May 1 Boycotters Say Yes to Citizenship, No to Guest Worker Programs

DUDLEY, N.C.--If anyone has everything to lose by participating in the May 1 boycott called by some immigrants' rights activists, it's Jesus Nunez Vela. Despite the risk of losing his job as an agricultural worker on a farm in North Carolina, the 57-year-old "guest worker" is not going to work on Monday and will instead hop on a bus headed to a march against punitive immigration proposals in Washington, D.C.

I met Vela as he was getting off another bus -- for the 15th time -- in rural Vass, N.C. He had just finished an 18-hour ride from Nayarit, Mexico, when I met him in the offices of the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA). Vela has, since 1991, come to the United States as a temporary guest worker to pick tomatoes, yams and the most painful crop, tobacco, which forces workers to bend over for more than 10 hours a day in fields filled with pesticides. After the harvest ends, Vela returns to his home in Durango, Mexico. Though he is grateful to be making more than the 50 pesos (approximately $5) per day he made back home, he does not recommend the life of the H-2, or "guest worker," to anyone.

"I've been temporary for more than 15 years and I'd like it to stop," says Vela. "I'm doing this because I have a wife and four kids who depend on me. They (the U.S. government and politicos) keep us under the ilusion that we will one day get our papers." As he says this he sits and waits to get processed in the NCGA office before reporting once again to his employer on the farm.

Vela's situation reminds me of my cousins from El Salvador who have toiled under the tyranny of temporary status as maids and housekeepers in cities like San Francisco. When I think about my cousin Maria, who had not seen her now-mustachioed son since he was 3 years old, I have a hard time understanding how we can afford not to boycott.

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