Migrants struggle with exotic language barrier
For years, farmworkers have streamed to these fields from Mexico to toil among the blueberry bushes. Under the searing sun, they grimly load trucks with buckets of fruit for little more than the minimum wage. In many ways, these Spanish-speaking migrants worked at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. But in recent years, a new group of indigenous workers has arrived from Mexico and Guatemala. In many cases, they speak only obscure languages, leaving them vulnerable to mistreatment from employers, even as they face racism from some fellow workers. Decades of hard-fought battles for workers' rights have created a safety net in places like Michigan for Spanish-speaking migrant laborers. But growers, government officials and worker advocates have been stumped by this new wave of workers who speak only Mum, Quiche and other pre-Columbian languages of Latin America. If a grower doesn't pay them for overtime work, or houses them in shanties just feet from overflowing outhouses, these workers cannot communicate with the Spanish-speaking lawyers who could help them.
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