| The Southern Poverty Law Center just (and by "just" I mean "over a month ago"... but I just found out about it) put out an INCREDIBLE report called "Injustice on Our Plates: Immigrant Women in the U.S. Food Industry." I'm well-informed (or so I thought) about immigration and farmworker issues, particularly because I've been fortunate enough to travel in Mexico and meet people who have worked on U.S. farms and see how they live and what forces them to come here. But... wow. You rarely see anything about immigrant farmworkers that focuses on the injustices that are particular to women, and this report shows that we SHOULD talk about immigrant women's rights much more.
The report mostly focused on undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. from Latin America (mostly Mexico but also Guatemala and elsewhere), and it covers several food-related industries, mostly the meat processing industry and working in the fields. The stories it tells are heartbreaking, like an educated Mexican woman who was promised a lot of money to come to the U.S. legally and work in an office by a human trafficking operation that dumped her at a grape operation where she had to live more or less as a slave and live with 20 others in a converted chickenhouse. Or a woman who was on her way through the desert to the U.S. when the guide tried to rape her. She said, "I have AIDS," so he didn't rape her - but he left her to die in the desert.
When women are raped in the desert, they often don't complain because they are afraid the group will leave them behind to die. Once in the U.S. they often put up with sexual harassment or assault on the job because they don't know they have rights and - if they do know - they are afraid to be fired if they speak up or deported if they go to the police.
Another gender-related issue happens on the job with pay. Woman after woman who was interviewed for this study reports being underpaid or not paid at all, although that undoubtedly happens to men as well. But when a couple works in the field together, often they are both paid in one paycheck that is in the man's name. This helps employers sneak around minimum wage laws, but it also makes that woman more dependent - and thus, vulnerable to abuse - on her husband.
To hear a 30 minute interview about this report (which is VERY worth listening to), check out Melinda Hemmelgarn's Food Sleuth Radio (Dec 30, 2010 episode). |
