Host Intro:

In Washington, D.C., there’s been a lot of talk about immigration. It seems like something is going to happen… but no one really knows what.

About 12 million immigrants live and work in the United States…illegally. Many of them work in the fields… picking the fruits and vegetables we eat…doing the labor most Americans won’t do. Are these laborers the backbone of our country, or are they criminals that deserve to be kicked out?

Leticia Zavala used to be an illegal migrant worker. After 10 years in the field… she got a college degree. Now she’s back in the fields… educating workers about their rights. Next Generation reporter Kristi Keck spent an afternoon with Leticia in rural North Carolina to see what life is like for the workers. They’ve have both rooted – and uprooted – the United States.

I came to the United States. My family brought us in 1986 and we crossed illegally. And the first job we had was in a labor camp in Ohio.

Leticia Zavala is about 5-feet tall. She has wavy brown hair and an infectious smile. It’s late afternoon…and with no make up on…you can tell she’s spent years in the sun.

Did you work on the farm too?

Yes, I was 8 years old when we started working.

And how old were you when you stopped?

We got out of the fields in 1998 because I got a scholarship to go to college.

How rare is it that you would get out of the fields and go to college?

Really, really rare.

Now… Leticia has a degree in business administration… and she’s the organizing director for the southern region of FLOC… the farm labor organizing committee. FLOC is an arm of the AFL-CIO and is working to organize and represent migrant farm workers.

Today…like most every day… Leticia is going back to the fields, but this time, I’m going with her.

We start in Dudley, North Carolina. It’s a small town, about 10 miles south of Goldsboro.

From Dudley we head north. We drive past Goldsboro… through Wayne County…Wilson County… and finally into Nash County.

(nats: pulling out map)

Leticia pulls out a tattered map. Dots mark the location of the farms.

(nats: green means cucumbers...)

But these dots are harder to find than you might think…

I’m gonna ask you to take your first right because we missed our road. When the road ends you’re going to turn left and then you are going to turn right

After acres of fields speckled with trailers and tractors… a dirt road eventually leads us to the Bissette farm.

….we pull up to a lot of 6 yellow trailers. I see four windows… each one is broken. One of the doors won’t shut. The bottom of it is rusted and curled back like ribbon on a birthday present.

Fidel Guierro Carillo works on the farm. He invites us to come inside this trailer… his home.

I ask him what life is like for him.

Como es su vida? Bien sufrido…etc etc.

It’s a suffered job, he says. You work hard all day and you make 250 to 300 dollars a week. Sometimes, he says, it gets so hot he wants to faint. Sometimes, he says, it’s hard to come back.

But Fidel is not here for the work. He’s here for the money… money he will send to his family in Mexico. Fidel’s been at the farm for 10 years… working long hours… for little pay.

We continue talking for a little while. The three other men that live in the trailer watch quietly. They are anxious for us to leave, so they can turn the volume back up on the t.v. We told them we wouldn’t take long.

Before we leave, Leticia takes advantage of the opportunity to pitch FLOC. The workers are mildly interested, but more interested in what’s on tv.

We say goodbye… and get back in the car.

On the way to the next farm… Leticia tells me Fidel is not as content as he seems.

He has broken windows. He has no screens. Doors don’t shut properly….. He got in trouble last year for giving us tours of his house so I know he was a little bit more hesitant about that today.

Not much is said on the way to our next stop… Carson Barns.

We pull up to several long, slate-blue buildings.

They look like the barracks of old concentration camps. From the car, everything looks dreary and stale.

….it’s like where they keep animals.

I expect to hear water dripping and dogs howling… but instead, I hear lively Mexican music.

As I get out of the car… workers emerge from their rooms.

Several are eager to talk.

I ask one man about house.

It’s fine, he says. Just the bare necessities and nothing more.

I look inside. It’s smaller than my college dorm… which was 10 by 15. He shares this windowless room with 3 other men.

What do you do when you are not working, I ask.

He tells me he works all the time.

The empty beer bottles and loud music say otherwise.

Another man tells me why he is here.

He’d have to work for 20 years in Mexico to make what he’d earn in one year here, he says.

This man hopes to be going home – for good – this year.

Before we leave, Leticia and I stop by the kitchen, where two women are making tortillas. The smell makes my mouth water. Leticia talks to a couple of women about FLOC and asks them what they think about the farm.

They tell us they aren’t supposed to have opinions. They don’t want to talk to us.

It doesn’t look like we are going to be invited to dinner, so we get back in the car. On the way back to Dudley, I think about the images I’ve just seen. The housing meets the state’s standards… yet the laws are more lax than what’s required for prisons.

(Car sound fades out….)

The Migrant Housing Act of North Carolina lays out clear guidelines for growers.

Floors must be built of wood…concrete…or asphalt. If wood, they must be elevated at least a foot off the ground. Housing structure must protect the migrants against the weather. There must be no holes in the floors, walls or roofs. Ceilings must be at least 7 feet high.

The Department of Labor says our state’s migrant labor force is probably between 100 and 300-thousand workers. There’s certified housing for about 20-thousand of them.

Brent Jackson grows strawberries, cantaloupes, pumpkins and watermelons… which are actually vegetables, he tells me. He’ll house 70-migrant workers this season.

He’s considered one of the good growers. He doesn’t think the guidelines for migrant housing should be changed.

I would invite anyone who thinks we are violating worker’s rights to come spend some time on the operation and take a look at them. I think they would be pleasantly surprised that the workers were not being abused or they’re not sleeping in bad conditions.

Jackson says America needs a guest worker program in order to keep feeding people as cheaply as we do. Last year… he hired only one American… because only one American showed up for an interview.

Let’s face it… picking cantaloupes or watermelons in the middle of July when it’s 95 degrees is not a pleasant experience but somebody has to do it and we can’t get American workers to do it. That’s a known fact.

(scene change: transition?)

It’s dark now, and it’s time for Leticia to go home. The moon shines, illuminating the fields. Leticia’s eyes sparkle as she tells us about the migrant worker’s struggle.

In Spanish there’s a saying that says “la esperanza muere al ultimo”… hope dies last…and yeah, that’s the way many of us function. We just keep praying and hoping that one day there is going to be a time that every worker is respected and every worker is treated the way they should be treated.

Will there ever be a time when you don’t go back to the farm?

For me personally… I’m a farm worker. That’s my blood.

We’re back where we started …at the Mexican bodega called “La Palmita”

We say goodbye and Leticia walks across the street, to her home which she shares with her new husband. Her home is behind the FLOC offices in what used to be…a field.

For next generation radio, I’m Kristi Keck.