Sandra

RALEIGH

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, pulling the last streaks of daylight from the sky over North Carolina’s capital city, dozens of migrant workers raised flickering tealights.

They gathered with advocates a bit more than a stone’s throw from offices of the state Department of Labor to rally for measures to protect workers from extreme heat in agricultural fields, the food service industry, construction, transportation and warehousing jobs.

José Arturo Gónzalez Mendoza, a 30-year-old farmworker from Guanajuato, Mexico, died Sept. 5 after harvesting sweet potatoes in a Barnes Farming field in Nash County. Temperatures that week rose into the 90s, according to Accuweather.

The state labor department has said it’s investigating his death.

The rally-goers in Raleigh the first weekend of November hoisted a large poster of Gónzalez Mendoza and four other migrant farmworkers who have died in North Carolina in recent years.

“Ni una vida mas,” they chanted. “Not one more life lost.”

The event, organized by the Farmworker Advocacy Network, It’s Our Future, Casa Azul de Wilson and NC FIELD, was the same week as Dia De Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, a holiday to honor the deceased. It is traditionally celebrated Nov. 1 and Nov. 2.

Gónzalez Mendoza, a husband and father of two sons, and other migrant farmworkers who died were honored with brightly colored altars — known as ofrendas — set up on portable tables.

Some of the deaths occurred during the coronavirus pandemic, but much of the focus was on extreme heat and the health problems that can result from prolonged exposure to such conditions.

RALEIGH

More than 200 farmworkers signed a petition calling on the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA) to protect the health and lives of farmworkers in the state. This is due to the death of at least five farm workers in North Carolina so far this year 2023.

One of them is Jose Arturo Gonzalez Mendoza, who died in early September from suspected dehydration while harvesting sweet potatoes at Barnes Farming & Farm Pak. A farm located in Spring Hope, North Carolina.

The document, sent on Friday, Nov. 3 by the organization El Futuro es Nuestro, demands that the NCGA conduct a thorough investigation into Gonzalez Mendoza’s death and punish all those involved for negligence.

“We ask that the NCGA heed our requests to reduce and eliminate the death rate of our fellow workers who only seek to provide for themselves and their families,” said Eli Porras Carmona, vice president of El Futuro es Nuestro, at a vigil held Nov. 3 in Raleigh.

The event, organized by Farmworker Advocacy Network, El Futuro es Nuestro, Casa Azul de Wilson and NC Field, took place on November 3, the same week as the observance of Dia de los Muertos, a holiday honoring the departed and holy saints.

“He comes with the hope of earning a livelihood and returns dead.”

Porras Carmona, told Enlace Latino NC that they expect the NCGA to respond and take action to what is requested in the petition.

“The distance is very great, the worker leaves their comfort circle of their country and risks coming to work without knowing how they are going to be treated,” he mentioned. “He comes with the hope of earning a livelihood and returns dead. This is what can happen to us as workers,” he added.

“As a worker, Porras Carmona, commented that the situation” is still the same as it was 8 or 10 years ago, only now there are media outlets that bring to light what is happening, they give faith and testimony of everything.”

“As workers we are very grateful,” he told Enlace Latino NC.

The vice president of El Futuro es Nuestro, also highlighted that during the agricultural season not only deaths are registered among the workers, but also illnesses, people who are crippled for life because of the heat and the hard work they have.

“They send them back to Mexico, the rumba continues, and let another worker come.”