Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing an opera star. I have seen a few operas in my life, liked some of them, but am by no means an expert. The world of opera is pretty removed from my life, and as a result has some magical appearances to it. So it was nice to be able to ask questions of an opera soprano singer! She was a wonderful interview, very eloquent and colorful. Here is her story.
From Russia with persistence: Opera star now trains Oregon's youth
http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2009/11/from_russia_with_persistence_o.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
November 14, 2009
Who knows what would have happened to Anna Kazakova were it not for the sore throat and the long Russian winters...
Raised 25 miles from Moscow in the 1960s, Kazakova was a frail child, constantly sick. Kazakova's mother, tired of taking time off from work, believed that singers exercise their throat muscles and that would be a remedy. She signed up her 8-year-old for a children's choir, a part of the Young Pioneers communist organization.
Kazakova stopped getting sick. Not because she trained her throat muscles, she says, but because she loved singing. Twice a week, Kazakova took a bus alone to the choir building, never missing a rehearsal.
"My home was music, the song of the soul," she says. "My soul was singing since that time, and I was happy."
The choir had an ambitious repertoire: Bach, Vivaldi in Latin, as well as Russian songs. She learned solfège, or sight-reading, music theory and piano.
As a teenager, Kazakova rejoiced in the appearance of vinyl records, but she skipped the Beatles and rock music for Maria Callas and classical recordings.
She didn't consider professional singing until she was 16, when she met an uncle, a retired opera singer. Her parents, both engineers, could open few doors for her, she says, but they were able to pay for private voice lessons.
She learned to recognize a symphony's strict rules and grew fascinated with how composers build melody; she realized that opera masterpieces had the same passions and strong characters as good books or films.
"A good opera," she says, "raises your understanding of yourself as a person."
Kazakova majored in voice in college, then studied at the prestigious Moscow P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Her first professional leading soprano role was in 1998 as Elvira in Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Ernani." As she sang on stage, Kazakova felt like she was "flying above everything, above the ground." She was like a channel for the music, she says, and she didn't have any fear.
She felt a powerful gift: be on stage and express the masterpieces that give the audience new ideals to strive for.
"Each time you love somebody, that's opera," she says. "Each time somebody is leaving you and you're unhappy, that's opera. Each time you're happy and whistling something joyful, that's what it is. That's opera."
***
Kazakova's career took off. She was accepted as a soloist at the Moscow State Philharmonic Society. She sang leading roles at the Moscow State Musical Theatre of Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Later, she was lead soloist for the Helikon-Opera theater in Moscow. She performed in Europe and in the United States.
She took on opera roles as varied as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin," Micaëla in George Bizet's "Carmen," and Mimi in Giacomo Puccini's "La Bohème." She also sang soprano in classical works by Bach, Haydn and Verdi.
Yet life as an opera singer in Moscow had its challenges. The Soviet Union had broken up in 1991, leading to political and economic turmoil.
Like the Soviets, the new Russian government considered opera and ballet sacred and supported these arts. Artists were allowed to tour the world. The opera and theater were almost a "separate world," Kazakova says. "It was some kind of an escape."
Yet even as a leading soloist, she was paid an official monthly salary of about $50 dollars and needed to earn extra money to survive.
In 2001, the year she won the Golden Mask, the prestigious Russian theater award, Kazakova was invited to sing in Seattle. A friend asked her to stay for a few months in the U.S. to rest. Then Kazakova met an American man from Portland, fell in love and moved to Oregon. The couple had a child, Galina, now 5 years old.
Though the couple later divorced, Kazakova decided to stay with her daughter in Northeast Portland. She found professional musicians to share her passion, such as pianist Anne Young, founder of the Lake Oswego Music Academy, and voice teacher Linda Brice, who runs Transformational Voice Training in Northeast Portland.
The 43-year-old Kazakova has found new passions in Oregon. For the past two years she's worked as an instructional assistant for English Language Development class at Scouters Mountain Elementary School in Happy Valley. She also teaches Russian to kids at Firebird Studio, a Russian Saturday school in Beaverton, through interactive games, dance, song and theater performance.
Kazakova remains a musician and performer at heart. Most recently, she sang with the Concert Opera of Seattle. She hopes to bring to audiences in Oregon and the Northwest her knowledge of Russian opera and culture. With Young, the pianist, she plans to promote a program of Russian song and music.
"I can bring a pretty authentic style," she says, "and translate what Russian songs, opera and poetry are about. I will never give up my music."
Gosia Wozniacka: 503-294-5960; gosiawozniacka@news.oregonian.com
Read more!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Farmworkers - sidebar
Workers, growers share view of farm labor's plight
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/11/stable_farm_labor.html
Experts, growers and data show that most farmworkers in the United States are foreign-born Latinos. White, non-Hispanic, U.S.-born farmworkers are "not a dying breed, it's a dead breed," says William Kandel, a sociologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. An Oregon grower and two workers talk about why that's the case:
Dick Joyce, owner, Sherwood-based Joyce Farms
Dick Joyce's father started the family farm in 1910 and over the years sold everything from grain to dairy products, cattle and hazelnuts. During harvest, Joyce says, neighboring farmers would go from farm to farm with a community threshing machine to cut the grain.
