From a small town in Oaxaca, Mexico, from a dinner table in East Los Angeles, to a cheap hotel in a coastal farm town, to a strip mall in Phoenix, Arizona, these are snapshots of illegal immigration in the United States. It is estimated that as many as 12 million people live illegally in the United States, but this story only tells two.
An American major named Ilse and a strawberry picker named Filemon. They know a lot of people don’t want them here. But they stayed for other reasons. Her life is a testament to the power of the American Dream and the utter failure of American immigration policy.
Ilse Escobar, 23, grew up in Los Angeles and remembers her first visit to UCLA. In many ways, Ilse was a typical American college student, but in one important respect, Ilse was very different. Ilse’s family crossed the border from Mexico into the United States when she was 3 years old. In the only country she knew, she was considered an illegal immigrant.
Iles is one of about 200 undocumented students at UCLA. Despite their illegal status, the state of California allows these students to enroll at its public universities, but in just a few months Ilse will be graduating in a far less tolerant state. News snippets often remind people of how some Americans feel.
Ilse and her classmates may be fearless, encouraged and somewhat protected by their status as students at one of the top schools in the country, but just 40 miles up the coast, things are very different. Oxnard, California, is home to some of the most fertile farmland in the United States and illegal immigrants who are less inclined to speak their names or show their faces.
Farm workers don’t speak up, and neither do their employers. Oxnard’s undocumented workers live in the shadows. At the end of their shifts, they retire from the fields to immigrant-friendly communities, where they often live in cheap hotels, trailers, or dormitory-style housing. They believe in safety in numbers.
No one knows exactly how many farm workers in Oxnard are illegal. Nationally, undocumented workers make up an estimated 70 percent of the agricultural workforce. Workers are selecting some of the biggest brands in the fruit and vegetable industry. In Oxnard, crops are king. More strawberries are grown there than anywhere else in California. The state produces 88 percent of the nation’s strawberries, and each strawberry is picked by hand.
Strawberry fields are one of the most laborious crops. Workers hunched over all day and covered their skin to protect them from the sun and pesticides. The fruits of their labor generate an estimated $2 billion annually for the state’s agricultural industry. Filemon was the only undocumented farm worker who seemed willing to speak on camera.
Not far from Strawberry Fields south of Oxnard, what looks like a typical working-class suburb from the streets is actually populated by undocumented farm workers who live in dire conditions.
