Living Under the Trees
Monday, June 5, 2006(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Many of the farm workers picking table grapes in California’s
Coachella Valley are indigenous Purepecha immigrants from Ocumichu, a town in
the Mexican state of Michoacan.
Otilia Esteban Nicolas has been picking grapes for six years, and lives
in a trailer camp in the desert, on Avenue 70. Baldemar Zacarias, another Purepecha grape picker, also lives
in a trailer in the desert. At the height of the grape harvest, many workers eat
and sleep next to their cars in two parking lots in Mecca, a small farm worker
town in the Coachella Valley. The growers and government authorities do not
provide housing for seasonal grape pickers. Read more of photojournalist David
Bacon’s report – and see more photos -- online now at
www.dclaborarchives.org