Living Under the Trees

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Many of the farm workers picking table grapes in California’s Coachella Valley are indigenous Purepecha immigrants from Ocumichu, a town in the Mexican state of Michoacan.  Otilia Esteban Nicolas has been picking grapes for six years, and lives in a trailer camp in the desert, on Avenue 70.  Baldemar Zacarias, another Purepecha grape picker, also lives in a trailer in the desert. At the height of the grape harvest, many workers eat and sleep next to their cars in two parking lots in Mecca, a small farm worker town in the Coachella Valley. The growers and government authorities do not provide housing for seasonal grape pickers. Read more of photojournalist David Bacon’s report – and see more photos -- online now at www.dclaborarchives.org