Gustavo Arellano of the Los Angeles Times did a road-trip through the American Southwest to talk to Latino/a voters. His dispatch from New Mexico was published under the headline, "Trump or Harris? For these New Mexico farmers, the more pressing question is survival." Here are some key excerpts, leading with the perceptive framing:
Agriculture is an underrated barometer of where a region and its people are heading, since it intersects with so many essential issues: the economy, climate change, immigration.
This quote from a 42-year-old Latina, Michele Atencio who, with her husband, makes a living from growing and selling peppers, is telling. When asked about the upcoming presidential election, Arellano reports, she grew uncharacteristically quiet before commenting:
I don’t want to be mean, but we need immigration control. There are a lot of Venezuelans coming in. They come and they get housing and they get food stamps. And you, who have worked here all your life? You don’t get that. We pay taxes and they get all the benefits.
Local farmers have offered jobs to the new migrants, Atencio said, “but they don’t like that work. I don’t get it. They need help. But there’s frustration growing here.”
Further Atencio quotes follow:
I’m not against them. I get why they come here. But my dad and your dad, they crossed the river. They took years to better themselves.
Whoever’s next [as U.S. president], they need to put better border control. I’m not the only one who thinks that.
Arellano next stopped at Rosales Produce, in Escondido, where he chatted with 68-year-old Linda Rosales, whose family works 500 acres, 60 of them devoted to chiles. Rosales commented on the shortage of workers to harvest her crops:
"There’s no one here to work for us. Nobody has done nothing,” to make it easier to legally hire workers, Rosales said, speaking about both the Trump and Biden administrations. “Trump finished the border wall or whatever. Biden did, too. And you get to see who picks. No one.”
The need for immigrant workers is also the key theme of this NYT Magazine story out of Idaho's dairyland.
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