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Migrant Workers in Northern Michigan

The Glen Arbor Sun has a fascinating look at migrant workers in Northern Michigan that is well worth a read and begins:

Photo by Gary Howe - used with permission

They live amongst us. They drive on the same country roads. They enjoy the same sunsets. And they still play an integral role in harvesting the crops that we not merely eat, but identify with spring, summer and fall in northern Michigan.

The Hispanic and Latino workers indispensable to our asparagus, cherry and apple industries may no longer number in the tens of thousands like they did in the mid-twentieth century ó before the introduction of mechanical cherry tree shakers and before recent talk of a wall along the U.S. border to Mexico and National Guardsmen peering south across the Rio Grande ó but the thousands that are here are still members of our community.

Read Invisible in our midst: Hispanics and migrant workers in northern Michigan in the Glen Arbor Sun
Also see Largely forgotten, migrants toiled where others wouldn't

Posted/updated Jun 16, 2006
by Andrew McFarlane (Absolute Michigan)