Immokalee, FL

Although our trip to San Juan was canceled because of the increasing violence along the U.S./Mexico border, some last minute planning and a little luck has allowed a large chunk of the original group to go on a new trip. We'll be heading to Immokalee, FL, a town located in a region of Florida where, according to one of my group members, 90% of America's tomatoes are grown. The cause is the same-that of immigrant farmers and their rights as laborers and property owners.
Something that initially struck me was the demographics of Immokalee: 71% Hispanic, 18% Black, and 6% White/Non-Hispanic. Time in my life I've stayed in a community that wasn't predominately White: zero. Enough said.
Unfortunately, the laborers of this region need a lot more than what a handful of college students can offer. We'll be able to help by learning about the issue, seeing the poverty and oppression first hand, and sharing our experiences with others. Politically, the issue seems without any reasonalbe solution. These laborers are immigrants from Haiti, Guatemala and Cuba. They are not citizens of the United States. They are paid miniscule wages or nothing at all. Charges have recently been brought against farm bosses, accusing them of chaining laborers to truck beds, beating laborers and forcing laborers to work from pre-dawn until dusk. If the immigrants were given citizenship or the rights of citizens, the economy would stumble dramatically. A gigantic population of migrant workers, who were previously paid nothing, would suddenly recquire an hourly rate of minimum wage or higher. Overtime would have to be taken into account. It simply would'nt be possible. A decent piece on immigration laws can be found here.
Anyway, I'm excited to get there and learn more abou the issue firsthand.

This spring break I was planning on going on a humanitarian trip with fellow students to San Juan, Texas. For one week, we'd work for an organization called L.U.P.E. passing out fliers, spreading awareness for immigrant's rights, and marching in a rally. Unfortunately, recent surges of violence near the U.S./Mexico border have caused the trip to be canceled.
For the past few years, gang fighting related to the drug trade has riddled many Mexican cities with violence and instability. When the issue was brought up at a meeting last week, many of us (myself included) had previously been completely unaware. Feeling like a little guilty for being uninformed (especially since I'm a journalism student!), I immediately did some research. In Ciudad Juarez, a city that borders El Paso in the U.S., the number of murders rose from 300 in 2007 to 1500 in 2008. The number of murders related to organized crime in Mexico as a whole reached some 6,000 last year. Fighting occurs in the streets, in the bars and in peoples homes. Businesses are failing due to customer's fear of leaving their homes. A good online article about the violence can be found here.
I expect most journalists and informed individuals already know about this issue, but I think a surprising amount of others don't. Reportage of the violence seems rare. When doing my own research online, good articles were hard to come by. One factor at work here may be that reportage of issues like this is often eclipsed by stories from Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. The idea is interesting to me, and I might look into this topic futher for my research paper. Perhaps a comparison of the reportage from each area, looking at how many articles come out and also how the articles are written, would be worth researching.