When the Joyce farm grew to include cherry orchards, during harvest time the family bused in pickers from Portland's West Burnside Street, Joyce says. Most were "Anglos," he says, and a few were black.
"Some people termed them as 'winos,' others as 'fruit tramps,'" Joyce says. "These guys would travel and follow the crops."
At other orchard, nursery and berry operations, women and children worked during summers to pick crops, Joyce says. When laws restricted children's work in agriculture, "the children didn't get training, they didn't get the incentive to work," he says.
And more Oregonians left the rural areas for city life, Joyce says. "Over time, as their economic situation improved, people were not interested in farmwork."
In the 1980s, the state saw a rapid influx of Mexicans, who filled the hole in the labor market, Joyce says. "Nobody was displaced as a result of their coming."
Joyce, who has sold most of his land, now runs a 40-acre fruit tree nursery and a maintenance business. He employs about 20 permanent workers -- all Latinos. Many have worked for him for more than two decades, he says, and he now employs their children.
"Culturally, white Americans have moved away from agriculture, and it isn't a matter of money at all," Joyce says. "There's no amount of money that you can lay on the table to make them work."
Joyce hopes to see a change in immigration law that would tighten borders and allow farmworkers to gain legal status.
Monty Smith, former farmworker, Scio
Monty Smith has been doing farmwork since he was 12. He has worked on horse ranches, dairy farms, berry farms, plus cattle, sheep and goat farms. His family, originally from Oklahoma, followed crops from state to state.
"I love farming; sometimes it's very rewarding," he says, "though it could be a real pain."
Smith, 38, says most of his family and neighbors have dropped out of agriculture. He lives in rural Linn County south of Salem, but none of his friends do farmwork.
"Farming is just something the American people don't do anymore," he says.
Most of the time, Smith has worked with Latinos and was "the only white guy working." White, non-Hispanic Americans shy away from agriculture, he says, because of low pay.
"It seems to me like a lot of Oregon workers are looking for higher-pay jobs -- $11 to $12 an hour -- not minimum wage," Smith says. "It takes a lot for a person to raise their family, and farms don't pay that."
Farmwork can mean eight- to 18-hour days, toiling in the scorching sun or cold rain, relocating and having little family time. And many farmers don't pay overtime.
Smith was a farmworker, he says, because he didn't have family obligations (he separated from his wife eight years ago, and his two children live in Missouri). But this spring, he got a job as a heavy equipment operator with Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, patching potholes and fixing water pipes. He doesn't plan to return to farmwork.
Anne Trujillo, farmworker, Carlton
Anne Trujillo, 45, entered farmwork last year because she was unemployed and many companies in Carlton, southwest of Portland, had shut down. Neither her parents nor her grandparents worked in the fields.
"It's nothing I ever thought I would do," she says. "If the economy wasn't this way, I would never do this kind of work. It's the hardest work I've ever done in my life."
Trujillo left Carlton and ended up packaging lettuce in Yuma, Ariz. Most of her friends were surprised she worked on a farm. None of them had ever worked in agriculture.
"They're in their comfort and don't want to leave home," she says.
Trujillo is used to life on the road. She was in the military and has held jobs in manufacturing and as a corrections officer. "It has never bothered me to move to new places," she says. "I'm pretty lucky, I have no kids or husband, so I'm able to pick up and go."
Work in the lettuce fields would start before sunrise and continue into the night, 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week, she says.
Trujillo says she was the only white, English-speaking farmworker. She was told no other white Americans had applied. All the other workers were Latino immigrants and spoke only Spanish, she says.
Trujillo is partly Latina -- her great-grandparents on her father's side came to the United States from Mexico -- but she doesn't speak the language or know the culture.
It took her awhile to learn how to do the job, she says. "I was nowhere near the speed of some of these women."
The company she worked for bought two apartment complexes to house employees, "outfitted with brand-new sheets and mattresses, fridges stuffed with food," she says.
The experience persuaded her to continue with farmwork. In April, Trujillo took a job in a California planting, staking and picking tomatoes. But she quit after two weeks, she says, because "I just couldn't keep up with the fast pace of the Latino men."
Now she's back in Carlton, looking for a job -- any job -- including in agriculture. "You have to do what you have to do."
--Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/11/stable_farm_labor.html
Experts, growers and data show that most farmworkers in the United States are foreign-born Latinos. White, non-Hispanic, U.S.-born farmworkers are "not a dying breed, it's a dead breed," says William Kandel, a sociologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. An Oregon grower and two workers talk about why that's the case:
Dick Joyce, owner, Sherwood-based Joyce Farms
Dick Joyce's father started the family farm in 1910 and over the years sold everything from grain to dairy products, cattle and hazelnuts. During harvest, Joyce says, neighboring farmers would go from farm to farm with a community threshing machine to cut the grain.
