Photo Essay: Farmworkers Advocate for Their Right to Thrive
The following photo essay is part of "Oxnard: Through the Lens," a series that explores Oxnard through the eyes of award-winning photojournalist Julie Leopo.
Driving through Oxnard in the early morning reminded Amadeo, an immigrant farmworker, of the quickly developing city. "Oxnard is becoming more industrialized," says Amadeo, who has worked the farm fields for over 20 years, "That used to be a field; now it is an Amazon center."
According to city history, Oxnard, Calif., a city of rich agriculture by trade, started its roots as a sugar beet farm by the Oxnard brothers, where the town got its name.
Until today, the city is famed for its fertile farmland producing strawberries, berries, celery, onions, and much more but behind this bounty are the hands that tend to it. As Amadeo put it in Spanish, "las manos de obra."
Oxnard, the most populous city in Ventura County, has a farmworker workforce that sleeps in overcrowded homes, lives paycheck to paycheck at times, only earning $70 for a full day's work, but continue to strive for the American dream.
But "making it" becomes a dream that slowly fades away once the complexities of the trade appear before the immigrant worker, especially where worker exploitation and poverty are rampant.
Amadeo, who rents a home with other immigrant families, has three children with his spouse, "Only three children because everything is too expensive," he explains.
And he isn't alone.
Carmen shares a room with her two children while three other families occupy the other three rooms — a customary situation in the farming community. "I pay $1,000 a month for a room and a shared bathroom," she says. Carmen is an activist and a temporarily disabled farmworker.
On top of working for low pay, cultivators have to find the time to advocate for basic human needs, their right to work and prosper in what they describe as a dire situation.
Workers express wanting to get other jobs that aren't as labor-intensive or exploitative, but because of their immigration status, a regular job is not easy to come by.
On Feb. 14, farmworkers, community members and activists gathered for immigration reform, fair working conditions, and better pay. Oxnard, the childhood home of César Chávez, an iconic Mexican American leader of the farm labor movement, is still a town working towards the humane treatment of immigrant farmworkers.
Rosalia Reyez, 39, who has over 20 years in the agricultural workforce, is a mother of seven. Reyez, who attended the protest on Feb. 14, asked for immigration reform and working conditions. "We try to be free, and we can't," says Reyez, as she holds her homemade sign, "I work very hard, picking strawberries is difficult; if we had papers, I would look for a better job. I don't have benefits, but we pay taxes."
Reyez works up to 11 hours at times a day, usually starting at 6:30 a.m., meaning less time with her family. She gets paid per produce box she produces, a six-hour day yields $70. Work, however, isn't always steady. Reyez's income is fixed. However, rent and food costs keep increasing, making her economic situation unstable.
Many present at the protest echoed the same sentiment.
"We are essential, not criminals. They need us! We do the hardest work in this country!" shouted Carmen over a megaphone to about 50 people.
An outspoken force on his social media accounts, Amadeo is undoubtedly a hard worker. Still, even though he is grateful for the work, advocating for his future even if it means facing uncomfortable truths with his employer and government, he moves forward, yearning for his dreams.
Amadeo hopes to one day take up photography, something he calls a hobby for now.
