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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. As we continue our coverage of Hurricane Milton and its aftermath, we’re joined by Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a farmworker, organizer with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in southwest Florida, which also runs a radio station called Radio Consciencia, which helped immigrant workers prepare for Hurricane Milton and other storms. He lives in Florida but is joining us from Las Vegas, where he just landed.
If you can place for us Immokalee and talk about what you understand has taken place right now?
GERARDO REYES CHAVEZ: Yes. Good morning, Amy. Thank you for inviting us.
Immokalee is a farmworker community that was created as a labor reserve. And it is also the epicenter for the production of tomatoes with companies that are based in that area, with production on the entire East Coast. And in Immokalee, we have workers that come from Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, and other workers from Central America. We are a very vulnerable community that also has been the epicenter of the fight for human rights in the fields for decades. We have been able to establish agreements with 14 major corporations to create some collaboration that has helped us in minimizing some of the vulnerabilities that we have faced for many, many years, by working together in moments of crisis like this one.
AMY GOODMAN: And if you can also, Gerardo, talk with the radio station? Yesterday, we had on the news director of WMNF in Tampa, who was covering Gulfport in Florida. And your radio station, that is so key, these community radio stations, to linking up people and the kind of mutual aid that needs to be done.
GERARDO REYES CHAVEZ: Yeah. Our community radio station has been broadcasting since 2003. And during all of these years, we have had broadcastings in different languages, Indigenous languages and in Spanish, which is the main language that most people speak, also in Creole.
And through the radio, we have been communicating all the messages so that people know where to go and what’s going on in regards to, in this case, hurricanes. So, one of the key things about our community radio station is that its nickname, it’s “Yours,” it’s “La Tuya,” which means it’s something that we have created with the community. In fact, the first library we had was donations of music from the community itself. And the participation of the community in the programming, it’s very important, as well as the organizing efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers that are what makes possible this trust in the information that a community that is so vulnerable needs to hear to be able to then go to the shelters, for example. People follow those instructions. And we know that in many different circumstances we have been able to direct people and safeguard our community by collaborating with the community also in all of these efforts. So, for us, it’s a very important tool, and it is a space in which we convey the information that have helped us save lives, no doubt.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Gerardo, we only have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about the housing conditions of many of the migrant workers that you deal with. They’re usually dilapidated or poorly constructed housing. How are they unduly affected by storms like this?
GERARDO REYES CHAVEZ: Well, this is always scary for us, you know, whenever a hurricane hits on our area. As you mentioned, mobile homes are really, really old. They are not safe places to be. And something that I have seen, you know, is through the agreements that we have established with the Fair Food Program. There has been changes on the housing for workers inside Fair Food Program farms. But, sadly, the conditions of vulnerability, living conditions especially, are horrible in most agricultural communities.
So, what we are seeing, it’s — you know, all the dangers of climate change, communities like Immokalee across the entire state are suffering more than other communities. So, we’re still trying to assess the impact of Hurricane Milton across the central part of Florida. And we are going to be trying to support those communities like we have done in the past. This time we were lucky that it didn’t hit us directly. But we know that other communities are suffering and are going to be needing support, that are in a desperate situation right now. So we will be taking steps to try to support them as much as we can.
AMY GOODMAN: And as we wrap up, we have five seconds, but the major — the countries where so many of the farmworkers come from, Haiti — in your area, in Immokalee, Haiti, Mexico?
GERARDO REYES CHAVEZ: And Guatemala, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And Guatemala. Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a farmworker, senior staff member, organizer at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in southwest Florida, which also runs a radio station called Radio Consciencia, which helps immigrant workers prepare for hurricanes. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!