When the Joyce farm grew to include cherry orchards, during harvest time the family bused in pickers from Portland's West Burnside Street, Joyce says. Most were "Anglos," he says, and a few were black.
"Some people termed them as 'winos,' others as 'fruit tramps,'" Joyce says. "These guys would travel and follow the crops."
At other orchard, nursery and berry operations, women and children worked during summers to pick crops, Joyce says. When laws restricted children's work in agriculture, "the children didn't get training, they didn't get the incentive to work," he says.
And more Oregonians left the rural areas for city life, Joyce says. "Over time, as their economic situation improved, people were not interested in farmwork."
In the 1980s, the state saw a rapid influx of Mexicans, who filled the hole in the labor market, Joyce says. "Nobody was displaced as a result of their coming."
Joyce, who has sold most of his land, now runs a 40-acre fruit tree nursery and a maintenance business. He employs about 20 permanent workers -- all Latinos. Many have worked for him for more than two decades, he says, and he now employs their children.
"Culturally, white Americans have moved away from agriculture, and it isn't a matter of money at all," Joyce says. "There's no amount of money that you can lay on the table to make them work."
Joyce hopes to see a change in immigration law that would tighten borders and allow farmworkers to gain legal status.
Monty Smith, former farmworker, Scio
Monty Smith has been doing farmwork since he was 12. He has worked on horse ranches, dairy farms, berry farms, plus cattle, sheep and goat farms. His family, originally from Oklahoma, followed crops from state to state.
"I love farming; sometimes it's very rewarding," he says, "though it could be a real pain."
Smith, 38, says most of his family and neighbors have dropped out of agriculture. He lives in rural Linn County south of Salem, but none of his friends do farmwork.
"Farming is just something the American people don't do anymore," he says.
Most of the time, Smith has worked with Latinos and was "the only white guy working." White, non-Hispanic Americans shy away from agriculture, he says, because of low pay.
"It seems to me like a lot of Oregon workers are looking for higher-pay jobs -- $11 to $12 an hour -- not minimum wage," Smith says. "It takes a lot for a person to raise their family, and farms don't pay that."
Farmwork can mean eight- to 18-hour days, toiling in the scorching sun or cold rain, relocating and having little family time. And many farmers don't pay overtime.
Smith was a farmworker, he says, because he didn't have family obligations (he separated from his wife eight years ago, and his two children live in Missouri). But this spring, he got a job as a heavy equipment operator with Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, patching potholes and fixing water pipes. He doesn't plan to return to farmwork.
Anne Trujillo, farmworker, Carlton
Anne Trujillo, 45, entered farmwork last year because she was unemployed and many companies in Carlton, southwest of Portland, had shut down. Neither her parents nor her grandparents worked in the fields.
"It's nothing I ever thought I would do," she says. "If the economy wasn't this way, I would never do this kind of work. It's the hardest work I've ever done in my life."
Trujillo left Carlton and ended up packaging lettuce in Yuma, Ariz. Most of her friends were surprised she worked on a farm. None of them had ever worked in agriculture.
"They're in their comfort and don't want to leave home," she says.
Trujillo is used to life on the road. She was in the military and has held jobs in manufacturing and as a corrections officer. "It has never bothered me to move to new places," she says. "I'm pretty lucky, I have no kids or husband, so I'm able to pick up and go."
Work in the lettuce fields would start before sunrise and continue into the night, 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week, she says.
Trujillo says she was the only white, English-speaking farmworker. She was told no other white Americans had applied. All the other workers were Latino immigrants and spoke only Spanish, she says.
Trujillo is partly Latina -- her great-grandparents on her father's side came to the United States from Mexico -- but she doesn't speak the language or know the culture.
It took her awhile to learn how to do the job, she says. "I was nowhere near the speed of some of these women."
The company she worked for bought two apartment complexes to house employees, "outfitted with brand-new sheets and mattresses, fridges stuffed with food," she says.
The experience persuaded her to continue with farmwork. In April, Trujillo took a job in a California planting, staking and picking tomatoes. But she quit after two weeks, she says, because "I just couldn't keep up with the fast pace of the Latino men."
Now she's back in Carlton, looking for a job -- any job -- including in agriculture. "You have to do what you have to do."
--Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
Farmworkers - part I
The first part of my series on U.S. farmworkers is running tomorrow on the front of the Business section. It's already available online:
Stable farm labor seems elusive in global economy
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/11/stable_farm_labor.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Photos by Faith Cathcart and Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian
November 07, 2009
Labor has always been the Achilles heel of U.S. agriculture. But today, globalization is causing the ultimate strain.
In the past two decades, U.S. producers of labor intensive crops have not kept up with the growth in the market. They have lost both global and domestic market share to foreign competitors, primarily because of cheap labor and lower production costs overseas.
That's particularly true in regions that produce fruits, vegetables, and nursery products. Six states -- Oregon, California, Florida, Texas, Washington and North Carolina -- account for half of all hired and contracted farmworkers. Growers depend on them to increase productivity and get fruits and vegetables to our plates.
