THE MEXICANS - HISTORY

The largest group of immigrants drawn to work in Immokalee's fields was, and still is, the Mexicans. They left poverty and corruption in their home country as their lives got worse and worse, and for many of them, there was no hope left. They were, and still are, "rural poor," but being poor in Immokalee is better than being poor where they came from.

The Mexicans I talked to spoke mostly about poverty. Economic conditions in Mexico were never good, especially for the poor people because the gap between rich and poor in their country is huge. The poor people's situations got worse and worse from 1950 to the 1990s, at the same time that Florida's winter vegetable and citrus production really took off. Before coming to the U.S., many of Mexico's poor tried moving to Mexico's large cities; Mexico City has become the largest city in the world because of the number of poor people who moved there. They built makeshift shacks on the outskirts of the city, like "shantytowns." Eventually, many of them decided to risk their lives to cross the border to the United States, and some of them came to Immokalee.

The situation in Mexico seems to get worse all the time. Mexico's President Vicente Fox took office on July 2, 2000. I was very hopeful about him because of his background. Fox was a Coca-Cola executive until 1979, and then worked with his brothers managing two footwear companies and a large vegetable farm. As Mexico's president, he promised to end the rebel conflict in southern Mexico and create one million jobs a year. Several years later, the rebel conflict was less violent, but still going on, and Mexico had lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Half of Mexico's people remained dirt poor.

STORY FROM IMMOKALEE

"Esta bien, Papa. No duele." ("It's alright, Papa, it doesn't hurt.") - Yolanda

Juan, Maria, and their five children lived on the outskirts of Michoacan, Mexico. They worked in fields, picking cotton, strawberries, chilies, and tomatoes. They told me the same story I would soon hear repeatedly: no matter how hard they tried, they could barely earn enough money to survive.

It was 1979 and Yolanda, their oldest child, was twelve years old. She had worked in the fields since she was seven, working alongside her father and mother. At first, the picking was part-time after school and on weekends, but after she had completed four years of education, at the age of nine, she started full-time work. She never went back to school.

Juan loved all his children, but especially his firstborn daughter. She was pretty and smart, and it broke his heart to watch her stooped over in the hot sun, picking or planting, every day. He felt the worst when they were picking cotton. They picked cotton "clean," meaning her small fingers had to pull the soft cotton from between the spikes in the plants. She was quite skilled at doing this, but often she stuck her fingers and they bled. But she never complained. She always told him, "Esta bien, Papa. No duele." ("It's alright, Papa, it doesn't hurt.")

She was so beautiful, and he had not pictured this life for her when she was born. He had dreams for her to go to school and that she would meet a nice man and marry, they would live in a nice house in the city, and she would never have to work again.

Juan wanted everyone in his family to be happy. He wanted his children to be able to play. He never played when he was a boy; all he could remember about his own childhood was working in the fields next to his father and mother.

He also wanted his children to go to school. Though he had no education himself, he understood how important it was. Education offers a chance for a way out - but Juan could not give his children that chance. Everyone in the family had to work just so they could eat and pay their rent. Their situation was so hopeless, he knew it would go on forever. There was only one way out.

One morning as he stood in the fields watching Yolanda picking cotton, he decided he would have to go to the United States to make money and that some day he would take his family there, too. He had heard about a place in Florida where there was work ( a place called Immokalee.

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