The following article appeared today, June 14, in the Benicia Herald. I’ve reprinted it here because I agree with the sentiments expressed by Les and also because I regret that since the Benicia Herald has no online presence, this article will be recycled by tomorrow — maybe most already have recycled it — only to be found with difficulty by going to the Benicia Library.

My Two Cents
By Les Mahler

The ongoing immigration debate has hit a nerve with me. And although I could say it’s because I am an immigrant, it’s more about the other side of this issue: how we treat people, be they immigrants, guest workers or whatever else.

While I did emigrate from the Netherlands (I was born in Indonesia but we were forced out during the Sukarno dictatorship simply because my father fought for he Dutch army during WWII), I became a United States citizen in 1962 through my parents. That should quiet down any questions about my status or worries that I believe in a socialist form of government simply because I lived under one in earlier years.

What really bothers me about the immigration issue is how the other side in this whole debate is missing — the treatment of these so-called guest workers. They pick the strawberries, the beans, the spinach and almost every other produce that grows in the Central Valley. And let’s be honest, without them, we wouldn’t have that produce on our dinner tables, would we? After all, how many of us would really work under the harsh conditions that these men, women and children work under? Be honest. After all, we’re accustomed to soft chairs, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, eight hour days, water cooler breaks and other things we simply take for granted nowadays. And after work, we usually go home, sit on a sofa, have dinner at the table and watch TV afterwards. It’s not a bad situation when you stop to think about it.

Now, what do you think are the conditions for most field workers? Don’t know? Well, as a reporter covering San Joaquin County, I got a firsthand glimpse of just what type of conditions field workers have to endure. I was the first reporter on the scene at the Lower Jones Tract flooding of 2004. And while the focus during those months was the loss of crop and agricultural land, we barely saw what those floods had done to the· workers, until one day after the waters subsided.

I was given a private tour of a farm outside Tracy, and I remember walking into a barrack-style building with 45 to 50 bunk beds, all in a row. What amazed and saddened me was how the flood waters had swept up each worker’s belongings, how they had the simplest of items as their possessions and now they were gone.

What angered me most was how conditions in that barrack-style building were so stark: no air conditioning — just a large fan at the front of the building — and a small kitchen at the end of the room, with no restroom facilities, no shower and no living room. They were stacked in there like cattle, brought out to pick our fruits and vegetables and then simply herded back in at the end of the day. They were treated no better than cows; actually, that’s not true.

As an agricultural reporter, I remember going to a dairy fann in San Joaquin County and being told how when it gets hot, cows can gather under a mister or collect under shade. Every six months, a veterinarian would come in to check how the cows were doing, sort of a health checkup.

Perhaps what’s worse is that it isn’t just men who slave away this way, it’s families. During one interview with a mother of two boys who worked the fields with the rest of the family, I asked how old they were. When she told me 15 and 17, I reminded her that county department of education would require that her boys be in school.

With that, she terminated the interview and story. For, as she told me, the boys needed to work in the fields so the family could have a place to live. If they went to school, the family would be homeless.

Now, as the Senate and the president debate immigration reform, let’s bring in the elements of human dignity, treating guest workers, field workers and migrant workers, with dignity and not as second-class slaves.

If we’re going to have migrant farm workers do our backbreaking work for us while we reap the sweat of their hard work, then farmers need to make sure that conditions such as the above are part of the immigration debate. I just can’t see how it would be or could be any other way.

Disclaimer: The thoughts, opinions and whatever else contained in this column are mine and mine alone.

Les Mahler is the Editor for the Benicia Herald.