Thread: Wilma highlights plight of Florida's migrant farmworkers

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/ ... 263078.htm

Posted on Sat, Nov. 26, 2005

Wilma highlights plight of Florida's migrant farmworkers

LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
Associated Press

PAHOKEE, Fla. - Ernesto and Carmen Vasquez intend to celebrate the holidays at home despite the SUV-sized hole in their living-room ceiling - a calling card left by Hurricane Wilma - and the red "X" on their door marking the trailer as condemned.

It's been one month since Wilma whipped through their Everglades mobile home park in western Palm Beach County, flattening many of their neighbors' homes, but the couple have yet to receive a visit from aid workers or local officials. Shelters here are scarce, so they plan to remain in their two-bedroom trailer with their two children - if the rest of the roof doesn't cave in.

"We still have a house, so I suppose we are among the lucky ones," Carmen Vasquez said, as she looked up at the ceiling boards, sagging above photos of her children.

The Vasquez family is among thousands of Florida's uninsured farmworkers, some still without electricity, who are awaiting help in the wake of the Oct. 24 storm that thrashed South Florida at the end of the nation's worst hurricane season on record. Farmworker advocates say the situation is bad, but worse is the fact that it is looking like a repeat of last year, with migrant workers' flimsy housing rebuilt just in time for the next season's storms.

They say Wilma also has underscored a larger problem: the state's failure to respond to the needs of the mostly Mexican and Central American workers who in recent decades have reshaped Florida's agricultural communities, replacing many of the native black and Jamaican workers who once dominated the sector.

The trouble with finding a housing solution is compounded by a language barrier, with local and state officials unprepared to deal with the Spanish-speaking immigrants.

Advocates say the issue goes beyond Florida. The nation's migrant workers and their families, many of whom live in the country illegally, are often afraid or unable to contact their local government to let them know about deplorable living conditions.

Wilma and the rains that followed it killed 35 people in the state, destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes, and triggered widespread power outages across South Florida.

Vasquez, who emigrated more than 20 years ago from Sinaloa, Mexico, to California, where she met her husband, is better off than many neighbors. Ernesto Vasquez transports cut sugar cane, and the couple are permanent residents. They registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency days after the storm. But in front of their home, a trailer housing nine illegal immigrants was mostly destroyed by Wilma, and those men were afraid to tell authorities for fear of being deported, she said.

Even for the Vasquezes, it is difficult to get the attention of officials.

Seventy miles southwest in Miami, it is often assumed that residents are Spanish-speakers, but in this region surrounding Lake Okeechobee, and in many parts of central and northern Florida, few officials or staff speak Spanish.

Vasquez, who speaks little English, and half a dozen other farmworker wives recently attended a regional meeting to discuss hurricane recovery issues for the area's most vulnerable. Officials expressed surprise that many of the women hadn't received information about how to register with FEMA - let alone regional plans to build a nearby low-income housing complex.

Yet the officials had made little effort to publicize the information in Spanish and neglected to hire a translator for the meeting. The official running the session complained the informal translations were slowing the meeting down.

"We need to improve communication with Hispanics," Pahokee City Manager Lillie Latimore said after the meeting. "I could tell we're missing them."

The area around Lake Okeechobee has seen an influx of Mexican and other Hispanic farmworkers since the mid-1980s. Palm Beach County, thought of as the winter playground for retired New Yorkers, now is home to an estimated 190,000 Hispanics, up from about 140,000 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census. They now account for about 15 percent of the county's population.

"The language can cause big problems for those most in need even if they are here legally," said Francisco Garza, an organizer with the advocacy group, The Farmworker Association of Florida, which claims more than 6,000 members.

Juan Jose Alvarez was happy because inspectors had come to see the remains of his smashed Pahokee trailer and believed they soon would be sending him a check for a new one. After quizzing him, Vasquez realized he had yet to fill out the proper paperwork to get on the list for temporary housing and had received no guarantee his trailer would be replaced.

On a recent Friday night, staff at one FEMA relief center pleaded with a reporter to help translate for Spanish-speaking storm victims who arrived after a day in the fields because the volunteer high school student they relied on had gone home. The center's two Creole translators, who were on hand in case Haitian immigrants needed help, were unable understand them.

"FEMA is so strapped," said Tom Kerr who headed the center, as one after another the workers described how their homes had been destroyed. "We really don't know what these people are going to do."

Gov. Jeb Bush has pushed for a more permanent solution to farmworker housing that cannot withstand Florida's repeated storms.

"We can't keep replacing substandard housing with substandard housing," he said Monday, during a press conference in Coral Gables. "Frankly, it's not just an issue in the Everglades, it's an issue across Florida, made worse perhaps by the escalation of land prices."

The Legislature has allocated more than $240 million to counties affected by last year's storms for housing and rental-unit recovery and approved $10 million specifically for migrant worker housing.

Last month, the Joint Legislative Commission on Migrant and Seasonal Labor held its first meeting and will look at housing solutions among other issues.

Carmen Vasquez said she hopes the aid will come before the next storm. She hopes to build a more permanent home.

"We just finished rebuilding from last year, and now it's destroyed again," she said. "I want to get a loan to buy something a little better. Otherwise, it will be the same thing," she said. "I don't expect them to do everything. I just want a little help."

Well, I have a SIMPLE and CHEAP solution. While they are waiting around for OUR government to bail THEM out, hold ENGLISH CLASSES. Problem SOLVED. Now, wonder why they haven't thought of that????

How is it that a resident alien, in the US for more than 20 yrs, speaks little English?

If they are legal, help them. If not, then the companies that hired the illegals should pay to rebuild their dwellings. If the companies would not hire them, they would not be here in the first place! The American taxpayer should not pay a cent!

And, I agree that anyone who has been here for TWENTY YEARS and STILL does not speak ENGLISH should go back to wherever they came from. AND, unless I missed it, this person was NOT a citizen. So, maybe she WAS legal but it was because she married someone that was. So, if they didn't want to be here badly enough to become citizens, they don't belong here. I guess they don't bother because they would HAVE to learn English.

Bootsie, she's been here 20 years and can't speak English. That is SO common here in Florida.

There is no need for English, they can live and prosper here and never speak a lick of English. You have no idea how common this is. This is par for the course. Completely.

This is something that just drives the Americans who are still here crazy.

Nothing short of absolute laziness and disrespect for the American people.

It's a blatant slap in the face for America.

And they are "proud of it".

Just makes me SICK.