When Food Workers Rebel | Strawberry Plant Workers in California | Part 4 in a Series
Moderator’s Note: Our continuing coverage of struggles by workers in the food chain turns to the work by our esteemed colleague, David Bacon, who has been documenting the working and living conditions of migrant farm workers for several decades now. In this photo-essay, Bacon focuses on strawberry seedling farm workers in California’s Tule Lake region. These workers do not produce strawberries but rather strawberry plants – the seedlings bound for other farms directly involved in berry production. There is more than bitter irony to the fact that this Tule Valley strawberry seedling operation is located on the site of a former World War II internment camp where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during the 1940s. We can take this as a case of inadvertent symbolism or accept the fact that the conditions facing farm workers today are as oppressive as the travails faced by the Japanese American internees of WW II. Truthout first posted this story on September 16, 2013. A worker picks flow...