Oxfam America Blog

Jonathan Coley stands outside the office of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Jonathan Coley is a CHANGE leader for Oxfam America and a student at Samford University. Here’s his account of a recent visit to Immokalee, Florida, where many of the nation’s tomatoes are grown—and often picked under grueling conditions.

When you’re enjoying your sandwich or burrito at lunch, do you think about the hand that picked your tomatoes?

Despite working in one of the most dangerous industries in the United States, the average farm worker earns just $7,500 a year with few benefits and no overtime pay. Children as young as 12 work in the fields.

I knew many of these facts before I traveled to Immokalee, Florida, recently for the annual gathering of the Student/Farmworker Alliance. However, I was not prepared for the realities I confronted when I walked the streets of this little-known Florida town. Read the rest of this entry »

Corn will be in short supply this winter in many indigenous communities in Baja Verapaz. Photo by James Rodriguez/Oxfam America

As promised, here is an update on Oxfam’s plan to help the people I met in Guatemala described in my last post: You can read about our work with Gloria Gonzalez’s organization ASECSA here.

It will take more than whatever rain fell from the recent passage of a tropical storm to turn around the super-dry conditions in Guatemala. Winter is essentially here, but hopefully next year, in the absence of the El Niño phenomenon, there will be better rains. If we can help these families survive the winter, they will need seeds and fertilizer so they can plant in the spring. With so many families facing food shortages this winter, they will require all their strength and resources to survive.

The resilience of Guatemalans is impressive. After all the wars, discrimination, and tragedy, the indigenous people keep fighting to survive, and they will not succumb to malnutrition without a struggle. Read the rest of this entry »

Farmer Maria Lopez says she has lost most of her corn and beans this year due to lack of rain. Photo by Chris Hufstader/oxfam America

It is hard for visitors to fathom the depths of the tragedy Guatemala’s indigenous people continue to suffer, but a brief look at the museum in Rabinal will certainly get the process started. It commemorates those who died in some of the worst massacres of indigenous people during this country’s 36-year civil conflict.

Gloria Gonzalez, a young program officer at a non-governmental group working in the area, showed me the museum. It consists of two rooms filled with photos of the dead, one of whom was her grandfather, Camilo Mayor. The caption under his photo says “assassinated during the conflict in our community.”

The community of Rio Negro was particularly affected: when they objected to the terms of a forced relocation to make way for the Chixoy River hydroelectric dam, the military claimed they were allied with guerrilla forces and killed nearly every resident between February and March 1982, part of its scorched earth counter-insurgency policy. More than 250 were murdered, including 177 unarmed elderly, women, and children on one day. The Guatemala Truth Commission declared the incident a state-sponsored act of genocide.

Today, the Maya-Achi indigenous people who were pushed up the mountain slopes to make room for the Chixoy Dam are suffering a slow-motion type of disaster, no less deadly. The centuries of racism and discrimination that led to their precarious living conditions are now exacerbated by a long drought and high temperatures that have left most with little corn, beans, and other crops on which they depend. Read the rest of this entry »

In recent weeks indigenous people in Peru have been protesting against new laws that will allow the government to grant foreign companies access to oil, gas, and mineral resources on their community lands. Indigenous people have the right to be consulted about these sorts of decisions under international law, but the government says the resources belong to the entire country. This past weekend there were violent confrontations between the protesters and the police resulting in 50 deaths. Both sides are accusing the other of human rights violations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Humberto Piaguaje, leader of the Secoya people in Ecuador. Photo by Coco Laso/Oxfam America

I sat down on the couch last night and turned on 60 Minutes to find a story on the court case against Chevron brought by the Amazon Defense Front and 30,000 people from Ecuador’s northeast Amazon region. This case has been dragging through the courts—first here in the US and then in Ecuador—for over 10 years. When I was in that area of Ecuador in 2004, I interviewed many of those affected by pollution that Texaco (now owned by Chevron) generated while drilling in the rainforest from 1964 to 1990. I had two particularly poignant conversations—one with local indigenous Secoya leader Humberto Piaguaje and another with attorney Pablo Fajardo of the Amazon Defense Front.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last winter, my husband and I took our annual trip to see our parents out West. I’m from Southern California and John’s parents moved out to Arizona a few years ago. So, we can usually see both sets within a couple weeks. And, luckily for us, the trips usually bring warmth and beauty into our lives during Boston’s dreary winters; we spend our time road tripping to places like the Grand Canyon, Sedona, and Big Sur.

A photo from my trip to the Grand Canyon. This beloved national park may have natural resources, but does that mean they should be exploited? Andrea Perera / Oxfam America.

I was thinking about that trip yesterday morning when reading the news that the new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has cancelled oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land in southeastern Utah. This move reverses the Bush administration’s decision to allow drilling on about 130,000 acres near Nine Mile Canyon, Arches National Park, and Dinosaur National Monument. When I look back at the photos from my trip to the Grand Canyon, I can’t imagine what it would be like to drop an industrial oil operation in the midst of that type of unmarred landscape. Read the rest of this entry »

Lorenzo Charupá and his wife Polonia Tomicha at a cattle cooperative in Monte Verde, Bolivia. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America.

What metal makes a super-light battery for a hybrid car, and also can alter your brain chemistry? That’s right, it’s lithium! There was a fascinating article about a huge deposit of lithium in the salt flats of southwest Bolivia in the New York Times on Monday. Reporter Simon Romero got a great comment from a local leader of salt gatherers and farmers looking to share in the revenues from lithium:

“We are poor, but we are not stupid peasants.” Read the rest of this entry »