Slavery museum brings attention to modern-day practice

Slavery may have been outlawed in the U.S. more than a century ago, but a traveling museum is bringing the reality of slavery's ongoing practice to the public. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is touring the northeast with their Modern Day Slavery Museum. FSRN's Andalusia Knoll has more from New York:

TRANSCRIPT:

In 2008 the Navarette family was prosecuted in Immokalee, Florida for operating a slave ring involving at least 12 farmworkers whom they held in debt bondage with threats of violence.

The slave workers were chained and locked inside of box trailers.  This slavery ring operated just blocks away from the office of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW, an organization that has been fighting for more dignified working conditions for farmworkers for over 15 years. This case inspired them to construct a Modern Day Slavery museum out of a box trailer-truck and tour the East Coast.

Oscar Otzoy of the CIW leads tours of the museum, telling visitors that the conditions in which all farmworkers work create the conditions for slavery:

“Workers receive low salaries, no benefits, and they do not have the right to organize. These horrible conditions within the agricultural industry open up space in which modern-day slavery can exist."

The CIW has helped prosecute six of the seven recent slavery cases documented by the museum. In some cases, the slavery-ring bosses recruited immigrants at the border in Arizona, and in others, they sought out workers at homeless shelters in Florida.

Rudy Cortina with the Student Farmworker Alliance says the cases share a common thread:

“Modern-day slavery is such that the slave, the person being abused or exploited, becomes completely expendable. There is a very low capital investment in terms of getting them to where they are going to be working, and absolutely no capital investment in keeping them healthy or fed or alive. If the slave becomes sick or no longer useful they are easily discarded. They are disposable people.”

Museum visitor Rachel Soltis  says she was very moved by the historical connections outlined by the museum:

“In one of the most severe cases that actually involved us, citizen farmworkers was in the same area where there had been a major plantation where there were hundreds of slaves in the 1700's. And that was also very powerful to me- to see the roots are so much deeper than what is happening in the present."

Cortina says they not only hope to educate people about modern-day slavery, but also inspire them to act:

“If they take it upon themselves to hold corporations accountable, we will be able to eradicate these situations. It is only one glance to know that there are people on these fields who deserve dignity and respect.”

The CIW will continue on their tour throughout the Northeast to raise awareness about modern-day slavery and advocate for dignified working conditions for farmworkers.

Andalusia Knoll, FSRN, New York.

Photo: 1934 painting of Southern plantation workers

Photo credit: cliff1066