"Our Farmworkers Deserve Better"
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/thirst/2023/05/18/farmworkers-deserve-better
"I was repeatedly told that farmworker communities are notoriously hard to build trust in. 'They won’t speak to media,' one editor warned me. 'They’re afraid of journalists,' a reporter friend said. I came to parrot these lines myself—and admittedly, the first several months of reporting were hard. I had particular trouble finding H-2A workers to speak to, but I soon learned it’s not because migrant farmworkers are unwilling to make their voices heard. These workers are hard to reach because of the nature of their work. Farmworkers are also fully aware of the consequences of speaking to a reporter—employers of H-2A workers can covertly blacklist them from being able to legally work in the U.S. Retaliatory employers have threatened undocumented farmworkers with immigration enforcement for detailing wage theft and other abuses. More often than not, these workers choose to speak out anyway."
~ Tina Vasquez
What a MEAN system it is.
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