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We want to believe that in this country these sorts of evils don't exist. We want to believe that when that little sticker reading USA is pasted atop a plump juicy tomato that it was grown ethically. But in fact, this isn't always the case. Food Politics writer Barry Estabrook has just released a great piece of investigative journalism that takes a closer look at the tomato industry and recently, an excerpt from his book Tomatoland appeared in The Atlantic.
The article takes a long hard look at the lives of the illegal immigrants in Florida forced into a life of indentured servitude in America's tomato fields. It's an unsettling story that shows how some in the industry trap innocent immigrants into a life full of forced labor, regular beatings, and inhumane living standards.
Domingo was an illegal immigrant who made his way here from Guatamala in order to make enough money to send money to his sick mother back home. He felt lucky when he scored a gig working for Cesar Navarrete picking tomatoes. He was promised a decent place to live, meals prepared by Navarrete's mother, and approximately $200 per week, leaving plenty extra for his mother. Navarrete even loaned Domingo money to get started.
According to the story:
From the outset, it became apparent that Navarrete's promises were too good to be true. Domingo's 20-dollar-a-week rent wasn't for a room with the family in the neat house but for shared space with three other workers in the back of a box truck out in the junk-strewn yard. It had neither running water nor a toilet, so Domingo and his "room" mates had to urinate and defecate in one corner. It turned out that there were about a dozen other men living behind the Navarrete residence, some in trucks like the one Domingo now called home, others in old vans, and others yet in a crude shack. Navarrete's mother's promise to provide food turned out to be two meager meals a day—eggs, beans, tortillas, rice, and rarely some sort of meat—only six days a week. Often the food would run out before everyone got his share.
Navarrete, however, did a great job loaning out money so that Domingo and the other workers could get alcohol, tallying it all down as money owed back to Navarrete. This was calculated along with basic needs. Again The Atlantic:
Everything, it seemed, had a price that Navarrete jotted down in a notebook, even activities related to basic hygiene. At the end of hot days of fieldwork, Domingo came home covered in perspiration and pesticides and had to pay five dollars to stand naked in the yard and spray himself off with cold water from a garden hose. His debts soon reached $300.
It turned out that it was all a scheme to create modern day American indentured servitude. Workers were forced to work and beaten horribly if they didn't. They weren't allowed to quit either with the constant threat of vicious beatings hanging over their heads.
It's a scary proposition and it shows that sometimes that USA label just isn't enough. Foods need to be local so that you know the farmer and you know that those who grew your food were treated with respect and basic human decency.
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