The following piece was originally sent in an e-newsletter on May 7, 2024 and addressed to Assemblymember Buffy Wicks.
Dear Assemblymember Buffy Wicks,
Center on Race, Immigration, and Social Justice (CRISJ) supports Assembly Bill 2240 (Arambula), that ensures farmworkers are treated with dignity and respect reflective of the essential contribution they make to California’s agricultural economy and local communities. AB 2240 ensures that farmworkers and their families are not separated because of outdated policies and that their children’s education is not interrupted.
The Sacramento State’s CRISJ, with over 150 faculty, staff, student, and community associates, supports AB 2240 Farmworker Housing in gratitude to the essential workers and their families that enrich California and United States with their work and humanity. During the pandemic, the public became aware that farm workers are essential workers, because without their labor, the food-supply chain in the nation crumbles; no other essential workers would be able to do their work without eating food. This endorsement aligns with our CRISJ mission:
CRISJ produces critical scholarship, community engagement, research
mentorship, and academic programing for the university and broader community,
engaging faculty, students, and community in a concerted and collaborative
manner in improving the campus/community climate for equity and creating a stimulating intellectual environment and sense of belonging for both students and faculty from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
Currently, after the harvests are over in the late fall, farmlabor housing centers are closed, and farmworkers families are forced to migrate at least 50-miles away from the housing center to be able to qualify for affordable housing the following year. During this 3-4 months, children are pulled out from school and are denied continuous and quality education, blocking better futures for themselves and their families. They are structurally via a 50-mile rule kept at the bottom of society. Please support AB 2240 Farmworker Housing and thus the sense of belonging of farmworkers and their children’s educational success.
Before migratory farmworker housing centers were established, many lived in overcrowded, substandard motel rooms, makeshift shacks, or unhoused near orchards and streams without plumbing or safety. In response, in 1965 the Office of Migrant Services (OMS) in the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) was formed to provide migrant farmworkers and their families with affordable, seasonal rental housing from approximately April to November.
OMS currently operates 24 migratory farmworker housing centers across the state, sheltering over 7,000 people, including farmworkers and their family members, every year. As a carryover from the days of the single migrant worker, all centers still close in the off-season, requiring families to be uprooted and children to be pulled from school, missing months of education until they can return again the following spring.
Over the years, farmworker demographics have shifted. The great majority of farmworkers are no longer migratory single men but rather are settled with families. In 2020 only eight percent of the state’s farmworker population identified as migrants. As more families establish themselves generationally and contribute to the communities in which they reside, migratory farmworker housing programs must evolve to serve this new demographic reality.
CRISJ was created at Sacramento State with the mission of producing comprehensive-critical knowledge that reflects the experiences, values, and interests of historically marginalized communities with the hopes of raising understandings, empathies, and actions that improve their health and future in society. For these reasons, CRISJ strongly recommends an AYE vote on AB 2240 (Arambula).
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