Meeting with Jeannie Economos

We had our second meeting today with Jeannie at the Farmworkers Association. Although we've been doing preliminary research for a couple months now, it wasn't until our first meeting with Jeannie that we began to get a clear idea of the shape our project would take. Our original intentions were to focus on healthcare access among Hispanic immigrants, particularly migrant workers. A few months ago, we helped a former farmworker-turned-activist named Geraldine Matthews conduct surveys in South Apopka about the needs of the local community-- mostly African-American former farmworkers who lost their jobs in the mid 1990s when the farms around Lake Apopka were finally shut down.

Our foray into that community was sobering-- social clubs in tin shacks swarmed by mosquitoes, dirt floors, dirt roads, people who did not look like they were in good health. We continued to think our project would focus on Hispanics, but in our first official meeting with Jeannie it became clear the need was elsewhere. Although the situation is still not ideal for the people farming now (average yearly wages of $7,500-10,000, exposure to pesticides, illegal status, etc), there are a number of projects focused on them, while the African-American farmworkers have been forgotten. They've been, in Jeannie's words, "surveyed to death," and what they need now is action. An article about the issues they face, which features Geraldine Matthews herself, can be found on this Oxfam site. Years of exposure to pesticides have led to high rates of health problems like lupus, diabetes, infertility, birth defects, arthritis, and cancers. They have little access to specialists treating these disorders. Our goal, in addition to conducting an ethnography of this community and exploring the issues it faces, will be to start some sort of healthcare program that might address at least one of these issues.

Some pesticides are endocrine-disrupting chemicals, meaning that they mimic the effect of hormones in the body, sending mixed messages that can particuarly be harmful during prenatal development. See this website if you want to know more about how it works. While the effect on an end consumer of an apple might be minor, it can be debilitating for those who have to work around these chemicals on a regular basis.