And yet, the people vital to our diet and to our nation's economic vigor have rarely been a stable labor force. Foreign-born immigrants, most without legal status, make up the majority of those working in the fields. Critics of illegal immigration say they should be deported, replaced with legal American workers, and shut off from re-entering by a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
But stabilizing the agricultural labor force is not as simple as putting up a wall. Everywhere policy makers have turned for the past 50 years -- guest worker programs, legalization -- they have encountered roadblocks. And most agriculture experts agree that U.S.-born workers are not likely to ever fill those jobs.
Due to industrialization, Americans have left farm work in droves. Now most won't work for minimum wage doing some of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the nation. And if growers paid more, trying to attract local workers, the low-cost global marketplace would quickly put them out of business.
The question remains, how to secure a stable, agricultural labor force?
A defining societal shift
When Bob Terry, owner of Fisher Farms near Gaston, advertised for entry-level field work positions a few months ago, he expected at least a few white, Anglo job seekers.
"With unemployment being as high as it is, we thought we'd have at least some Caucasians," Terry said. "But we had none."
Several hundred job seekers showed up, all Latino, Terry said, and most spoke broken English. The company, which produces more than 3.5 million plants on 300 acres at three sites, hired 80.
This is how it's always been, said Terry, who has worked with the company for 16 years.
"We always hear, 'You don't hire Americans, you hire the others, immigrants, because they're cheaper,'" Terry said. "And it's just not true. We don't discriminate, we just take them as they come in."
Monumental changes in the structure of agriculture have affected who works in the fields and how Americans feel about agricultural jobs, experts and data show.
Family farms, passed down through generations, were once the agricultural engine. But technology led to increased production and pushed farms to consolidate into large, industrial-sized operations. Although small family farms still exist, the bulk of production has shifted to large-scale family and corporate operations, which hire more non-family workers.
At the same time, millions of American farmworkers left rural areas for industrial and commercial jobs and the lure of the city. Farm wages were too low to compete, plus farmworkers were excluded from most labor protections, then and now. According to the 2006 Current Population Survey, crop farmworkers earn less than workers in similar low-skilled occupations, such as maids and janitors.
The societal shift away from farm work means that working in the fields is no longer part of American culture and is not a job most U.S.-born Americans are skilled in or find desirable, even during a recession, experts and growers say.
Even farmers and their families have been driven away from farm work by expanding nonfarm economic opportunities, said William Kandel, a sociologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.
"We have a market where you can find alternatives," Kandel said. "Some pay less than agriculture, but are easier work and transportation-wise, and don't require the ability to move and follow the crops."
Lessons learned, forgotten
To fill entry-level farm jobs, agribusinesses and policymakers have turned to a variety of solutions, but many proved problematic.
One solution was to bring in immigrants to work the fields. But the Bracero Program, a guest worker program instituted by the government as the United States entered World War II, established a new instability.
Nearly five million Mexican farmworkers came on temporary contracts to the United States, including 15,000 to Oregon. Braceros brought with them large numbers of unauthorized workers, whom U.S. growers recruited and gladly hired. During the peak of the Bracero Program, in 1954, apprehensions of illegal border crossers by the U.S. Border Patrol sky-rocketed. Apprehensions fell as the program ended in 1964, amid reports of worker abuse. But the pattern was set.
From the mid-'70's on, under the U.S. government's tacit approval, illegal border crossings ballooned and U.S. growers continued to hire undocumented workers.
In 1986, immigration reform tried to legalize undocumented farmworkers and proffer farmers a stable, legal workforce. But it failed to deter illegal immigration.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) granted legal status to more than a million agricultural workers. It also introduced sanctions for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers and increased border enforcement.
But as the unauthorized workforce turned legal and gained job mobility, there was substantial "leakage" of legal workers away from agriculture to better paying, or more stable, employment, the National Agricultural Workers Survey shows. Ten years after IRCA, half of all farmworkers were again illegal, the survey shows.
The farmworkers who had gained amnesty left farm work, Kandel said, just as American farmworkers had done before. They were replaced with others crossing in illegally. While sanctions threatened to penalize employers for "knowingly" hiring undocumented workers, the law turned out to be obsolete. It requires employers to inspect identity documents and complete I-9 forms, but not to verify the authenticity of those documents.
"The cycle started all over again," said Robert Emerson, professor emeritus of Food & Resource Economics at the University of Florida.
Globalization brings uncertainty
According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey, more than 90 percent of today's farmworkers are Latino, and only about 20 percent are U.S.-born. Over half don't have legal status, both nationally and in Oregon.
The question, Emerson said, is how to prevent the illegal immigration cycle from reoccurring when another reform is passed. Some experts, worker advocates and immigration critics say it's time to mechanize harvests and raise farm wages to attract and retain U.S.-born and legal immigrant workers.
"Growers may have to increase wages, mechanize, or use other kinds of agricultural methods to reduce reliance on hired farmworkers," Kandel said.
But globalization could impede that effort.
