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Potential Field Workers Claim Farmers Are Biased And Prefer Mexicans

Workers Claim Racial Bias In Field
By 

Editor, Latino Voices

A peasant works in a dried corn field around the village of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, on December 3, 2010 as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-16) is being held in the nearby seaside resort of Cancun. The field and surrounding area has apparently been affected by a drought caused by the increasing global warming. AFP PHOTO/Juan BARRETO (Photo credit should read JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images)
A peasant works in a dried corn field around the village of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, on December 3, 2010 as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-16) is being held in the nearby seaside resort of Cancun. The field and surrounding area has apparently been affected by a drought caused by the increasing global warming. AFP PHOTO/Juan BARRETO (Photo credit should read JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images)

VIDALIA, Ga. — For years, labor unions and immigrant rights activists have accused large-scale farmers, like those harvesting sweet Vidalia onions here this month, of exploiting Mexican guest workers. Working for hours on end under a punishing sun, the pickers are said to be crowded into squalid camps, driven without a break and even cheated of wages.

But as Congress weighs immigration legislation expected to expand the guest worker program, another group is increasingly crying foul — Americans, mostly black, who live near the farms and say they want the field work but cannot get it because it is going to Mexicans. They contend that they are illegally discouraged from applying for work and treated shabbily by farmers who prefer the foreigners for their malleability.

Read more on The New York Times

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