Alternative spring break: 'hope on the ground in Immokalee'.

Witnessing four migrant farm families crowded together in one trailer, Christie Arnold, a first-year law student at Florida State University, received an eye-opening experience during Alternative Spring Break in Immokalee, a stark contrast to the opulence of neighboring Naples in Collier County.

As an international relations major working on her undergrad degree, she'd visited impoverished villages in Third World countries.

"But I hadn't realized that similar conditions existed here in my own state, she expressed in writing.

"Migrant families in Immokalee face abject poverty, substandard housing, unhealthy diets, and unfair pay.... The houses I saw were barely bigger than one-room shacks. Migrant workers work long, arduous hours and don't even make minimum wage. They are also exposed to toxic pesticides, and there is no hospital in the town. Abuses on the job often go unreported by the workers, for fear of deportation and immigration issues. There have also been cases of human trafficking there, as many farm working conditions and policies leave workers vulnerable to such exploitation."

As a student, Arnold said, she realizes she can't yet make the kind of legal changes she hopes to see one day. But, she said, she can support the community by mentoring Immokalee students who hope to go to college, talk to managers at her local grocery store about ways to help migrant workers receive better pay, and make sure she buys produce from companies with fair supply chains.

"This trip opened my eyes to the injustices here in Florida, and at the same time gave me exposure to how things are in the process of changing for the better," Arnold said.

Inspiration flowed while meeting Lucy Ortiz, who fights for the legal rights of migrant farm workers to be free of systemic sexual exploitation in the fields across America; Andrea Ortega, who helps migrant farm...

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