{"id":269145,"date":"2024-08-07T22:14:53","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T05:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=269145"},"modified":"2024-08-09T13:18:53","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T20:18:53","slug":"how-migrant-farmworkers-impacted-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/how-migrant-farmworkers-impacted-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"How Migrant Farmworkers are Impacted by the Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(EMS)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As this year\u2019s polarized election cycle continues, the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric is having profound consequences for farmworkers in California.<\/p>\n<p>In a media briefing on August 2, hosted by <a href=\"https:\/\/ethnicmediaservices.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ethnic Media Services<\/a>, a panel of experts discussed how hate speech impacted the lives of migrant farmworkers.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Speakers<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-269147 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Speakers-08-02-24-Migrant-Workers.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"262\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Speakers-08-02-24-Migrant-Workers.jpg 800w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Speakers-08-02-24-Migrant-Workers-300x98.jpg 300w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Speakers-08-02-24-Migrant-Workers-150x49.jpg 150w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Speakers-08-02-24-Migrant-Workers-768x252.jpg 768w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Speakers-08-02-24-Migrant-Workers-672x220.jpg 672w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Speakers-08-02-24-Migrant-Workers-400x131.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Manuel Ortiz Esc\u00e1mez<\/b>, Sociologist, Audio-Visual Journalist, and Co-Founder Peninsula 360, Redwood City, Ca.<\/li>\n<li><b>Arcenio Lopez<\/b>, Executive Director, Mixtec Indigenous Community Organizing Project, Ventura, Ca.<\/li>\n<li><b>Gustavo Gasca Gomez<\/b>, Coordinator-Stop the Hate Project and Immigration Outreach Specialist with Education and Leadership Foundation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>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\u2019s tables, face a paradox: high demand for their labor is met with politically charged hate speech.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNinety nine percent of the communities we\u2019ve reached out to are farmworkers and all have expressed anxiety and fear. All feel their future is deeply impacted by this,\u201d said Gustavo Gasca Gomez.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re most concerned about public charge, about being deported if they access benefits like health care that they or their children \u2014 who are often U.S. citizens \u2014 qualify for,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>Nationwide, 70% of farmworkers are foreign-born, 78% of them identify as Hispanic. In California, 75% of farmworkers are undocumented, 96% identify as Hispanic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m undocumented with a sliver of privilege \u2026 I\u2019m still in a precarious position, but millions of people would love to be in my shoes,\u201d Gomez continued. \u201cI can work, and I have social security. But I can\u2019t 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 \u2026 The work is difficult. It\u2019s hot, dirty and tedious. It makes your mind numb in many ways. But it\u2019s a job that the entire country depends on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I speak to clients who say, \u2018How can it not faze me when there are hundreds if not thousands of people holding up \u2018Mass Deportation Now\u2019 signs on national news?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI am still human, and I am still committed to this country. We didn\u2019t come here to cause harm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPower in politics needs to invent a physically and morally repugnant enemy who wants to take what\u2019s yours because the feeling of emergency creates unity and the need of a savior,\u201d said Manuel Ortiz Esc\u00e1mez.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why migrants have always been the ideal enemy of some U.S. political campaigns \u2026 and the data shows that it works,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>More recently, Brookings data shows that anti-migrant and racist rhetoric, along with sexist sentiment, significantly drove support for Donald Trump\u2019s successful 2016 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Racist anti-immigrant sentiment has evolved since the civil rights advances of the 1950s and 1960s, said Esc\u00e1mez. This ignited a mantra they stood by: \u2018No human being is illegal.\u2019 \u201cBut we\u2019re entering an era now where we\u2019re breaking what we\u2019ve built, this idea that it\u2019s not okay to be directly racist \u2026 With a second Trump term, migrants will be the first to suffer, but they won\u2019t be the only enemy. They\u2019ll target anyone who questions this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In community discussions held in Tulelake, \u201ceveryone agreed that migrants are experiencing anxiety and fear due to the elections,\u201d he continued. \u201cSome were not getting Medi-Cal because they were afraid of public charge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany kids were bullied at school who said, \u2018Once Donald Trump is here, your family will be deported\u2019 \u2026 but some who were bullied now support Trump,\u201d he added. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe consequence is that people are very afraid to talk at all. I hold interviews with people who later call and say, \u2018Please do not publish anything, because I\u2019m afraid of what could happen,\u2019\u201d Esc\u00e1mez said. \u201cWe\u2019re breaking the social fabric in these communities. Until now, many of these farmworkers had built good relationships, including with the white population \u2026 Now, they tell me they\u2019re more isolated. That they just go to church, to work, to the store, then stay home, because they don\u2019t know what could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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. \u201cWe saw, when Trump was running the country, the increase in racism-motivated crime.\u201d said Arcenio Lopez.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>These race-motivated hate brought up 51murders in 2019, roughly a three decade high.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe talk about the politics, but the indigenous Mexican migrant communities we work with experience this hate daily,\u201d explained Lopez. \u201cWe\u2019re called \u2018Oaxaquitas\u2019 (\u2018little Oaxacan\u2019) and \u2018indito\u2019 (\u2018little Indian\u2019). We\u2019re told what we speak is a dialect, not a language. We hear \u2018You\u2019re brown,\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re short,\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re ugly\u2019 \u2026 When this language takes the mic, it gives the green light for these actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>About 84% of California farmworkers are born in Mexico, of which 9% identify as indigenous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we talk about this, we should also mention why people leave their lands to come here. Many don\u2019t want to,\u201d he added. \u201cIf you go to Oaxaca, you\u2019ll see so many companies from the U.S., Canada and Europe extracting natural resources. How does that impact indigenous communities who can\u2019t compete, who don\u2019t have trees or clean water? What are the decisions that this government is making with those? Who is in power?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(EMS)\u00a0 &nbsp; As this year\u2019s 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 Esc\u00e1mez, Sociologist, Audio-Visual Journalist,&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/how-migrant-farmworkers-impacted-elections\/\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":269146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,72,1848,4786],"tags":[804,59338,4448,5209,5210,55725,63915,4892,58326,63913,10370,63914,58327,63916],"class_list":["post-269145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-politics-current-affairs","category-society","category-u-s-news","tag-california","tag-arcenio-lopez","tag-elections","tag-ems","tag-ethnic-media-services","tag-farmworkers","tag-gustavo-gasca-gomez","tag-immigrants","tag-manuel-ortiz-escamez","tag-migrant-farmworkers","tag-migrants","tag-mixtec-indigenous-community-organizing-project","tag-peninsula-360-press","tag-stop-the-hate-project"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}