UNEARTHED: AMERICA'S FARM WORKERS (PART 2) - LIVING CONDITIONS

[This post is a continuation of UNEARTHED: AMERICA’S FARM WORKERS AND THE H-2A VISA POSTED ON 1/3/16. Check it out here.]

To say the wage is good and leave it at that, however, is to omit some pretty important nuances. The first thing that stood out to me, as a visitor to this world of migrant work, was the living conditions. Over the course of my first season, I visited about six farms. And while six is a pretty miniscule sample size, it did provide me with what appeared to be a pretty consistent glimpse of typical living conditions for these gentlemen. All the workers I visited lived dormitory style (sharing a room with at least one roommate). Most lived in long, low cement block structures tucked away in a cluster of trees deep on the farm land from the nearest road, their temporary homes accessible from dirt roads jutting off the main, paved road. My visits occurred on nights that ranged in temperature from the 80s to the high 40s and the rooms I visited on these nights did not appear to have either heating or cooling systems. Anywhere from 20 to 60 men live in these barracks-like structures and share kitchen facilities and bathrooms. There is running water and electricity. While the accommodations are by no means plush, and the lack of heating and cooling can run anywhere from uncomfortable to dangerous, living quarters appear to be safe, if bare bones. One wonders, though, if the average American, would tolerate it. But I guess that also depends on how you describe the average American. According to the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, 1.7 million people in the U.S. still lived without indoor plumbing in the year 2000.

Perhaps the most alarming thing about the living conditions of these men is now what they look like, or the amenities available or lacking, but how isolated they are. I felt I was “in the middle of nowhere” on my first visit to the farms; these men live there, often for half of the year or more. They rely on farm-organized trips to pick up groceries and supplies, or on the kindness of volunteers from organizations such as the North Carolina Farm Worker’s Project (NCFWP). If any of these men were being abused or exploited, I wondered to myself, what recourse would they have, and who would even know?