AMPAGE Volume CXXV Issue 7
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November 27, 2013
The Student-Run Newspaper of Fresno City College
Calhoun INVISIBLE AND VOICELESS, SEASONAL FARM sentenced WORKERS ENDURE INCONCEIVABLE HARDSHIP BY PABEL LOPEZ
News Editor plopez@therampageonline.com
Former Fresno City College instructor Brian Calhoun told the Rampage in a phone interview that he believes the way the judge in his trial handled his sentencing was “unfair” and “highly unusual.” Calhoun was sentenced to three years probation, 90 days in the adult offender work program, ordered to pay a $240 fine and ordered to stay away from all State Center Community College District campuses effective on Friday, Nov. 22. Nearly a month earlier on Oct. 18, Calhoun was found guilty of battery for attacking a student. The incident leading to the trial happened on March, 22 after the female student, Kevynn Gomez, cursed at him while leaving a classroom in the Old Administration Building at FCC. In his interview with The Rampage, Calhoun reiterated that he “loves [FCC]” and “is really sad not to work there anymore.” Even though the court mandates that Calhoun stay away from all SCCCD educational facilities, Calhoun said that he loves celebrating events like Martin Luther King Jr. festivities, and other big events on campus. Calhoun stated plainly that “I will be on campus to be at one of those events. They can arrest me if they want; they can stone me.” The sentencing on Nov. 22 included statements from Prosecutor Michael Brummell, Judge Denise Whitehead, Calhoun’s attorney Roger Nuttall, Calhoun himself, and his wife Elaine Calhoun. Nuttall gave a quick statement in which he referred to his client as “a good man” and said that Calhoun had lived an “exemplary life.” Elaine, Calhoun’s wife, also gave a tearful plea for leniency to the judge in which she told the judge that when she “sentences Brian she was l SEE CALHOUN ON PAGE 6
(Clockwise from top) Rafael Herrera works 18 miles east of Fresno on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2013. Herrera and several other indigenous workers harvest fruit to support their families; the workers use 16-foot ladders to pick the fruit. 500,000 Mexican migrant workers immigrate to the U.S. every year. Photo/Abel Cortez
Second of a two-part series BY AIDYL MOLINA
Reporter amolina@therampageonline.com
Fernando Garcia, 42, like 3,000,000 migrant and seasonal farm workers in the U.S., lives an impoverished existence. He and his wife Celia Cruz toil for every dollar they earn; they scrimp, skipping meals and other necessities regularly, year after year, yet saving nothing and owning only the clothes on their backs. Every month, their earning barely pays their bills -- the bare necessities -- food and running water. Their only son, Jair Cruz, recently turned 18 years old,
works in the fields alongside them. Jair wants to increase the total family income, but each week is a struggle to make ends meet. Jair, a senior at Washington Union High School, gave up regular school and is doing independent studies in order to make himself available to work 24 hours, seven days a week, with his parents. It is a sacrifice for Jair, who yearns for the sort of things his peers enjoy -- a cell phone, an occasional ‘eat out’ with his friends. Now, he is intently focused on being able to contribute to his family’s budget and keeping homelessness at bay, for the time being. The Garcia family relies on an income that fluctuates
week by week, especially at non-harvest times. The first week of November yielded a combined 60 hours of work compared to seven hours the following week. Day by day, they will try to pick any crops left during the winter, even if when it takes three hours to travel to a work site that has only an hour of work. It’s about earning an income, no matter where, when or how. Garcia and his family currently receive a piece-rate income of $16.50 per bin of oranges. The bin is a size of a large Jacuzzi pool that can take up to an hour or more to fill depending on strength and speed of work. On average, they wear a sack that can support 90
pounds of weight hanging from the right shoulder for as much as eight hours each day. Harvesting with a sack that is constantly being loaded is very straining on the body; some field workers walk lopsided, carrying sacks half of their size. These workers suffer continuous back-pain and their gait is severely compromised, even after the weight is off at the end of the day. In addition to the sack, each harvester also carries a 16-foot ladder from tree to tree. They are required to pick every fruit on the tree from top to bottom and rely on a ladder which they rest on tree branches to support their weight as well as the sack’s. l SEE FARMS ON PAGE 4
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