(EMS) 

 

As this year’s polarized election cycle continues, the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric is having profound consequences for farmworkers in California.

In a media briefing on August 2, hosted by Ethnic Media Services, a panel of experts discussed how hate speech impacted the lives of migrant farmworkers.

Speakers

  • Manuel Ortiz Escámez, Sociologist, Audio-Visual Journalist, and Co-Founder Peninsula 360, Redwood City, Ca.
  • Arcenio Lopez, Executive Director, Mixtec Indigenous Community Organizing Project, Ventura, Ca.
  • Gustavo Gasca Gomez, Coordinator-Stop the Hate Project and Immigration Outreach Specialist with Education and Leadership Foundation

California is home to between half and one-third of all U.S. farmworkers, numbering between 500,000 and 800,000. These immigrants, essential for putting food on the nation’s tables, face a paradox: high demand for their labor is met with politically charged hate speech.

“Ninety nine percent of the communities we’ve reached out to are farmworkers and all have expressed anxiety and fear. All feel their future is deeply impacted by this,” said Gustavo Gasca Gomez.

“They’re most concerned about public charge, about being deported if they access benefits like health care that they or their children — who are often U.S. citizens — qualify for,” he explained.

Nationwide, 70% of farmworkers are foreign-born, 78% of them identify as Hispanic. In California, 75% of farmworkers are undocumented, 96% identify as Hispanic.

“I’m undocumented with a sliver of privilege … I’m still in a precarious position, but millions of people would love to be in my shoes,” Gomez continued. “I can work, and I have social security. But I can’t vote or leave the country and return without express permission. And before I was a DACA recipient in 2012 I was a farmworker right out of high school … The work is difficult. It’s hot, dirty and tedious. It makes your mind numb in many ways. But it’s a job that the entire country depends on.”

I speak to clients who say, ‘How can it not faze me when there are hundreds if not thousands of people holding up ‘Mass Deportation Now’ signs on national news?’” he said. “I am still human, and I am still committed to this country. We didn’t come here to cause harm.”

“Power in politics needs to invent a physically and morally repugnant enemy who wants to take what’s yours because the feeling of emergency creates unity and the need of a savior,” said Manuel Ortiz Escámez.

“That’s why migrants have always been the ideal enemy of some U.S. political campaigns … and the data shows that it works,” he continued. He calls back to historical examples such as the 19th-century Irish immigrants and the Chinese immigrants targeted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

More recently, Brookings data shows that anti-migrant and racist rhetoric, along with sexist sentiment, significantly drove support for Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign.

Racist anti-immigrant sentiment has evolved since the civil rights advances of the 1950s and 1960s, said Escámez. This ignited a mantra they stood by: ‘No human being is illegal.’ “But we’re entering an era now where we’re breaking what we’ve built, this idea that it’s not okay to be directly racist … With a second Trump term, migrants will be the first to suffer, but they won’t be the only enemy. They’ll target anyone who questions this.”

In community discussions held in Tulelake, “everyone agreed that migrants are experiencing anxiety and fear due to the elections,” he continued. “Some were not getting Medi-Cal because they were afraid of public charge.”

“Many kids were bullied at school who said, ‘Once Donald Trump is here, your family will be deported’ … but some who were bullied now support Trump,” he added. “I asked why, and they said it was to belong in a society that is turning more racist for young people. They have to be quiet now or show support for the bullies.”

“The consequence is that people are very afraid to talk at all. I hold interviews with people who later call and say, ‘Please do not publish anything, because I’m afraid of what could happen,’” Escámez said. “We’re breaking the social fabric in these communities. Until now, many of these farmworkers had built good relationships, including with the white population … Now, they tell me they’re more isolated. That they just go to church, to work, to the store, then stay home, because they don’t know what could happen.”

The rhetoric portrayed on TV is a main concern. Those that are undocumented are seen as criminals and are unwelcome. This only reinforces the hate that they face. “We saw, when Trump was running the country, the increase in racism-motivated crime.” said Arcenio Lopez.

Hate crimes spiked nearly 20% during the Trump administration, from 6,121 reported incidents in 2016 to 7,314 in 2019, according to annual FBI hate crime statistics. In 2019, 57.6% of these hate crimes were motivated by race.

These race-motivated hate brought up 51murders in 2019, roughly a three decade high.

“We talk about the politics, but the indigenous Mexican migrant communities we work with experience this hate daily,” explained Lopez. “We’re called ‘Oaxaquitas’ (‘little Oaxacan’) and ‘indito’ (‘little Indian’). We’re told what we speak is a dialect, not a language. We hear ‘You’re brown,’ ‘You’re short,’ ‘You’re ugly’ … When this language takes the mic, it gives the green light for these actions.”

About 84% of California farmworkers are born in Mexico, of which 9% identify as indigenous.

“When we talk about this, we should also mention why people leave their lands to come here. Many don’t want to,” he added. “If you go to Oaxaca, you’ll see so many companies from the U.S., Canada and Europe extracting natural resources. How does that impact indigenous communities who can’t compete, who don’t have trees or clean water? What are the decisions that this government is making with those? Who is in power?”