Rural Banter

Author: ERICA GOODMAN

As has historically been the case, American immigrant populations are often left with the work that we natural-born citizens would prefer not to do. I visited a 2,000-cow dairy in Turlock, California this past August. The day was brutally hot and in the ranching world of NorCal, where fields run acre after endless acre, there was not a tree for shading anywhere in sight. In the 90-plus degrees of heat, a middle-aged Mexican immigrant diligently worked beneath the noon sun, T-shirt discarded in the camel colored dirt as sweat covered his bare, brown chest. We visitors stopped in our air-conditioned Ford pick-up truck and witnessed the man swiftly moving around, cutting twine from hundreds of square hay bales and stacking the loose hay in a massive pile. The Mexican immigrant worked through hundreds of small bales before breaking for lunch. Cut. Cut. Lift. Toss. Over and over, beneath the August sun. When that work was done, the man was scheduled to scrub the water troughs throughout the entire complex - a much cooler, but no more glamorous of a job.

Our tour guide, a student intern named Nate, explained how the worker spoke just enough English to work in the United States for a few months. When he had earned enough money, the man would quit and bring his earnings to his family in Mexico - 12 children, according to Nate - only to return to the dairy farm and the hot California sun when the money runs out.

The migration of Hispanic farm workers has stretched beyond the Southwest borderlands. According to the U.S. Labor Department, almost 80 percent of farm workers in the United States are Mexican-born. Workers from all parts of Central America have settled and continue to settle in rural communities in the Northeast, diversifying predominantly white communities. Lacking a decent education (including only 40 percent reporting that they could speak English), migratory workers are often left dependent upon their hosts. Bi-weekly ventures into town for groceries or entertainment are usually chauffeured in a large van by the farmer's wife.

Overall, rural communities do offer some resources and are generally open to immigrant laborers willing to take the jobs that no one else wants. Yet despite the increasing diversification, there remains a lack of ethnic interaction. Many community members think of Hispanic immigrants as migrants who come and go with the seasons, even if they have settled and begun to raise a family. In fact, the settlement of immigrants could renew community development in rural areas suffering from population loss and economic stagnation. Before any social advancements can occur, we must understand not only the impediments to economic opportunity that immigrants face, but also that the language barrier goes both ways.