Small Florida town adjusts to being migrant farming haven

Posted 8:07AM on Monday 18th February 2002 ( 23 years ago )

IMMOKALEE, Fla. - Steve Price remembers riding horses around this once-placid farming town long before big growers and migrant workers began to clash. "I've seen this entire town change since I came, but I still love it and live here," said Price, 51, who arrived in this southwest Florida town when he was 13. For 40 years, Immokalee was a haven for independent farmers, but it's hard to imagine the town as a dusty outpost now. A freeze in 1989 destroyed crops, bankrupting Immokalee's middle-class farmers. Corporate growers bought out the ruined farms and began to rely on immigrant labor. Sparks began to fly. Thousands of workers spend six to nine months a year picking crops in Immokalee fields. Estimates of the migrant population vary from about 7,500 in the summer to 15,000 during farming months. But the numbers are hard to verify because most workers are illegal aliens. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farm worker's advocacy group, wants to raise awareness of low pay and poor living conditions. They've gained notoriety for organizing high-profile marches, including one in January that brought hundreds of workers to downtown Naples for a demonstration against the sheriff. Workers confronted Collier County Sheriff Don Hunter on his request for records of area illegal aliens to prevent terrorism, a move migrants say would lead to racial profiling. Hunter told farm workers he's in pursuit of terrorists -- in his words, only "interested in Middle Easterners" -- and never intended to target Hispanics who may have slipped into the country illegally. Not all workers support the coalition. "The coalition hands out papers on the street and makes promises, but we never get anything," said Jose Juan, 20, a Mexican in his first season in Immokalee. The disillusioned workers mostly complain about late pay from their Mexican contractor, who hires them out to growers. But they're afraid to go to authorities because many of their roommates don't have working papers. While they fear deportation, none think the farmers could operate without migrant labor. "They can't deport us because they need us. A gringo isn't going to do the work we do," said Flora Rojas, 27, also from Mexico. Juan's roommate, Santiago Lopez, 23, left Mexico two years ago to work on southeastern U.S. farms, where he earns between $500-$600 a month picking tomatoes and other crops. Lopez pays $20 a week to live in a run-down, three-bedroom house on a dirt road with 15 other field workers he met in Immokalee. His room has five single beds, two of which are shared. "It's such a mess in here," he said. But a few miles away in the Farm Workers Village, life is much better for workers with U.S. citizenship or residency. The village, begun in 1974, offers low-cost rental housing to farm workers in a community that could pass for middle-class. Here, families live in 641 three- or four-bedroom homes with a maximum rent of $71 a week. Lawns are well kept, cars are washed in driveways and decorations cover most of the homes. Hispanic, Haitian, black and white children play together in front yards or are looked after in the village's three day-care centers. Crime is so low that residents stopped a neighborhood watch program because it wasn't needed anymore.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/2/198644