Farmworker treatment same as it ever was
I grew up in a small, rural community in New York in the ’60s. Farmworkers then were mostly migrant labor from Puerto Rico — “citizens,” but not. They came each year, lived in the “migrant camps” near the local garbage dump, away from the rest of the town. They were mostly Catholics, but never seen at our local churches. Their kids lived with them in the camps, but were never at our local schools. At one point, my parents took in a teenager from one of the families, and she lived with us. She spent her days helping my mother with babysitting and cleaning. I’m sure my parents felt they were doing a good thing, but I don’t know if she ever went to school.
The Half Moon Bay farmworkers are living the same way as the farmworkers of 60 years ago, and I’ll bet they are not unique in their living conditions. Paying $300 for monthly “rent” in a box, being charged $100 from the owner to repair damage to farm equipment all sounds like the modern version of the company store. Assuming farmers are paying minimum wage, which it appears is not always the case, that’s still a big ask from these (below) poverty-level workers.
We publicly condemn the use of forced labor in China, while we continue to benefit from the use of forced labor in African mines for our cell phone batteries, and to enjoy the benefits of inhuman labor conditions at our grocery stores, jam-packed with fresh, affordable produce. Well, affordable if you’re not a farm worker, that is.
Our lifestyle comes at a great cost to many human beings who were simply
born in the wrong place. When the Half Moon Bay story loses its tabloidlevel novelty, we will all go back to blissful ignorance.
Chris Cahill, Oakland
Responsibility to others
Regarding “Should you ‘forever’ mask in some settings? Here’s what UCSF’s Bob Wachter and other COVID experts are doing” (Health, SFChronicle.com, Jan. 30): I was disappointed in Dr. Bob Watcher’s advice. In discussing risk assessment, he, as
do most of his peers in academia and among public health officials, concentrates only on first-person risk. The focus should be on second-person risk.
For example, I have little fear of contracting COVID, despite being 76, because I’m fully vaccinated and because of the medical care alternatives in the Bay Area. But I am profoundly afraid of passing it on to my girlfriend, who I see every day and who has advanced heart failure and is a lifelong asthmatic. I am afraid of being a carrier.
The focus should be on masking to reduce community spread and the responsibility of the masker to minimize risk to others. R.L. Smith, Oakland
Wasted resources
The Defense Department got another huge increase in the recent budget that seems to have passed without much notice. I know it was a bipartisan vote, but it was not debated in any meaningful way. Why is this much money needed? Where does it go? Much of it lands in the pockets of the big defense contracting corporations and goes to executive pay and stock buybacks. That doesn’t benefit us or our defense. The Pentagon isn’t even able to account for the funds it has received. It hasn’t passed an audit in five years. We deserve better!
We also deserve to have childcare, healthcare, elder care and all the other social benefits that we could certainly afford, especially if we tighten up our spending on defense. We must take a good look at this spending and not just shovel money in that direction because no one is willing to vote against it. It needs to be audited and accounted for like everything else in the budget. Anne McClain, Forest Knolls
Food for thought
Perhaps La Niña and her pal El Niño are being uncooperative with meteorologists because they would prefer to be labeled by less-limiting and more nonbinary pronouns. Marta Diaz, Foster City