Seeing things, or Devastation, Part II

Immokalee is poor - unimaginably poor.

And it is a place most Floridians will never see, tucked back in the swamp as it is, with a buffer of orange groves to shield the encroaching subdivisions from a town that will never grace a Chamber of Commerce Welcome Center postcard. I am not a world traveler so I have never seen the poor rural areas in places like Haiti or Puerto Rico except on television. I imagine that they might look a lot like Immokalee, though.

Immokalee doesn't need a hurricane to devastate it. It is already devastated. It is impossible to tell if the houses there have hurricane damage or if they are just damaged, period.

No one is white except the charity workers who appear to all be white. By virtue of the fact that we are both white and bringing relief supplies, we fall into that category. We should not be proud of ourselves for what we are doing - we should be ashamed of ourselves for what we have not done and for what we have allowed to happen.

The Katrina relief veterans in the group are somewhat disappointed. There is power and running water at the Guadalupe Social Services building. The building has a roof and all the walls are in tact - hardly a Katrina-scale disaster. And yet some disasters - such as the ecocide occurring in the surrounding glades - are not acute...they are chronic. Immokalee is that kind of disaster, caused by a cataclysm of neglect, not by an apocalyptic visitation from the storm gods.

Guadalupe Social Services, run by the Catholic Charities, is a four-star charity according to Charity Navigator...their operating expenses are low, their administrative costs negligible. A full 82% of their funds go back into programs for the community they serve. No matter how you come down on the subjects of charity and religion, Guadalupe is there to serve, not to plunder, and I appreciate that in an organization (as much as I am capable of appreciating any institutional group). The woman who was our point of contact was unpretentious and sensible. Her concern was for the undocumented migrants who cannot get assistance any other way other than through Guadalupe. For her part, she tells us, she doesn't care about "documents."

The migrants come from all over - they are not just Mexican...there are also Haitians and people from numerous South American countries. There are perhaps 100 adults scattered around the Guadalupe grounds and half again as many children. Many are in line for the soup kitchen, while others, I presume are there for different services...our little caravan sticks out, in all its glorious whiteness, like a sore thumb, and yet in so many ways, I feel as at home here as I do at Food Not Bombs. I could stay in Immokalee, forever, I think, and not ever go back to my corporate job. And I think about the march of the concrete ants...the surrounding subdivisions and budding retail slums which always glom onto the nearest suburban host like a leech to warm blood...and I think that they will never reach this place. Unlike urban ghettos, this place will never be gentrified...not as long as there are rich landowners that need poor people to pick their produce. Biff and Muffy's 2.5 adorable children must be shielded from places like this at all costs...the orange groves serve as a moat around a trailer park castle. The march of the concrete ants will stop here.

But of course there shouldn't be a "here." And charity is just a piece of chewing gum in a New Orleans levee. The goal should be community empowerment. The goal should be the co-creation of a place where charity is no longer necessary and where no human being is dependent upon our white generosity to feed and clothe their children.

It is embarrassing to perform an act of what I refer to as "hit and run" charity. I want to talk to the people there. I want to learn their languages and listen to their stories like I do in the park with the homeless. I want to help, but I also want to learn. I don't want to be just the bearer of yet another can of pork 'n' beans. Yes, Guadalupe is there, but judging by the number of trailers in the small portion of the city we saw, that isn't near enough.

I ask the woman from the center what her greatest need is. She tells me that they were meeting on that today and that for the Immokalee farm workers...and for her group...the worst was yet to come. It would be two full months before the citrus crop would be ready. The crops that they came to pick this month and the next are gone...Wilma's damage, it seems, was not so much to structures as it was to infrastructure. There would be no work until winter. In the meanwhile, Guadalupe would focus on how to feed and sustain an entire community until the oranges ripen. They would have to find more than food, water, shelter and clothing...they would have to find ways to pay the rent and utilities for hundreds of people with no means at all to do it themselves.

I will go back again...hopefully with a full truck of supplies and perhaps cash donations as well. But all that amounts to is a bigger wad of chewing gum when what is needed is a whole new levee.

Part I   Home