The Migrant Complex

Today, I took a drive with a guide who knew more about the fields of the valley than just their vastness. He knew about those, whose hands, or I should say, bodies have acted as the channel that feeds and irrigates this land. The Great Central Valley, noted by NPR as the supplier of “one-quarter of the food America eats“ and as home to the “greatest garden in the world.” This is the very same place where the greatest injustice is committed against its farm workers. From unsanitary, crowded, yet isolated living conditions, to alcoholism and creative drugs, diseases taken to the beds of women and girls as well as men, this is life in the field and the camp. Camp. Migrant Complex. There are buses that take people from the Camp to the acres of green and back. Living under the scrutiny of the labor contractor, it is as if they live for this sole purpose. If you are one who wishes to escape this, you better run or know how to fly. Then again, do you really have a choice? At one point, one may even get confused as to what camp is good or better. You don’t have to run very far to find another Complex that doesn’t look that different. Along this landscape, complexes of injustice continue to grow and engulf the souls and spirits of those who give their lives to this land. Literally.