They could have done anything, really: hit the beach; lay out by the pool; play video games; go to the movies; goof off.

But three University of South Carolina students foreswore the typical activities of college students home for the summer and decided instead to spend the best part of their break helping migrant field workers reach for a better life, the kind of life USC rising seniors Anna Walton, Kyle Warren and Rachel Wright already enjoy and want to share.

Driven by a desire to both give back and expand their own horizons, Walton, Warren and Wright are interning with Student Action for Farmworkers (SAF) through the group’s Into the Fields Summer Internship and Leadership Development Program. The program, which began the first week of June and concludes in August, allows students to choose an area of concentration — heath and medical services, education, legal services, etc. — and then places those students with agencies across the Southeast.

USC students (L-R) Kyle Warren, Anna Walton and Rachel Wright are spending the summer serving migrant farmworkers in the Southeast. Courtesy photos

Warren is a native of Greenville double majoring in political science and English. Hoping to attend law school after graduation, Warren was placed with Southern Migrant Legal Services in Nashville, Tenn. He says the most challenging aspect of his work thus far is gaining the trust of those he seeks to help.

“I primarily do a lot of outreach,” Warren says. “I go out and visit migrant camps and provide legal assistance as to their rights, especially with regard to wage standards.
“It’s a little tough at first, because as a young white guy, when people see me walking up they get nervous that you’re there to deport them. They also can be reluctant to talk to you because they’re afraid it will get back to the grower and hurt them or their family members.

“A lot of times, with undocumented workers especially, they’re screwed out of wages they’re entitled to because the workers are so afraid of getting deported,” Warren continues. “What I’ve found is that it’s really a system rooted in instilling fear in the employees. We don’t think about them when we’re eating at home, we just see the food on the table, but this has really opened my eyes to how oppressive the agricultural business is when it comes to these workers.”

For Walton, a West Columbia native double majoring in biology and Spanish, working with SAF was a natural extension of her desire to continue the kind of work she began last summer conducting a research project on cancer education in Hispanic communities in preparation for medical school. Walton is working in the health services arena and is stationed in Exmore, Va., with the nonprofit Telamon Corp., which maintains a food bank for migrant workers, offers commercial driver’s license and general education diploma certifications and provides pesticide education training.

“My whole charge here is to give the pesticide lessons for arriving workers,” says Walton, who is also blogging about her experience at annainthefields.blogspot.com. “Just today [June 29] we trained about 150 workers who just arrived from Florida last night and who will start picking tomatoes on [July 1].

“It’s about to get busier as the workers continue to arrive, but in the meantime I’ve been able to help at the food bank and do some work as a translator.”

Wright, a native of Greenville, Tenn., majoring in English, was drawn to the SAF program by her Spanish professor and, knowing she wanted to get a master’s degree in social work, chose to concentrate on educational issues.

“I’m very interested in working with Latino communities because I feel like they’re really hard working and are oppressed and overlooked,” Wright says. “They experience a lot of prejudice, and I knew I wanted to do something to eradicate some of that as best I could.”

Wright, who is working with Lenoir County schools in North Carolina, has been teaching classes, something she says has been incredibly rewarding.

“I teach classes to families and children ages 3 to 21 teaching English, the rights of workers and about the rules and laws of North Carolina public schools and the differences between them and Mexico so they can know what to expect,” Wright says.

“By far the most rewarding aspect has been the reaction and receptiveness of the children I’ve been working with. I was worried they wouldn’t want to learn what I was teaching, but they’ve been really receptive and always ask when I’m coming back.

“It makes you feel good.” 

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