Immokalee, FL

Stray chickens wandered up and down the hot streets as a CIW (Coalition of Immokalee Workers) employee named Romeo toured us through Immokalee's neighborhoods on Monday afternoon. A typical laborer neighborhood is not much of a "neighborhood" at all. As many trailer homes as possible, most of which are quite rundown, are fit onto the lots. Laborers are stuffed 12 to a home, and yet somehow still are charged up to $400 a week for rent. Right now the lots are empty-all the workers are at the fields. The owners of the lots, or "slumlords" as they were referred to by some, are able to gouge rent prices, seemingly unacountable to no one. The laborers are pinched by their work bosses and by their landlords. It seems everyone wants to get a piece of the lucrative business that is exploiting these men and their families. "This is not America," said Romeo.
What surprised me a great deal about the people of Immokalee was their friendliness toward us. Here are six college students, raised in upper-middle-class midwestern families, who know nothing of poverty and oppression. Our lives have been filled with so much more opportunity and prosperity than theirs, and yet they never seemed to resent us for it in the least. They knew what we were there for-they knew we wanted to learn how to help.
Most of the men we met still had their pride. Yes, some of them had spent their entire lives working the fields with nothing to show for it, but they were still able to smile and joke with us. Many refused to let us do their chores for them at the homeless shelter, wishing to maintain a sense of dignity.
It was encouraging to see that there was indeed help available for these men. The homeless shelter (pictured above) in particular didn't seem to turn away anyone, and was a place for burnt out laborers to get back on their feet. The CIW as well has done a great deal for the people of Immokalee. They organized a succesful boycot of Taco Bell in 2005, which led to future purchasing of fair priced tomatoes by the fast-food chain. Similar boycotts were organized in the following years for Burger Kind and McDonald's, and were also succesful. Each was a major victory for human rights.