Center for Farmworker Families Mission
The Center for Farmworker Families commits to raising awareness about the challenging circumstances farmworker families face, while actively working to improve financial stability, physical health, and overall well-being.
Center for Farmworker Families fulfills this purpose by engaging in the activities below. For a complete list, please see our Current Projects page.
Farmworker Reality Tours
The tours challenge participants to better understand the conditions of Mexican farmworkers in Northern California by sharing in their lives, food, and living quarters. Please check out our current events. If you are an organization interested in participating in a reality tour, please contact us.
Oaxacan Community Shed
Center for Farmworker Families works closely with Oaxacan community members living in several rural towns in Central California. As the most recent arrivals to Central Coast agriculture, Oaxacan farmworkers are the poorest farmworkers working in the region. They regularly endure racism and racist comments from other Mexican farmworkers.Three years ago we conducted a survey to determine the items that are most needed in the Oaxacan community. We asked a Oaxacan family that lives in NW Watsonville to manage an empty shed on their rental property. We learned that the most needed items include baby diapers in all sizes, baby wipes, paper towels, toilet paper, rice, beans, shampoo, bath soap, laundry detergent and dish soap.
Since then we stock the shed with these items at the beginning of each month. Diapers, baby wipes, paper towels, toilet paper, shampoo, soaps rice and beans are purchased to make sure the basic needs are met and that there is always food on site, so no one will go hungry.
In addition, we supply the shed with donated clothing, household items, toys, and furniture. Once the shed is stocked, members from about 30 Oaxacan families visit the shed and are provided with needed items that they cannot afford to purchase with their meager wages.
Over the past three years, the shed and the parking lot area in front of the shed have become a central location for meetings, transfer of important information affecting the community, meditation classes, English classes, math tutoring for school assignments, a Girl Scout Boutique project in which teen girls can acquire needed clothing for school, distribution of school supplies to children prior to the fall semester in August, and visits with people living in the region of Central California who want to contribute to the community. Flyers announcing tutoring, medical services, immigration rights, and children’s summer camp opportunities are posted on the shed door for all to see.
Dr. Ann Lopez
Dr. Ann López is the Executive Director of Center for Farmworker Families. She is an emerita professor and taught courses in biology, environmental science, ecology and botany in the biology department at San José City College for many years.
She has a Ph.D. from UCSC in Environmental Studies where she studied the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on the farms of west central Mexico. Her book entitled The Farmworkers’ Journey summarizes the results, arguments and conclusions of her research and was published by UC Press.. She has been recognized for her work by The U.S. Congress and many organizations. She was chosen as a Woman of the Year for 2013 and 2014 by the National Association of Professional Women. In March 2018, she was chosen for a 16th Annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Award in Watsonville and as Woman of the Year by Mark Stone’s 29th District for 2019.
Dr. Lopez’ research findings while interviewing central California farmworker families and their family members in Mexico were fundamentally disturbing and life transforming. As a result, she is actively attempting to create awareness about the Human Rights abuses that are endemic to every juncture of the migrant circuit. She has also initiated many projects on both sides of the border designed to alleviate some of the inordinate suffering experienced daily by migrant farm workers and their family members in Mexico.