Employers can't afford to invest in mechanization or raise wages, because "costs of production are going up," said Gary Furr, general manager of J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co., a large nursery based in Boring. Companies must remain competitive in a global marketplace, Furr said, or "you go out of business and push production to Third World countries."
That shift to other countries is already happening, Emerson said, especially among producers of labor-intensive crops. Since 1990, U.S. producers have lost a substantial chunk of the domestic fruits and vegetables market, data show.
In 1999, the United States became a net importer of fruits and vegetables for the first time in history. The import-export gap widened to a nearly $8 billion deficit in 2007, according to data from the U.S. International Trade Commission. Paradoxically, loss of competitiveness comes at a time of increased demand year-round from consumers for fresh fruits and vegetables, Emerson said.
Shifting the costs of higher farmworker wages onto U.S. consumers -- who spend less of their income on food than anyone else in the world -- is also not viable, Emerson said. Growers have little control over prices, he said, and suppliers can simply bring cheaper goods from overseas.
"There's no silver bullet to this problem," Emerson said.
With competition from cheap wages overseas, it's unclear how to retain legal workers in low-paid U.S. farm jobs, he said, because U.S. agriculture has become a revolving door even for immigrants. Once they learn English, understand the job market and are legal, they, too, leave for jobs with better pay and conditions.
"The majority of workers stay in agriculture only for a few years," Emerson said. "Most people don't look at it as a permanent job."
The existing guest worker program, called H2A, is wrought with bureaucratic red tape and used by a scant number of growers. But it may the future of U.S. agriculture, experts like Emerson and Kandel say, because it's unlikely U.S.-born workers will return to the fields.
"When you have an industry that's reliant on a set of conditions distinct from all others," Kandel said, "it's difficult to turn around as an employer and say, I'm going to up my wages so I can attract native-born workers."
--Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
Stable farm labor seems elusive in global economy
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/11/stable_farm_labor.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Photos by Faith Cathcart and Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian
November 07, 2009
Labor has always been the Achilles heel of U.S. agriculture. But today, globalization is causing the ultimate strain.
In the past two decades, U.S. producers of labor intensive crops have not kept up with the growth in the market. They have lost both global and domestic market share to foreign competitors, primarily because of cheap labor and lower production costs overseas.
That's particularly true in regions that produce fruits, vegetables, and nursery products. Six states -- Oregon, California, Florida, Texas, Washington and North Carolina -- account for half of all hired and contracted farmworkers. Growers depend on them to increase productivity and get fruits and vegetables to our plates.
And yet, the people vital to our diet and to our nation's economic vigor have rarely been a stable labor force. Foreign-born immigrants, most without legal status, make up the majority of those working in the fields. Critics of illegal immigration say they should be deported, replaced with legal American workers, and shut off from re-entering by a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
But stabilizing the agricultural labor force is not as simple as putting up a wall. Everywhere policy makers have turned for the past 50 years -- guest worker programs, legalization -- they have encountered roadblocks. And most agriculture experts agree that U.S.-born workers are not likely to ever fill those jobs.
Due to industrialization, Americans have left farm work in droves. Now most won't work for minimum wage doing some of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the nation. And if growers paid more, trying to attract local workers, the low-cost global marketplace would quickly put them out of business.
The question remains, how to secure a stable, agricultural labor force?
A defining societal shift
When Bob Terry, owner of Fisher Farms near Gaston, advertised for entry-level field work positions a few months ago, he expected at least a few white, Anglo job seekers.
"With unemployment being as high as it is, we thought we'd have at least some Caucasians," Terry said. "But we had none."
Several hundred job seekers showed up, all Latino, Terry said, and most spoke broken English. The company, which produces more than 3.5 million plants on 300 acres at three sites, hired 80.
This is how it's always been, said Terry, who has worked with the company for 16 years.
"We always hear, 'You don't hire Americans, you hire the others, immigrants, because they're cheaper,'" Terry said. "And it's just not true. We don't discriminate, we just take them as they come in."
Monumental changes in the structure of agriculture have affected who works in the fields and how Americans feel about agricultural jobs, experts and data show.
Family farms, passed down through generations, were once the agricultural engine. But technology led to increased production and pushed farms to consolidate into large, industrial-sized operations. Although small family farms still exist, the bulk of production has shifted to large-scale family and corporate operations, which hire more non-family workers.
At the same time, millions of American farmworkers left rural areas for industrial and commercial jobs and the lure of the city. Farm wages were too low to compete, plus farmworkers were excluded from most labor protections, then and now. According to the 2006 Current Population Survey, crop farmworkers earn less than workers in similar low-skilled occupations, such as maids and janitors.
The societal shift away from farm work means that working in the fields is no longer part of American culture and is not a job most U.S.-born Americans are skilled in or find desirable, even during a recession, experts and growers say.
Even farmers and their families have been driven away from farm work by expanding nonfarm economic opportunities, said William Kandel, a sociologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.
"We have a market where you can find alternatives," Kandel said. "Some pay less than agriculture, but are easier work and transportation-wise, and don't require the ability to move and follow the crops."
