Migrant Farmers

Migrant Farmers of The Depression Era:Then and Now

---Life on migrant farmers was very hard during the Great Depression. Farmers struggled with low prices for the crops they produced all through the 1920s, but after 1929 things began to really down hill. During WWI farmers worked hard to produce record crops and livestock but after the war, when demand fell, prices fell so farmers tried to produce even more to pay their debts. In the early 1930s prices dropped so low that many farmers either couldn't pay rent on their land or went bankrupt and lost their farms. Farmers became looked to the government to step in to keep farm families in their homes but little was done.

---The situation for farmers during the Great Depression got so bad that

In Le Mars, Iowa, a mob of angry farmers burst into a courtroom and took the judge from the bench in the middle of the day. They brought him out of the courtroom, and drove him out of town so that he would not take any more cases that were costing families their farms. This however, did not work; the governor of Iowa called out the National Guard and put most of the gang's members behind bars[*11].

--- The Great Depression brought a tile wave of displaced farmers to California from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

They joined many other migrant workers already there such as Mexican-Americans and Filipino-Americans that were working on the "factory ranches" in California. As the Depression got worse, the growers lowered that wages of workers and laid some off. This hurt the migrant farmers because they were already being paid very little. Between 1929 and 1933, wages went from $3.50 per day $1.90 to a day. Most of these migrant farmworkers did not qualify for government aid because three year residency was required. Migrant Farmworkers had no choice but to walk out of the fields. The Farmworkers in California had as many as 50 strikes in 1933 alone; they told growers, "You can pick your own crops for $1.75 a day!"

[*12].

---The situation most migrant farmers found themselves in was very bleak. Migrant farmers of all races lived in temporary camps as they moved from farm to farm following the seasonal work. As the Great Depression wreaked havoc California's economy during the 1930s, Mexicans and Mexican Americans became targets for discrimination and migrant farmers looking for work were often looked over because Mexican Americans would work for less. White government officials stated that Mexican immigrants made up most of California's unemployed. White trade unions claimed that Mexican immigrants were taking jobs that should go to white men. In reality, white refugees from the Midwest made up the majority of the unemployed, they were flooding California, desperate for work.
--- Agriculture in the United States was crippled due to the ongoing Dust Bowl drought in the Midwest, while California was relatively untouched.

Farmers from the Midwest fled to California in search of work because they had lost their farms. Farm owners in California had a chance to make a large profit with so much cheap labor available. Conditions during the Great Depression were very hard on migrant farmworkers. With little income, poor living conditions and no other options, these migrant workers arguably saw the worst of the Great Depression[*13]. During the 1930s, some 1.3 million Americans from the Midwest and southwest migrated to California The arrival of Okies and Arkies set the stage for physical and ideological conflicts over how to deal with seasonal farm labor and produced literature that resonates decades later, as students read and watch "The Grapes of Wrath" (John Steinbeck) and farmers and advocates continue to argue over how to obtain and treat seasonal farm

workers[*14].

---Since, economic exploitation of farm workers of all races has continued California and across the United States. Farm owners continue to pay migrant workers as little as possible and offer them very poor living conditions[*13] Anywhere between 1 and 3 million migrant farm workers plant, cultivate, harvest, and pack fruits, vegetables and nuts in the U.S. every year. Although invisible to most people,there are many migrant farm workers rural communities throughout the nation. Since so many migrant farm workers are in America illegally, they are often unable to protest inadequate conditions or report employer’s violation of labor, health or safety laws authorities for fear of displacement and deportation. Furthermore, farm workers lack political leverage, and so they remain a disenfranchised part of the American work-force. This lack of legal status sets the stage for farm workers’ lack of voice and power in essence making them invisible. Like in the Great Depression, theses migrant farm workers have no choice and the government has not little for them[*15]

Women Migrant Workers in the US
We usually imagine migrant workers as young men who travel abroad to find jobs in agriculture, construction or restaurants. Less attention is paid to women, who also migrate; we tend to think of them as passively accompanying their husbands. In fact, more than half of the Latin American migrants to the U.S. are women searching for jobs as domestics or in light manufacturing such as garment or microelectronic factories. As global trade systems penetrate the more "traditional" segments of the world, women are participating increasingly in economic enterprises outside their homes and families; more and more women are being forced to compete for jobs in their own countries and abroad.
Women foreign migrant workers, largely from traditional societies, are having to adapt to industrial life in foreign cultures. The stresses they experience are compounded by their dual roles as workers and as mothers.
The situation of female migrants is in many ways similar to that of their male counterparts. Most workers migrate in the hope of finding steady work at wages far above what they would receive at home. Those who travel abroad are often already victims of foreign economies even before leaving home. Policies that permit agribusiness corporations to convert land being used for domestic food production to export production have displaced peasants and forced many to migrate. Global recession and austerity policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund have caused a sharp rise in third world unemployment.
The stressful lives of these workers affects their families and others intimately connected with them. According to the Archdiocese of Brooklyn, New York, there is a disturbingly high amount of domestic violence in households of undocumented workers, commonly resulting in a high incidence of child abuse and battering.
Relatively high frequencies of emotional disorders have also been noted. For example, a substantial proportion of the patients in the psychiatric unit in Kings County Hospital, a large public hospital in Brooklyn, are Haitian migrants. Other than hospitalizing individuals when they are in acute need of care, little can be done for them since owing to language problems and lack of funds to pay for extended hospitalization, they are released back into the community as quickly as possible. The chances of finding outpatient care for such patients are extremely small.
It has been noted by some Haitian health professionals that although alcoholism among Haitian women is uncommon in Haiti, it is beginning to be a common problem among Haitian women living in the U.S. Although emotional problems result from the pressures of living in a hostile foreign environment, they may also stem from a sense of failure or rejection in the mother country where workers cannot sustain themselves or their families.