Georgetown, Delaware was profiled in the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 29,
1998. Founded in 1792, Georgetown had 4,300 residents in the 1990 Census and
today has an estimated 8,300. Most of the new residents are immigrants from
southern Mexico and Guatemala, drawn to Georgetown by poultry jobs.
Georgetown, Delaware has been transformed by immigration, largely from
Guatemala. It had a relatively large supply of low-cost housing, and thus
became the preferred residence for immigrant poultry workers, who often pay
$500 a month to share a house with four to six others. There is a
Spanish-language cable television station, a Spanish-language newspaper, and a
Spanish-language radio station, as well as Latino-oriented stores and
restaurants.
According to the Georgetown mayor, local workers shunned poultry processing
jobs, while "[Guatemalan] people will work 80 hours a week if the plant will
let them." A local priest says that the poultry plants turned to Latinos after
they "pretty much exhausted" the local African-American work force.
A Changing Face conference in September 1997 heard that Delmarva's first
Latino residents were migrant farm workers who settled out after harvesting
vegetables such as tomatoes and melons for Delmarva growers. Some 3,000 to
5,000 farm workers continue to migrate to Delmarva every year and 400 migrant
farm worker children were enrolled in federal education programs in summer
1996. The Changing Face papers are available at:
http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/jul_97-15.html
However, most immigrants in the area today work in poultry processing.
Poultry is a $1.6 billion industry on the Delmarva peninsula, which anchors the
top of a U-shaped poultry belt that runs from Delmarva south to the Shenandoah
Valley through North Carolina and Georgia and north to Arkansas and
Missouri.
The Delmarva Poultry Industry said in fall 1996 that 3,200 Latino
immigrants were employed by six area poultry processors-- Allen Family Foods,
Delmarva Poultry Industry, Townsends Inc., Perdue Farms Inc. and Mountaire
Farms--including one-third, or 1,138, Hispanics employed by Perdue, where
Latinos are 40 percent of the work force. Townsends reported in summer 1996
that one-third of the 2,000 workers at its Millsboro, Delaware plant were
non-citizens.
In Pennsylvania mushroom country, an armed gang reportedly preyed on
Mexican workers who live in trailers in Kennett Square and New Garden. On May
17, Kennett Square police arrested two Wilmington, Delaware men who allegedly
attacked and robbed seven migrant workers in the first of four assaults
targeting the area's Mexican community.
DeCoster Eggs. With the help of the Mexican government, 14 farm
workers sued the former DeCoster Egg Farm, once the nation's largest brown egg
producer, for violations of labor laws on behalf of an estimated 1,500 former
DeCoster employees. According to the suit, DeCoster recruited the workers in
south Texas with false promises of good housing and high wages, and then housed
up to 17 workers in individual trailers, failed to provide proper medical care
and intimidated workers, fining them for mistakes.
According to the Mexican consulate, this is the first suit the Mexican
government has ever filed against a US employer. DeCoster paid $2 million to
settle a $5.8 million federal fine a year ago for health and safety violations,
and split into two companies, Maine Ag and Quality Eggs of New England.
New York. A report in Newsday detailed the life of migrant workers
on Long Island in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the migrants were Southern
blacks who followed the crops north and returned to homes in the South in the
fall. Some migrants made $70 to $90 for a six-day week, but a survey showed
that the average weekly wage in 1959 was $26. The migrants paid labor camps
$12 a week and 50 cents a meal or $12.50 a week for room and board.
In the early 60s, New York Governor W. Averell Harriman increased migrant
worker housing requirements, when 3,500 black migrant workers and 500 Puerto
Ricans were in Suffolk county. By 1971, the number of migrant workers dropped
to 1,700 because of mechanization and dwindling farm acreage.
The current farm work force in Suffolk county is about 8,000; about half
are seasonal workers. Seasonal workers earn at least the minimum wage, with
some earning up to $10 an hour. Housing is still difficult to find; there are
20 farm labor camps.
A coalition of religious and labor organizations in New York staged a
statewide 40-hour fast on March 24 in support of legislative action to benefit
farm workers. The group is hoping the fast will encourage the state
Legislature to pass laws that extend the state's minimum wage, a guaranteed day
off, collective bargaining and access to toilets for farm workers.
Bill Bleyer, "Long Island: The Hard Life in Migrant Alley," Newsday, June
7, 1998. Steven Greenhouse, "Poor conditions follow laborers as they travel
north," New York Times, May 31, 1998. Mary Otto, "Seeking a new life,
immigrants transform Del towns," Philadelphia Inquirer, May 29, 1998.
Christina Asquith, "For migrant workers, often easy prey, an unexpected
friend," Philadelphia Inquirer, May 15, 1998.
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