Lessons learned, forgotten
To fill entry-level farm jobs, agribusinesses and policymakers have turned to a variety of solutions, but many proved problematic.
One solution was to bring in immigrants to work the fields. But the Bracero Program, a guest worker program instituted by the government as the United States entered World War II, established a new instability.
Nearly five million Mexican farmworkers came on temporary contracts to the United States, including 15,000 to Oregon. Braceros brought with them large numbers of unauthorized workers, whom U.S. growers recruited and gladly hired. During the peak of the Bracero Program, in 1954, apprehensions of illegal border crossers by the U.S. Border Patrol sky-rocketed. Apprehensions fell as the program ended in 1964, amid reports of worker abuse. But the pattern was set.
From the mid-'70's on, under the U.S. government's tacit approval, illegal border crossings ballooned and U.S. growers continued to hire undocumented workers.
In 1986, immigration reform tried to legalize undocumented farmworkers and proffer farmers a stable, legal workforce. But it failed to deter illegal immigration.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) granted legal status to more than a million agricultural workers. It also introduced sanctions for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers and increased border enforcement.
But as the unauthorized workforce turned legal and gained job mobility, there was substantial "leakage" of legal workers away from agriculture to better paying, or more stable, employment, the National Agricultural Workers Survey shows. Ten years after IRCA, half of all farmworkers were again illegal, the survey shows.
The farmworkers who had gained amnesty left farm work, Kandel said, just as American farmworkers had done before. They were replaced with others crossing in illegally. While sanctions threatened to penalize employers for "knowingly" hiring undocumented workers, the law turned out to be obsolete. It requires employers to inspect identity documents and complete I-9 forms, but not to verify the authenticity of those documents.
"The cycle started all over again," said Robert Emerson, professor emeritus of Food & Resource Economics at the University of Florida.
Globalization brings uncertainty
According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey, more than 90 percent of today's farmworkers are Latino, and only about 20 percent are U.S.-born. Over half don't have legal status, both nationally and in Oregon.
The question, Emerson said, is how to prevent the illegal immigration cycle from reoccurring when another reform is passed. Some experts, worker advocates and immigration critics say it's time to mechanize harvests and raise farm wages to attract and retain U.S.-born and legal immigrant workers.
"Growers may have to increase wages, mechanize, or use other kinds of agricultural methods to reduce reliance on hired farmworkers," Kandel said.
But globalization could impede that effort.
Employers can't afford to invest in mechanization or raise wages, because "costs of production are going up," said Gary Furr, general manager of J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co., a large nursery based in Boring. Companies must remain competitive in a global marketplace, Furr said, or "you go out of business and push production to Third World countries."
That shift to other countries is already happening, Emerson said, especially among producers of labor-intensive crops. Since 1990, U.S. producers have lost a substantial chunk of the domestic fruits and vegetables market, data show.
In 1999, the United States became a net importer of fruits and vegetables for the first time in history. The import-export gap widened to a nearly $8 billion deficit in 2007, according to data from the U.S. International Trade Commission. Paradoxically, loss of competitiveness comes at a time of increased demand year-round from consumers for fresh fruits and vegetables, Emerson said.
Shifting the costs of higher farmworker wages onto U.S. consumers -- who spend less of their income on food than anyone else in the world -- is also not viable, Emerson said. Growers have little control over prices, he said, and suppliers can simply bring cheaper goods from overseas.
"There's no silver bullet to this problem," Emerson said.
With competition from cheap wages overseas, it's unclear how to retain legal workers in low-paid U.S. farm jobs, he said, because U.S. agriculture has become a revolving door even for immigrants. Once they learn English, understand the job market and are legal, they, too, leave for jobs with better pay and conditions.
"The majority of workers stay in agriculture only for a few years," Emerson said. "Most people don't look at it as a permanent job."
The existing guest worker program, called H2A, is wrought with bureaucratic red tape and used by a scant number of growers. But it may the future of U.S. agriculture, experts like Emerson and Kandel say, because it's unlikely U.S.-born workers will return to the fields.
"When you have an industry that's reliant on a set of conditions distinct from all others," Kandel said, "it's difficult to turn around as an employer and say, I'm going to up my wages so I can attract native-born workers."
--Gosia Wozniacka
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Thursday, November 5, 2009
Oregon Latinos and who dislikes them
It seems like every story about Latinos generates the same type of angry comments. It's hard to argue with those readers to whom any mention of Latino comes down to "deport all the illegals." I try to remind them that the majority of Latinos are U.S.-born citizens.
Oregon Latinos seek power in numbers
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/oregon_latinos_say_theyre_read.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
November 05, 2009
Like California's 30 years ago, Oregon's growing Latino population is reaching a tipping point: A critical mass of Latino professionals is starting to organize and influence state and local politics.
Inspired by telltale demographics and political under-representation, Latino leaders throughout the state have formed a group to plan a summit and develop a legislative platform relevant to Latinos.
The initiative -- dubbed Latino Agenda for Action -- unites statewide community organizations and leaders to build recognition, set priorities and eventually start a research institute or similar entity to inform the public and legislators about the state's largest ethnic group.
