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22 miles on the road to justice
By RYAN DAVIS © St. Petersburg Times, published January 15, 2001 TALLAHASSEE -- For 15 years, Lorenzo Ortiz struggled and sweated to earn $40 a day picking fruits and vegetables. He landed a construction job last year that has yielded health care and new jeans, but he doesn't want his 13-year-old daughter to forget the struggles. So he brought Tonya, a seventh-grader at Weightman Middle School, to Tallahassee for this weekend's landmark protest by the state's five largest local farm worker advocacy groups. "I'm here to show her how you feel when you work that kind of job," said Ortiz, 37, of Dade City. "It's like a field trip." The Ortizes were among nearly 400 protesters -- mostly farm workers and their families toting signs and some elaborate displays much like parade floats -- that concluded the parade-like, 22-mile "March for Farmworker Justice" outside the governor's mansion Sunday evening. At the house's gate, they perched a tabletop on the backs of six farm workers and spread peppers, oranges and tomatoes across its white tablecloth. "We put the food on Florida's table," their sign said. They shouted through bullhorns, microphones and cupped hands in support of higher wages and safer working conditions. They also asked that Gov. Jeb Bush organize talks between farm workers and growers. The group included 39 protesters, mostly children of parents who stayed home to work, from Farmworker's Self-Help, a social service and advocacy agency in Dade City. This was the largest contingent of protesters from east Pasco County, which is home to 10,000 farm workers in the winter, to march on Tallahassee in at least a decade, said Margarita Romo, Self-Help's director. The line of marchers, which stretched from one traffic light to the next, crossed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard as it neared Bush's mansion. The event's organizers touted it as a continuation of the civil rights movement tied to the holiday honoring King. "If Martin Luther King were here, he would be with us today," advocate Frank Curiel of Quincy said in front of Bush's mansion. As expected, Bush did not meet with the farm workers. In a Friday letter to one of the march's organizers, he said it is not his role to get involved in private labor disputes. The march, which began Saturday in Quincy, an agricultural town of about 7,000, was the first major push for better wages and working conditions by a newly formed coalition of the state's five major local advocacy groups: one each in Dade City, Apopka, Immokalee, Quincy and Winter Garden. "It's the entire state of Florida's farm workers asking for a change," said Lucas Benitez, a leader of the Coalition for Immokalee Workers. The same groups that marched together this weekend have long fought for money from the same limited pool of funding for farm worker causes. Farm workers make $9,000 without benefits during a good year, march organizers said. Laws prevent them from forming a powerful bargaining union, so this weekend's event was the closest Florida's farm workers have come to unity. * * * The collaboration of the groups is historic. It's especially significant for the Dade City group, which is run by women and focuses more on social services than protests. As We Believe in Freedom by Sweet Honey in the Rock blared from the speakers at the outset of the march on Saturday, the leaders of each group came to the head of the line. Romo was the only woman. During the 20-year history of Self-Help, she has had to overcome a lot of machismo, she said, to earn her spot in line. "Even if we were white women, we'd have troubles," Romo said, "but being Hispanic, it's even harder. The culture has always been that the man is the head of the house. We don't want to change that, but we want more of a partnership." This weekend, the beginning of that unity was molded, Romo said. On Saturday, the group marched nearly 13 miles from Quincy, a small agricultural town, southeast on U.S. 90 toward the capital. After a 30-minute prayer service Sunday morning, it embarked on the last 9 miles. Brown grass served as carpet and bullhorns served as microphones for the service in front of a roadside auto parts store. Chanting el pueblo unido jamas cera vencido -- the people united will never be defeated -- the marches headed toward the parking lot of a Harveys grocery store along U.S. 90. In front of the store, for 30 minutes, the marchers rallied for a boycott of Mount Olive pickles. They said the company will not negotiate with farm working groups in North Carolina demanding higher wages and better working conditions. The same workers who migrate to Dade City for the winter pick cucumbers in North Carolina during the summer, said Maria Rosales of Self-Help. Leaving the store's lot, they continued along the right side of the road to Bush's residence. * * * The Ortiz family had never been to Tallahassee. Lorenzo Ortiz came to the United State in 1985. He spoke little English, was desperate for a job and took the route of many Mexican immigrants: He followed the harvest season from Michigan to Wisconsin and always to Dade City. In 15 years, he never got a raise. "That's almost half of my life," he said. "It's time to say something." He wanted Tonya to hear him. "I've told her, 'I don't want to see you like me working this kind of job,' " he said as they marched together. "I want her to go to school." To avoid drawing increased police attention, organizers tried to keep the line of protesters narrow enough to fit between rows in a grove. Though he was tiring, Lorenzo Ortiz told his daughter that this was unmistakably different from any day in his past. "This is nothing for people who work in the fields," he said. "When you pick oranges, you are tired everywhere." -- Ryan Davis covers higher education and social services in Pasco. He can be reached at (800) 333-7505, ext. 3452, or by e-mail at rdavis@sptimes.com.
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