Considering the farmworker: What I’ve learned

I’m a Wall Street technology manager. Two years ago I set out, citizen journalist style, to learn and write about people whose lives are very different from mine: migrant farmworkers. These are the men, women and children who harvest most of the fresh produce you see at America’s grocery stores. I’ll share what I learned … Continue reading Considering the farmworker: What I’ve learned →

The Nice Camp

From my 2014 blog The Considerate Omnivore... Last summer I accompanied some college students doing educational and health care outreach at migrant farmworker camps. They were generally dismal places, ill-maintained and no place I’d ever want to spend the night. Except for one. It was mid July. Hot. I’d been traveling all day with Julie … Continue reading The Nice Camp →

The lives of child farmworkers in their own pictures and words

From my 2014 blog The Considerate Omnivore... Each year, a little-known contest by a little-known agency in Washington, DC lets children of migrant farmworkers portray their lives in essays and drawings. The annual contest by the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs invites these children to submit essays and artwork for judging by a panel, with … Continue reading The lives of child farmworkers in their own pictures and words →

500 miles from Immokalee

From my 2014 blog The Considerate Omnivore... Danny should feel comfortable here and the tomato pickers should see him as one of their own. But he doesn’t, and they don’t. Eighteen-year-old Daniel Guzman is in a labor camp in the South Carolina Lowcountry, some 500 miles away from Immokalee, Florida where he grew up in … Continue reading 500 miles from Immokalee →

It ain’t just tobacco

From my 2014 blog The Considerate Omnivore... Thanks to a recent feature on The Daily Show and a slew of media attention (links below) a lot more people are now aware of the problem of children working in U.S. tobacco fields. This attention is a very good thing, but the problem goes way beyond tobacco: … Continue reading It ain’t just tobacco →