Migrant Farm Workers

Migrant farm workers are the backbone of Florida’s agricultural industry, but they live and work in places where tourists and even lifelong residents never go. This series of photos by the Miami Herald, spanning from the mid-1960’s to the 1980’s, show us a glimpse into their lives.

3/21/1965, Miami Herald: If the field is good, you can make $15 a day. If it's bad.. Mexicans, African-Americans, Puerto Ricans and few whites. These are the migrants. The picker. America's nomads. They move from farm to farm, field to field, day to day. The Atlantic Stream.
1/22/1977, Miami Herald: After a harsh crop-killing freeze that left migrant farmers in Dade out of jobs, many came out to demonstrate in front of the Federal Building seeking food stamps, unemployment benefits and protesting what they called a time lag in getting aid.
12/18/1978, Bob East/Miami Herald: Migrant workers.
2/18/1965, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: Migrant workers.
3/13/1973, Bob East/Miami Herald: Living quarters.
3/21/1965, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: Miami Metro policemen arrive for their weekly off-duty work.
3/21/1965, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: The Migrants. A river of humanity, flowing with the seasons.
2/1/1985, Tim Chapman/Miami Herald: Jesse Gene and his daughter wait outside the Centro Campesino center. He is waiting for help because, since the freeze, he's been unable to pay for food or rent. He has been waiting for aid of some kind for three days, but officials have been so short staffed they can't get to everyone on time.
3/21/1965, Miami Herald: The Migrants - When you possess nothing, reality is today. In a nation of possessor, these are the unpossessed and unpossessing. Their only reality, their only possession, it today. Enough work today to buy supper. Enough wine not to worry about tomorrow.
9/15/1980, Bob East/Miami Herald: Luis Medrano, 80, lives in a pickup truck while waiting for vacant trailers in migrant labor camp. At least 40 others are making their homes in cars and trucks because of the housing shortage.
12/23/1973, W.O. Minor Jr./Miami Herald: Gathering in Florida City trailer area.
2/18/1965, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: Living quarters.
Undated, Jeffery A. Salter/Miami Herald: Migrant workers are already trickling into South Dade and finding no place to live. Many are camping in tents at Centro Campesino.The Lugo family, newly arrived from the sweet potato fields of North Carolina to the tomato fields of Florida City, brace their tent for an afternoon wind.
2/19/1965, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: Migrant workers.
6/29/1981, Keith Graham/Miami Herald: Francisco Navarro and his family live in a two bedroom trailer at the migrant trailer camp in Florida City.
3/21/1965, Miami Herald: The trucks lift dusk like a morning fog. The camp is awake.
12/5/1982, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: Peggy Muldoon, Silvia Alcozer and Angelica Calderon take the nursery children for a stroll, at the Everglades Migrant Children's Camp.
3/4/1965, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: There are no camps in Dade County with indoor plumbing for each cabin. The electrical outlet provides a bare bulb for light and for the well-to-do, a hotplate. The favorite cabin style is a duplex arrangement, so that a large family can rent both sides. When two families rent the cabin, the door between the two rooms is covered with whatever they can find.
Migrant Worker
2/2/1985, Tim Chapman/Miami Herald: Migrants out of work from the freeze at the Centro Campensino. They have been waiting for assistance for days.
Migrant workers
5/13/1976, Roy Bartley/Miami Herald: Everglades farm labor camp 19400 SW 376th St.
Migrants
7/22/1979, Miami Herald: The De La Paz family.
8/25/1980, David Walters/Miami Herald: Pedro Garcia, 6, sits outside the trailers that will house migrant workers at Everglades migrant camp.
2/18/1965, Albert Coya/Miami Herald: Migrant workers.
9/15/1980, Bob East/Miami Herald: Housing Crisis. Father Juan Lopez explains to homeless migrant workers that they can remain on outskirts of Everglades camp for two more nights. Due to lack of housing, they have been sleeping in their cars and outdoors.
3/23/1981, Pam Smith O'Hara/Miami Herald: Haitian refugees have swelled ranks of Americans and Mexicans already vying for too few jobs.
2/18/1965, Miami Herald: You tell your son to go to school. You tell him there are men whose backs are straight. Whose shirts are white. Whose hands are clean. Who use their heads instead of sweat. No worry where their next meal's coming from.
3/21/1965, Miami Herald: On Weekends, when the police are patrolling, they listen for the click of the dice on the bare boards. When they hear the rattle, they edge up to the door and peer through the crack to watch.
3/22/1980, John Drummings/Miami Herald: South of the Border Festival at Plaza Benito Juarez.
3/27/1981, Pam Smith O'Hara/Miami Herald: Children of migrant workers gather outside daycare center in Immokalee.
11/13/1983, Peter Andrew Bosch/Miami Herald: In the fields.

 

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