David Bacon: Farm Bill and subsidies to grain corporations displace Mexican farmers and fuel immigration

In this video, called ” How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants,” writer and photographer David Bacon shows haunting conditions immigrant workers face in this 2009 lecture that’s still relevant today. Among the causes is the subsidizing of large grain corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, which undermines Mexican farmers’ ability to sell corn at a price that pays their expenses.

In addition, Bacon has two exhibits of photographs showing the conditions of migrant children working in the U.S.:

Making visible through images the living conditions of young Mexicans who work in the fields of California, From October 3 to November 1, in the entrance hall of the Economics Faculty, UNAM, Mexico City, DF

Surviving: the life of farmworkers and their families in the U.S., From October 8 to November 8, City Hall of Oaxaca de Juarez, Plaza de Danza, Centro Historico, Oaxaca

“The majority of people have the idea that by going to the U.S. you rake in the dollars and everything is easy to get, when in reality people have to live under trees, in houses of cardboard, or outdoors, in order to send money to their families”

— Rufino Dominguez Santos, director of IOAM

This exhibition contains 18 large color photographs, and is a traveling show, going especially to those towns identified as ones sending the majority of people to the United States. Its purpose is to make people aware of the living conditions of migrants.

Find more of Davis Bacon’s work on his web site