"The demographics are clear. Latinos are part of the fabric of this community, and they're here to stay," said Consuelo Saragoza, senior adviser of public health for Multnomah County and a convener of the group. "But there seemed to be a void. A lot of people felt that we needed a statewide voice."
Latinos made up 11 percent of Oregon's population in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than half are U.S. citizens, and many families have lived in the state for several generations. Their numbers have increased most dramatically over the past three decades and keep growing, mostly because of high fertility rates, data show.
Yet only one Oregon state legislator, Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, is Latino.
Latino issues are still "off the radar in many places," said Daniel HoSang, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. Latinos need dedicated groups to champion their causes, he said, "to make sure the issues don't get lost in the shuffle," as in the case of immigration reform taking a back seat to health care reform.
"This community hasn't been a part of Oregon's consciousness," HoSang said. "It may not have to do with hostility or a political position, it's just new water."
Latino Agenda for Action, a nonpartisan effort, is out to change that. Latinos have high buying power and own businesses, Saragoza said. But they also suffer from elevated rates of teen pregnancy, high numbers of student dropouts, and limited access to health care, among others.
Latino diversity
Pockets of individuals and groups already advocate for Latinos, but tend to be small and disconnected from one another, she said. There is no larger recognizable entity that encompasses all Oregon Latinos, or that reflects their diversity. Latinos are not just Mexicans -- they also hail from Puerto Rico and countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador.
"It's important to signal to the state, to elected officials and government agencies that Latino leadership is coalescing to respond to issues and to make ourselves visible," said Andrea Cano, one of Latino Agenda's facilitators.
The response from Latino leaders has been extraordinary, Cano said, with groups from every region calling to join. Agenda organizers brought them together for a second "salon" in October. Supported by the Oregon Consensus Program at Portland State University, several committees are planning various aspects of the summit, to be held next fall.
The group is continuing to identify participants in key regions, with the hope of putting together a database of Latino leaders and organizations. Organizers are also partnering with existing groups, such as the Oregon Commission on Hispanic Affairs.
What makes Latino Agenda for Action different, they say, is that it's a grass-roots approach driven by the community. Its aim is to represent and benefit rural and urban Latinos, newcomers and native-born, and to cut across generational and cultural differences, Cano said. It will include Latino artists, indigenous communities, youth and university students, as well as non-Latino allies.
The statewide summit will be a forum to gather existing research and expertise, identify priorities for the community, and develop public policy and legislation benefiting Latinos.
Research hub envisioned
A future public policy institute or research group, to be based at a local university, would be the authority on Latino issues in the state, said Carlos Crespo, professor and director of the School of Community Health at Portland State University.
"We want to be able to provide a neutral, secure place where people with different points of view can share ideas based on what the data says, and not on philosophical or political points of view," Crespo said.
Having a central place for data and policy provides continuity, which is badly missing in Oregon's debate, he said. A research institute could also help build leadership among Latinos, especially among young people.
The lag between Latino population growth and representation is partly due to Oregon Latinos' disproportionate youth population, said HoSang, the political science professor. One in every six students in Oregon schools is Latino. As they come of age, they will help shape the state's political scene, HoSang said.
Crespo and Saragoza hope the summit will set the stage and help "identify the Latino community as viable," Saragoza said.
"It's sad that such a large group is invisible, and that's why we need action and policy to solve our problems," Crespo said. "We Latinos are here, and we want the same thing everybody wants. We want Oregon to be a better place."
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
Oregon Latinos seek power in numbers
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/oregon_latinos_say_theyre_read.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
November 05, 2009
Like California's 30 years ago, Oregon's growing Latino population is reaching a tipping point: A critical mass of Latino professionals is starting to organize and influence state and local politics.
Inspired by telltale demographics and political under-representation, Latino leaders throughout the state have formed a group to plan a summit and develop a legislative platform relevant to Latinos.
The initiative -- dubbed Latino Agenda for Action -- unites statewide community organizations and leaders to build recognition, set priorities and eventually start a research institute or similar entity to inform the public and legislators about the state's largest ethnic group.
"The demographics are clear. Latinos are part of the fabric of this community, and they're here to stay," said Consuelo Saragoza, senior adviser of public health for Multnomah County and a convener of the group. "But there seemed to be a void. A lot of people felt that we needed a statewide voice."
Latinos made up 11 percent of Oregon's population in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than half are U.S. citizens, and many families have lived in the state for several generations. Their numbers have increased most dramatically over the past three decades and keep growing, mostly because of high fertility rates, data show.
Yet only one Oregon state legislator, Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, is Latino.
Latino issues are still "off the radar in many places," said Daniel HoSang, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. Latinos need dedicated groups to champion their causes, he said, "to make sure the issues don't get lost in the shuffle," as in the case of immigration reform taking a back seat to health care reform.
"This community hasn't been a part of Oregon's consciousness," HoSang said. "It may not have to do with hostility or a political position, it's just new water."
