WATSONVILLE (California) REGISTER-  PAJARONIAN

May 15, 2008

Farmworkers’ journey brings author to town
 
BY: TODD GUILD

For nearly 10 years, local author and teacher Dr. Ann Aurelia Lopez took a look into the lives of undocumented workers and their experiences as they traveled a 350-square-mile area from west central Mexico to Central California.

She has taken these excerpts, interviews and experiences and written a book — “The Farmworkers Journey” — which highlights the effects of North American trade policies on the lives of immigrants and takes a look at local immigrant issues. She will present a slide show Friday night and discuss her book at Third Friday Free in Watsonville — a program sponsored by the Pajaro Valley Women’s International League. She will also explain how the community may become involved in immigration issues.

Before The North American Fair Trade Agreement was enacted in 1992, the Mexican government allowed landless peasants the use of a communal farm, and purchased the corn they grew to feed other poor people.

This was article 27 of the Mexican constitution, which has since been removed to allow U.S. corn farmers to bring their product across the border.

NAFTA removed trade tariffs between U.S., Canadian and Mexican borders, effectively eliminating competition between Mexican and American corn farmers.

Within a few years, many Mexican farmers who were making a living in their own country were living in poverty, prompting to cross the border illegally and seek work in the U.S.

“Now were producing punitive legislation against the people who are refugees of our trade policies,” said Lopez.

Corporate penetration by U.S. companies has brought genetically modified corn seeds into Mexico, which has destroyed genetic diversity thousands of years old, said Lopez.

In addition, corporations are producing and shipping chemicals to Mexico that have been banned in the U.S. because they are deemed too dangerous for workers here.

“It’s a holocaust,” said Lopez. “I haven’t met a single adult in Mexico who hasn’t been poisoned, or know someone who has.”

Lopez has developed relationships with 34 immigrant families who work the circuit, and included interviews with them in her book.

“I wanted to find out what their experiences are,” she said. “You hear a lot, but nobody has taken the time to interview them.”

A big stumbling block, she said, is building a sense of confianza — trust — in the undocumented worker population. Too many people take advantage of immigrant families or turn them in to the authorities, she said.

Lopez points out that the undocumented workers leave their families to come to the U.S. because they have no other way to support their families.

“They don’t want to be here,” she said. “Human rights are violated constantly along the migrant circuit.”