THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
PAGE 3
what la Huelga
illlS
IS
all about
is
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1969
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The old die with nothing
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Migrant farm workers foel firsthand the disparity betwen amount produced and amount
by Ed Icenog'.e
For tens of thousands of the poorest
Americans, migrant farming is total
life.
- It is seldom voluntary. Few set out
to be migrant farm workers, to stoop
over dusty, loamy acres of pickles
and strawberries, to climb rickety
ladders and pick nandfuls of cherries,
to live in fire-trap rat holes. The
migrants have no choice .
If migrant farm work is an In
evitable choice for many of the rural
poor, it is also a permanent one.
Once he is in the migrant stream,
the endless biological cycle engulfs
the migrant for life. Each winter In
the Rio Grande Valley, It means no
job, little money and discrimination
because of the workers' Spanish
surnames. Each summer in the fields
of Nebraska, Michigan, Colorado and
two dozen other states, it means
trying to scratch enough money from
the earth to put the family through
another winter.
Each generation's pattern Is much
like another's.
The migrant child is born Into
poverty, delivered by the vegetable,
green stained hands of a midwife
trained by birthing as many as nine
or 10 children of her own. He cries
In a world that deserves tears. Rats,
mud, manure, insects, sickness, heat
and young people are quickly old.
His parents were forced from their
meager sharecropping jobs by
mechanization, by advancing suburbs,
by new man-made lakes for 15-foot.
40-horsepower motorboats.
The child somehow lives. At the
age of 8, he joins his parents in the
fields. He grows into a classroom of
beets and strawberries, not books and
schools.
He meets and weds the black
haired, brown-eyed daughter o f
another migrant and they bring forth
children to continue the cycle.
NU students assist Migrant research
The photographs and stories
on this page are excerpts
from a four-part series
printed in August in the
Detroit Free Press,
Michigan's largest daily
morning paper.
While the series dealt
siecii'ically wiih the migrant
workers in Michigan, the
scope of the series was na
tional and the application is
universal:
Tlie plight of the migrant
workers in the beet fields of
Nebraska is similar to that of
his cousin in the strawberry
fields of Michigan.
All photography is by Mike
Hayman, University of
Nebraska senior in journalism
who interned with the Free
Press this summer. The ex
cerpted copy is by Ed
Icenogle, University of
Nebraska senior in
journalism, who also intern
ed with the Free Press and
who was one of three
reporters who compiled the
series.
The extensive Interviews
conducted by the Free Press
staff indicate that the com
mon belief of interested per
sons and experts is that the
answer to the migrant's
plight is in retraining and
unionization.
Unionization is the purpose
of "La Huelga," the national
grape boycott and strike
against the grape-growers in
California who will not
recognize the migrant's in
fant union, the United Farm
Workers Organizing Committee.
The organizers explain:
only through economic
pressure on the growers can
unionization be accomplish
ed. And only through a na
tional boycott of grapes can
this first step towards
alleviating the shameful
American tragedy through a
Union.
After grapes, the organizers
hope to unionize other crops
and boost the laborers
salaries from meager pen
nies to at least subsistence
level.
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The mi-irant babe is born with nothing. He will grow up with little, only to
reach the same destiny as the old.
A father watched
as his first-born died
H;tinuiul faro's fii'sl-borii
sun died this sunnier,
A du.'lor said liio liahy died
ul dehydration. Cam. a 20-vuar-old
iniraiit f u r m
worker, said the bahv died
because the Imnpital in W.il
ervliel, Mich., would not
admit his son.
Raymond Cam watched his
baby die. slowly Panicked
by "the chill's continuous
vomiting and dhrrhea. he
had taken Kuymoud Jr to
Uio hospital.
lie said a mirse there
refused to admit the Infant.
She talked with a doctor over
the phone, dscribim? the
baby u havinu no teui
perature o- a ppar e n t
vomiting and diarrhea. Cam
said.
Cam. rcti;t?n like most
Mexican-Americans w h e n
faced with bureaucracy, left
the hospital
That was Simd.i," evenlnu.
Uy 3 a.m. i uesduy Ihe
baby was dead. The molhor
of the iiliic-imni'h old Infant
wuiidcred away from Ihelr
migrant eamu. daed and
possibly la shmk. She was
found seeiitl days later at
an Indiana relative's home.
Cam sent his wife back to
her Texas family. Now he's
w ; rU i n" alone, trying to
make seme money and pay
lie Si J he still owes for the
baby's $UX) burial.
The suK'iiiiteiideiit of the
huspital apologized tor I tie
'e.i.h ot the baby and said It
oiildn't happen again," said
i 'am, a handsome, sad young
Mian whose quiet Kuglish is
snltcnod with Spanish ac
cents, The hospital administrator,
Mk-cit U. Miller, denied that
turn was j:iven an apology or
told "it wouldn't happen
aga;n "
"'I'he nurse reported the
temperature to the doctor,"
she isaid. "The baby didn't
seem to be critically ill."
The only difference
be! ween tlie treatment of the
Cam baby and the child of a
local resident. Mrs. Miller
said, was that the doctor
p r o b a b I y would have
previously seen the local
tiiihy and known its medical
history.
siH'ial worker who at
'ended a meeting between
Cam and Mrs. Miller said the
haby's death Is typical of tin
migrant.
"I think it us significant. If
a city councilman came In
did was turned away, he
would insist." said Anderson
Hewitt, program coordinator
of Michigan M I g r a n t
Ministry, a project founded
by the Michigan Council of
Churches.
"Cut the farm worker is
reserved and meek." Hewitt
said, "lie won't press It. He
won't soy. 'You give me the
service or I'll sit here until
you do'."
Raymond Caro didn't press
it. Hospital procedure re
quired a doctor to admit the
baby, but no doctor was
there and apparently the
nursv did not think the baby
ill enough to call in a doctor.
Baffled by being turned
away from the one place he
knew could heal sickness.
Caro took his son home and
waited.
"Hut the thing that got to
me the most was the man t
work for." Caro said. "He
didn't even express a con
dolence." M e x i c a n - A m e r I can
migrant babies die ul nearly
double the rate of other
Michigan Inlands.
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Families are large, often crowding the i'ire-trt'p rat holes in which they live.
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