Dr. Ann Lopez, PhD, founder and executive director of the Center for Farmworker Families (CFF), speaks with the People’s Tribune during a monthly distribution of food, clothes and household goods in Watsonville, CA organized by the Center and other non-profit groups and volunteers. The excerpts below are from the full interview published at https://bit.ly/3JEsyM7 and from a follow-up conversation with Dr. Lopez in June.
“The flooding of Pájaro has been absolutely devastating. It makes me angry that they knew these levees needed to be redone in 1995. And they just chose not to do it. I think they planned on doing it for 2025. And on the Watsonville side of the levee, they spent five times more money shoring up the levees than on the Monterey side of the levees, and that’s why they didn’t break in Watsonville, but they broke on the Monterey side [flooding Pájaro….Somehow farmworkers are not viewed as worthy human beings, worthy of dignity, respect, the same kind of care anybody else would get.
“And what I’ve been so shocked about is that there’s no local, state or federal government support. The only people really working hard to help them are small nonprofits like us.
“[I was talking] with a Oaxacan family one winter and their two young daughters were crying and begging for food….And the parents said, we’re not working, we have no money for food. They said the whole community’s hungry. And from then on, we established a partnership. Once a month we do this distribution. And it grew from just food to clothes, house-hold goods, whatever’s needed, so people don’t have to feel deprived. We usually get a maximum of, I’d say, 300 families at this time of year. And this one today probably is close to 1,000 families. And the one two months ago was the same. So that’s related to the Pájaro floods and people losing everything.
“I meet children of farmworkers affected by pesticides all the time. It’s like an epidemic down here. [The pesticides used here] are associated with childhood leukemia.…and tied to childhood brain cancer. I mean, how low can you go? It’s one thing with adults, but children for God’s sakes. It drives me nuts. That’s why I do what I do!
“[The treatment of farmworkers] is a similar issue to homelessness. You know, there’s four pillars of the neoliberal economy that we’re in. Deregulate, privatize, get rid of public services, and if someone can’t make it in this economy, you blame them. And that’s what we do with the homeless. And that’s what we do with the farmworkers. You blame them and that takes the responsibility off the people that perpetrated it.
“I think we’re going backwards and yet I see signs of hope everywhere. The way people have responded, just grassroots people, to this whole crisis [volunteering and donating]. It just warms my heart and gives me hope for humanity.
“I’ve heard a figure as high as 83% [of the farmworkers in this area are undocumenteded]…. There’s three things that would transform farmworkers’ lives, and the first is comprehensive immigration reform – give these people legal status….And number two, they need a living wage….And finally, they need a contract with the grower they work for, because 22.5% of wages are stolen.
“We need to change the entire industrial agricultural system. It’s not working. The only person or entity it’s working for are the agrichemical companies and wealthy growers….”
