Invisible in our midst: Hispanics and migrant workers in northern Michigan

Glen Arbor Sun

They live amongst us. They drive on the same country roads. They enjoy the same sunsets. And they still play an integral role in harvesting the crops that we not merely eat, but identify with spring, summer and fall in northern Michigan.

The Hispanic and Latino workers indispensable to our asparagus, cherry and apple industries may no longer number in the tens of thousands like they did in the mid-twentieth century — before the introduction of mechanical cherry tree shakers and before recent talk of a wall along the U.S. border to Mexico and National Guardsmen peering south across the Rio Grande — but the thousands that are here are still members of our community.

Some are documented migrant workers who travel back and forth between the Midwest and Texas as the crop seasons fluctuate in order to keep working. Some are Latino-Americans who have grown up here, speak flawless English and look as Caucasian as every descendent of Irish, German or Polish immigrants. And some crossed a river or a desert in the dark of night to get here, to improve their fortunes, and often to escape unspeakable horror back home.

Northwestern Michigan College held a Symposium on Immigration on May 23 that featured health workers, educators, human rights advocates, local farmers, a priest, a border patrol officer, an attorney and, most importantly, an immigrant, on a panel that discussed the national immigration debate and its ramifications for northern Michigan. Unlike many issues that we read about in the national news but seem far away, the immigration debate playing out in Washington, the anger rising in the southwestern United States, and the xenophobia spreading across the land are all hitting home in a big way. With that in mind, the Glen Arbor Sun will run a series of articles this summer offering local perspectives on the national debate and feature several local Hispanics/Latinos who find themselves caught in the middle of this drama.

[For an in depth look at the migrant worker’s experience in the mid-twentieth century in and around Empire, please read this article we printed three years ago on our website at www.glenarborsun.com/archives/2003/09/largely_forgott.html]

Unease over the direction the debate on immigration is taking and the victims being left in its path manifested itself in many ways during the NMC Symposium. From an economic standpoint, Leelanau County farmers Don Coe and Don Gregory both worry that not just legislative changes but also the racism directed at Hispanics will make it very difficult for them to hire the workers they need to complete the harvest.

“We house 50-60 people in the summer who work harvesting cherries,” said Suttons Bay farmer Don Gregory. “About a third or half of them leave after cherry season because they have kids in school, and education is important to them. They return to Texas or Florida.

“Come apple time, we will need in excess of 100 apple pickers. We run ads in the paper for seasonal work, but we don’t get any help. That’s why we need migrant labor. If we needed more pickers, they would help us find more pickers.

“But what once was an atmosphere of joy has turned on its head. Over the last three years our migrants have been operating in an environment of fear, whether they are year-round or part-time workers, documented or undocumented. Some of our families won’t come to Traverse City to go shopping anymore. They shop in Suttons Bay instead.

“I don’t know if we’ll have enough employees this year to get the job done because some families aren’t traveling from Texas.”

Don Coe, the proprietor of Black Star Farms vineyard near Suttons Bay, echoed that sentiment at the Symposium.

The migrant workers are largely gone now, he said, “driven out by the paranoia of extremists and prejudice policies — prejudice is driving the debate today.”

Coe also took issue with the discourse used in the national debate. “(Migrant workers) aren’t ‘illegal aliens.’ When I grew up ‘aliens’ were people who came from Mars and would shoot us with Ray Guns.

“The workers I have employed aren’t ignorant peasants either, and they are not underpaid.” Coe stated that migrant workers at Black Star Farms are paid livable wages of $10-12 per hour. “These were workers with brawn, willing to do jobs we couldn’t get others to do.

Gregory and Coe both talked warmly about workers who they have befriended “like family” over the years, even to the point of attending their employees’ quinceañeros — the all-important fifteenth birthday parties — in Texas.

Honoring their native cultures shouldn’t be viewed as a slight of this country, Coe insisted. “They’re not disloyal just because they may march with a Mexican flag during a celebration. We are not expected to parade with other flags when we live abroad.”

Tomaso Nuño, an immigrant from Mexico who spoke at the NMC Symposium, summed it up: “We appreciate this country very much for all it has offered us, but we will never forget our home countries.”

Furthermore, Coe said, the Latinos being sacrificed in the political debate represent the future of local farming. Of 53,000 farms in Michigan, 11,000 of those are actually owned by Latinos. “That’s the fastest growing population, replacing the Stans, the Bills and the Olies. Why? Because sons of white farmers aren’t going into farming.”

Naturally, many of those showing up in every corner of the United States looking for work are not legally allowed to be here. Empire attorney Lea Ann Sterling estimated that as many as 6,000 of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country live in northwest Michigan. And that is at the heart of the argument for those who favor mass deportation and tighter security at the U.S. border to Mexico. If you want to reap the benefits of our country, they say, obey our laws.

But undocumented workers represent only some of the hard-working Hispanics in our midst. And yet all are paying the price for the finger pointing that has shot to the surface in this debate.

“A couple years ago when the economy here was doing well no one noticed (Hispanic workers),” the Teleman Corporation’s April Sanches said at the NMC Symposium. “But when things go bad, the economy slows down, and Americans run out of jobs, they notice who they claim are taking their jobs.”

Racism has reared its ugly head, and not just on AM Radio. Adam Allington of Interlochen Public Radio reported a case of Traverse City police pulling over a local Hispanic earlier this spring for driving with a Dream Catcher in their rear window — in other words “driving while Mexican,” concerned citizens claim.

To help local Hispanics with mounting legal hurdles and to protect them against racist tactics, attorney Lea Ann Sterling recently hired fluent Spanish speaker Wendy Bailey to her Empire staff. The biggest demand Sterling faces is local Hispanics coming to her seeking assistance in gaining legal residency or citizenship for themselves or their spouses. But for Mexicans and Central Americans, unlike Europeans for example, entering the United States legally is no cakewalk, and often almost impossible. U.S. embassies in Mexico City and Guatemala City make potential immigrants pay upwards of $100 for a phone card just to call and apply for a visa, and then wait in line for days if not months. For many, going illegally across the Rio Grande becomes the only way to get to El Norte. Once they are here and apply for residency, Sterling says, they would have to return to their home countries for at least a year to wait out the process — and chances are their applications will be rejected.

There used to be an Amnesty program that let undocumented immigrants stay in the United States if they paid a $1,000 fine. But that federal program was not renewed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Many would argue that not American Muslims, but Hispanics, have suffered the most from the 9-11 fallout and the guise of the war on terror. “I can’t do much for them unless they filed before April 30, 2001,” Sterling says.

When undocumented workers are caught here, they are often denied their rights. According to Lea Ann Sterling, Miranda rights are often not followed, even here in northern Michigan. And Father Wayne Dziekan of St. Michaels/St. Gertrude’s Church says that undocumented workers who are arrested and deported often never receive pay for the work they did.

The respect for human beings is at stake here, as is northern Michigan’s good reputation as a community that respects and protects its own.

But for a local farmer like Don Gregory, it all comes down to dollars and cents, and product output. “When we make a decision to put apple trees in the ground, that’s a 25-30 year investment. Should we even plant those trees if we won’t have the workers to pick them?”