The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is named for a town in Florida?
Immokalee is in southwest Florida, in the middle of the Everglades. It’s a town made up of agricultural workers, most of them immigrants—low-paid workers. The bulk of these workers are Mexican, Haitian and Guatemalan. In some ways, it’s more a labor reserve than a town, an unincorporated area where the population nearly doubles to 30,000 people during the season when the growers need workers. Every day here, thousands of people wake up at four in the morning to beg for a day’s work in the central parking lot in town. And every Friday, they get checks from three or four different companies. No company has a fixed work force. But the Immokalee area is one of the most important agricultural areas of the United States, growing tomatoes and other vegetables, a great deal of which is used by the fast-food industry. It’s one of the most productive agricultural regions because of its ideal climate. Oranges and tomatoes are the two largest cash crops. What is life like for Florida farmworkers r
