00f3 a documentar las \nvidas y los movimientos sociales de migrantes, trabajadores agr\u00edcolas y \ncomunidades afectadas por la globalizaci\u00f3n, hace casi cuatro d\u00e9cadas.  \nEl fot\u00f3grafo detall\u00f3 que su aproximaci\u00f3n a estas realidades inici\u00f3 en \n1986, siendo trabajador de una f\u00e1brica y sindicalista con United Farm \nWorkers. A lo largo de este tiempo, indic\u00f3, ha podido registrar c\u00f3mo la \npol\u00edtica migratoria implementada por su pa\u00eds devino en una \u201cpol\u00edtica de \nmuerte\u201d, al orillar a quienes buscan el sue\u00f1o americano a transitar por \nsitios peligrosos como el desierto de Sonora-Arizona.

\nEn la l\u00ednea fronteriza que atraviesa el desierto cual se ubican con \nexactitud 4,000 etiquetas forenses de restos recuperados de personas \nidentificadas, y casi 2,000 de personas sin identificar. El visitante \ndebe llenar estas fichas, acto que conmemora por unos instantes esas \nvidas perdidas No obstante, anot\u00f3 David Bacon, la frontera es tambi\u00e9n \ntierra de vivos: \u201cLos otrora peque\u00f1os pueblos de Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez y Tijuana\n son ciudades de millones. La frontera es el escenario de algunas de las\n luchas sociales m\u00e1s agudas de M\u00e9xico. Los trabajadores de las f\u00e1bricas \norganizan sindicatos independientes, mientras que los agr\u00edcolas se \ndeclaran en huelga en los campos de Baja California\u201d.

\nEn ese sentido, finaliz\u00f3, las cerca de 30 fotograf\u00edas que integran M\u00e1s \nque un muro, \u201cnos permiten ver a la gente, sus luchas por los derechos y\n la igualdad, combatiendo la histeria antiinmigrante y antimexicana\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WORKING COACHELLA<\/strong>
\nPhotographs by David Bacon

\nCivil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California
\n3933 Mission Inn Avenue, Suite 103
\nRiverside, CA 92501

\nINTERVIEW WITH DAVID BACON AT THE WORKING COACHELLA EXHIBITION
\nClick here:  https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/C2yAtHDPc5Q\/<\/a>

\nDavid Bacon’s Working Coachella – Labor Heritage Power Hour with Chris Garlock
https:\/\/www.listennotes.com\/podcasts\/labor-heritage\/david-bacons-working-coachella-FGTeo-nqcuX\/<\/a>
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\n\n\n\n

\nPacific Media Workers Guild, CWA Local 39521, adopted a resolution supporting the Labor Call for a Ceasefire in Gaza:<\/strong>https:\/\/mediaworkers.org\/guild-joins-calls-for-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza\/<\/a>

WHEN WE SPOKE OUT AGAINST WAR<\/strong>
\nUnearthing the history of protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
\nPhotographs \u00a9 by David Bacon
https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/56646659@N05\/52759801492\/in\/album-72177720306862427\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BOOKS – LIBROS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MORE THAN A WALL \/ MAS QUE UN MURO<\/strong>
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More Than a Wall \/ Mas que Un Muro explores the many aspects of the border region through photographs taken by David Bacon over a period of 30 years. These photographs trace the changes in the border wall itself, and the social movements in border communities, factories and fields. This bilingual book provides a reality check, to allow us to see the border region as its people, with their own history of movements for rights and equality, and develop an alternative vision in which the border can be a region where people can live and work in solidarity with each other. – Gaspar Rivera-Salgado

David Bacon has given us, through his beautiful portraits, the plight of the American migrant worker, and the fierce spirit of those who provide and bring to us comfort and sustenance. — Lila Downs

Published by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte with support from the UCLA Institute for Labor Research and Education and the Center for Mexican Studies, the Werner Kohlstamm Family Fund, and the Green Library at Stanford University

Price:\u00a0 $35 plus postage and handling
To order, click here: \u00a0
https:\/\/david-bacon-photography.square.site\/product\/more-than-a-wall-mas-que-un-muro\/1?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false<\/a>

\u00abThe \u00abborder\u00bb is just a line. It’s the people who matter.\u00bb – JoAnn Intili, director, The Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund

IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH \/ EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE<\/strong>
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Photographs and text by David Bacon
University of California Press \/ Colegio de la Frontera Norte
302 photographs, 450pp, 9\u201dx9\u201d
paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)
order the book on the UC Press website:
ucpress.edu\/9780520296077<\/a>
use source code\u00a0 16M4197\u00a0 at checkout, <\/strong>receive a 30% discount

En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF:
https:\/\/www.colef.mx<\/a>

Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North \/ En los Campos del Norte – click here<\/a>
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WORK AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: <\/strong>
The David Bacon Archive exhibition at Stanford Libraries
https:\/\/exhibits.stanford.edu\/bacon\/browse<\/a>

Exhibited throughout the pandemic in the Cecil H. Green Library at Stanford. The online exhibition (https:\/\/exhibits.stanford.edu\/bacon<\/a>), which includes additional content not included in the physical show, is accessible to everyone, and is part of an accessible digital spotlight collection that includes significant images from this body of work. For a catalog: (https:\/\/web.stanford.edu\/dept\/spec_coll\/NonVendorPubOrderform2017.pdf<\/a>)

Online Interviews and Presentations<\/strong>
Red Lens Episode 6: David Bacon on US-Mexico border photography<\/strong>
Brad Segal: On episode 6 of Red Lens, I talk with David Bacon. David Bacon is a California-based writer and documentary photographer. A former union organizer, today he documents labor, the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights.\u00a0 We talk about David’s new book, ‘More than a Wall \/ Mas que un muro’ which includes 30 years of his photography and oral histories from communities & struggles in the U.S.-Mexico border region.
https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/posts\/71834023?fbclid=IwAR0BRhHYbrYU3BoeoAMFKU_zdHs5Xirmmt1LzQtfwf1yD8p9EYLXKhzzbDE<\/a>

Letters and Politics – Three Decades of Photographing The Border & Border Communities<\/strong>
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Nvs6SyXsM-4<\/a>
Host Mitch Jeserich interviews David Bacon, a photojournalist, author, broadcaster and former labor organizer. He has reported on immigrant and labor issues for decades. His latest book, More Than A Wall, is a collection of his photographs of the border and border communities spanning three decades.

Exploitation or Dignity – What Future for Farmworkers<\/strong>
UCLA Latin American Institute
Based on a new report by the Oakland Institute, journalist and photographer David Bacon documents the systematic abuse of workers in the H-2A program and its impact on the resident farmworker communities, confronted with a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions.
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UXKa2lHJXMs<\/a>

David Bacon on union solidarity with Iraqi oil worker unions<\/strong>
Free City Radio – CKUT 27\/10\/2021 –
https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/freecityradio\/oct-27-2021-ckut-27102021-david-bacon-on-union-solidarity-with-iraqi-oil-worker-unions<\/a>
\u00a0
Organizing during COVID, the intrinsic value of the people who grow our food<\/strong>
Sylvia Richardson – Latin Waves Media
How community and union organizers came together to get rights for farm workers during COVID, and how surviving COVID has literally been an act of resistance.
https:\/\/latinwavesmedia.com\/wordpress\/organizing-during-covid-the-intrinsic-value-of-the-people-who-grow-our-food\/<\/a>
\u00a0
Report Details Slavery-Like Conditions For Immigrant Guest Workers<\/strong>
Rising Up With Sonali Kohatkar
https:\/\/www.oaklandinstitute.org\/report-details-slavery-conditions-immigrant-guest-workers<\/a>
The Right to Remain<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.franknews.us\/interviews\/415\/the-right-to-remain<\/a>
Beware of Pity<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.franknews.us\/interviews\/525\/beware-of-pity<\/a>

En Espa\u00f1ol
Ruben Luengas – #EnContacto<\/strong>
Hablamos con David Bacon de los migrantes y la situaci\u00f3n de M\u00e9xico frente a los Estados Unidos por ser el principal pa\u00eds de llegada a la frontera de ese pa\u00eds.
https:\/\/rubenluengas.com\/2021\/03\/video-mexico-estados-unidos-migracion-y-suenos-rotos-encontacto\/<\/a>

Jornaleros agr\u00edcolas en EEUU en condiciones m\u00e1s graves por Covid-19: David Bacon<\/strong>
SomosMas99 con Agustin Galo Samario
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YWQSvM9s1lw<\/a>

\u00abLos fot\u00f3grafos tomamos partido\u00bb<\/strong>
Entrevista por Melina Balc\u00e1zar Moreno – Milenio.com Laberinto
http:\/\/www.milenio.com\/cultura\/laberinto\/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.html<\/a>

David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agr\u00edcola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx\/comunicacion\/nota\/0038-18<\/a>
\u00a0
Online Photography Exhibitions<\/strong>
Documentary Matters –\u00a0 View from the US\u00a0<\/strong>
Social Documentary Network
Four SDN photographers explore themes of racial justice, migration, and #MeToo
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fWl-uENA7SQ&t=1641s<\/a>
\u00a0
There’s More Work to be Done<\/strong>
Housing Assistance Council and National Endowment for the Arts
This exhibition\u00a0documents the work and impact of the struggle for equitable and affordable housing in rural America, inspired by the work of George \u201cElfie\u201d Ballis.
https:\/\/www.thereismoreworktobedone.com\/david-bacon<\/a>
\u00a0
Dark Eyes<\/strong>
A beautiful song by Lila Downs honoring essential workers, accompanied by photographs
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bdC2gE3SNWw<\/a>

A video about the Social Justice Photography of David Bacon:
https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/14TvAj5nS08ENzWhw3Oxra4LMNKJCLF4z\/view<\/a>

In the FIelds of the North<\/strong>
Online Exhibit
Los Altos History Museum
https:\/\/www.losaltoshistory.org\/exhibits\/in-the-fields-of-the-north\/<\/a>

Virtual Tour – In the Fields of the North<\/strong>
History Museum of Tijuana
Recorrido Virtual de la Exposicion – En los campos del norte<\/strong>
Museo de Historia de Tijuana
https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/542258639265202\/videos\/659536991515786<\/a>

THE REALITY CHECK – David Bacon blog<\/strong>
http:\/\/davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com<\/a>

Other Books by David Bacon – Otros Libros<\/strong>
The Right to Stay Home: \u00a0How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration \u00a0(Beacon Press, 2013)
http:\/\/www.beacon.org\/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328<\/a>
Illegal People — How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants\u00a0 (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http:\/\/www.beacon.org\/Illegal-People-P780.aspx<\/a>

Communities Without Borders (Cornell University\/ILR Press, 2006)
https:\/\/www.cornellpress.cornell.edu\/book\/9780801473074\/communities-without-borders\/#bookTabs=1<\/a>

The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S.\/Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
https:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book\/9780520244726\/the-children-of-nafta<\/a>

En Espa\u00f1ol: \u00a0
EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA\u00a0 (Critica – Planeta de Libros)
http:\/\/www.planetadelibros.com.mx\/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html<\/a>
HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http:\/\/www.tienda.elviejotopo.com\/prestashop\/capitalismo\/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html<\/a>
For more articles and images, see\u00a0 http:\/\/dbacon.igc.org <\/a>and http:\/\/davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com<\/a>
and https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/56646659@N05\/albums<\/a> <\/td><\/tr>

Copyright \u00a9 2024 David Bacon Photographs and Stories, All rights reserved.<\/em>
you’re on this list because of your interest in david bacon’s photographs and stories
Our mailing address is:<\/strong>
David Bacon Photographs and Storiesaddress on requestOakland, Ca 94601
Add us to your address book<\/a> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE HUMAN COST OF A STRAWBERRY WAGE By David Bacon Civil Eats, 4\/24\/24https:\/\/civileats.com\/2024\/04\/24\/strawberry-farmworkers-fight-for-a-living-wage\/https:\/\/davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com\/2024\/04\/the-human-cost-of-strawberry-wage.html Driving north on California’s Highway 101 through the central coast, a traveler approaches the Santa Ynez Valley through miles of grapevines climbing gently rolling hills.\u00a0 Here humans have mastered nature, the landscape seems to say – a bucolic vision of agriculture with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avisosyconvocatorias"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29985,"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29984\/revisions\/29985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colef.mx\/elmuro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}