Latino Agenda for Action, a nonpartisan effort, is out to change that. Latinos have high buying power and own businesses, Saragoza said. But they also suffer from elevated rates of teen pregnancy, high numbers of student dropouts, and limited access to health care, among others.
Latino diversity
Pockets of individuals and groups already advocate for Latinos, but tend to be small and disconnected from one another, she said. There is no larger recognizable entity that encompasses all Oregon Latinos, or that reflects their diversity. Latinos are not just Mexicans -- they also hail from Puerto Rico and countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador.
"It's important to signal to the state, to elected officials and government agencies that Latino leadership is coalescing to respond to issues and to make ourselves visible," said Andrea Cano, one of Latino Agenda's facilitators.
The response from Latino leaders has been extraordinary, Cano said, with groups from every region calling to join. Agenda organizers brought them together for a second "salon" in October. Supported by the Oregon Consensus Program at Portland State University, several committees are planning various aspects of the summit, to be held next fall.
The group is continuing to identify participants in key regions, with the hope of putting together a database of Latino leaders and organizations. Organizers are also partnering with existing groups, such as the Oregon Commission on Hispanic Affairs.
What makes Latino Agenda for Action different, they say, is that it's a grass-roots approach driven by the community. Its aim is to represent and benefit rural and urban Latinos, newcomers and native-born, and to cut across generational and cultural differences, Cano said. It will include Latino artists, indigenous communities, youth and university students, as well as non-Latino allies.
The statewide summit will be a forum to gather existing research and expertise, identify priorities for the community, and develop public policy and legislation benefiting Latinos.
Research hub envisioned
A future public policy institute or research group, to be based at a local university, would be the authority on Latino issues in the state, said Carlos Crespo, professor and director of the School of Community Health at Portland State University.
"We want to be able to provide a neutral, secure place where people with different points of view can share ideas based on what the data says, and not on philosophical or political points of view," Crespo said.
Having a central place for data and policy provides continuity, which is badly missing in Oregon's debate, he said. A research institute could also help build leadership among Latinos, especially among young people.
The lag between Latino population growth and representation is partly due to Oregon Latinos' disproportionate youth population, said HoSang, the political science professor. One in every six students in Oregon schools is Latino. As they come of age, they will help shape the state's political scene, HoSang said.
Crespo and Saragoza hope the summit will set the stage and help "identify the Latino community as viable," Saragoza said.
"It's sad that such a large group is invisible, and that's why we need action and policy to solve our problems," Crespo said. "We Latinos are here, and we want the same thing everybody wants. We want Oregon to be a better place."
-- Gosia Wozniacka
Read more!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Marching with the dead
Photo by Faith Cathcart
A costumed procession gives Day of the Dead a Portland twist
http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2009/11/a_costumed_procession_gives_da.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
November 02, 2009
Fog wrapped around buildings as they gathered -- skeletons, ghosts, an angel, a king with a sumptuous headdress straight from the Brazilian carnival, Marie Antoinette's parrot in epoch laces and a curly white wig, and other creatures...
Two bicycles arrived, one carrying a witch with a broom, the other a sorcerer and a child witch seated in a casket. A devil with red flashing horns blew giant bubbles.
They lit candles for a procession to honor the dead that would take them 15 blocks up Northeast Alberta Street, on this cool Thursday night.
"It's something we don't do a good job of in our culture and something we all need -- to remember those who have passed over and remember that we, too, will die," said procession organizer Stella Maris, who describes herself as a spiritual community leader.
It was inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead, during which people commune with their dead relatives, but was an unusual American interpretation by mostly non-Latino Portlanders, Maris said, an event to which people bring all kinds of creative expressions.
"It's just magical," said a masked skeleton, aka Betsy Aldrich of Portland, who participated in the procession for the second year. "We're the only culture that doesn't honor the dead. So this is a way to do that."
As a maiden in white handed out marigolds and the scent of incense rose through the air, Maris shook her gourd. It was time.
"Before you go," she said, "we're going to call them in. We're going to walk with our beloved ones."
And the skeletons, ghosts, and witches called out the names of their dead: Uncle Jerry, Tom from Vermont, Nina, grandpa Joe ...
"Beloved ones ... sisters, neighbors, teachers, ancestors," Maris intoned. "We've come here to march with you."
The crowd let out high-pitched yelps, then moved as one to the wail of accordions. A troupe of gypsy skeletons swayed to the music, gliding down the street. Death with a scythe marched down in the company of ghosts. And skeletons in white dresses floated down on stilts.
As the procession passed by a drum circle of Native American chiefs, the thud of drums and the chiefs' cries blended in, as if they were calling their own dead.
Then the procession turned into a dark alley, where a masked creature waited under a tent, rattling a tambourine, summoning the skeletons, witches and ghosts to an altar.
It was lit with dozens of candles, displaying photos and names of the dead.
The rowdy crowd hushed. They stood quietly, holding candles and incense. They wrote the names of their dead, pinned them to the altar, to be remembered by the living.
-- Gosia Wozniacka
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