[Marxism] Slavery alive and well in Florida

[Pat Costello <pt_costello@xxxxxxxxx>]

Driving from Naples, Florida, the nationâs second-wealthiest metropolitan 
area, to Immokalee takes less than an hour on a straight road. You pass houses 
that sell for an average of $1.4 million, shopping malls anchored by 
Tiffanyâs and Saks Fifth Avenue, manicured golf courses. Eventually, gated 
communities with names like Monaco Beach Club and Imperial Golf Estates give 
way to modest ranches, and the highway shrivels from six lanes to two. Through 
the scruffy palmettos, you glimpse flat, sandy tomato fields shimmering in the 
broiling sun. Rounding a long curve, you enter Immokalee. The heart of town is 
a nine-block grid of dusty, potholed streets lined by boarded-up bars and 
bodegas, peeling shacks, and sagging, mildew-streaked house trailers. Mongrel 
dogs snooze in the shade, scrawny chickens peck in yards. Just off the main 
drag, vultures squabble over roadkill. Immokaleeâs population is 70 percent 
Latino. Per capita income is only $8,500 a
 year. One third of the families in this city of nearly 25,000 live below the 
poverty line. Over one third of the children drop out before graduating from 
high school.

Immokalee is the tomato capital of the United States. Between December and May, 
as much as 90 percent of the fresh domestic tomatoes we eat come from south 
Florida, and Immokalee is home to one of the areaâs largest communities of 
farmworkers. According to Douglas Molloy, the chief assistant U.S. attorney 
based in Fort Myers, Immokalee has another claim to fame: It is âground zero 
for modern slavery.â 


Full story:

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes?currentPage=1


      

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu