California’s drought is hitting indigenous Latino workers hard

*There’s no denying that the drought affects all Californian’s in some way. There are some in California, though, who are affected directly and, because they live off the radar, go unnoticed. In this case they’re indigenous Mixteca farmworkers. VL

By Sasha Khokha, PRI

“Our rent is $600 and right now we only pay half,” she says. “We don’t have enough to eat. There just isn’t money for everything.”

Lukas is Mixteca, part of an indigenous group from southern Mexico that’s increasingly become part of California’s farmworker labor force — indigenous migrants who often work the lowest-paying jobs in US fields.

Now, a new survey shows they’ve been hit particularly hard by California’s drought, as farmers leave some fields fallow, or plant crops like almonds that require less labor.

Lukas chops onions she got from a food bank and, these days, tries to make meals stretch as best she can, especially with winter coming. Normally, that’s when farmworkers live off the savings they’ve scraped together from the harvest season. But this year, she says, there aren’t any savings. She and her husband have scrambled to get enough hours picking grapes, raisins and cherries.

That’s a common story among the 350 mostly indigenous farmworkers who have answered questions for a new grassroots survey about the impacts of the California drought.

Click HERE to read the full story.

;