Toledo-based farm labor leader tackles tobacco in North Carolina

[Omaha Steve]

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080810/NEWS08/813995444/-1/NEWS

Article published Sunday, August 10, 2008
CALL TO THE FIELDS

By JC REINDL
BLADE STAFF WRITER

The sun was up and already beating strong when Baldemar Velásquez awakened inside the concrete block building to a stinging sunburn and tingling numbness in his hands and fingers.

With no air-conditioning in the farm labor camp, there would again be little escape this day from the unrelenting summer heat. Before long, his entire body felt drenched in sweat.

Worst of all, it was barely 8 a.m. There were still nearly 10 hours of tobacco picking ahead in the humidity-drenched fields of North Carolina, which leads the nation in heat-related farm worker deaths.

And so began a typical day for the 61-year-old labor organizer during his week-long visit to a tobacco farm that concluded Aug. 4 with a return home to Sylvania Township.

In essence, his trip was a fact-finding mission, one that involved as much participation as observation. Mr. Velásquez lived and worked alongside a group of about 14 migrant workers, picking tobacco plants at the most brutal time of the year.

“My feeling is that if I’m going to represent somebody, I better do the work that they’re doing to know what they’re going through,” he said last week upon his return.

The work in the fields was utterly exhausting. Yet Mr. Velásquez managed to gather the energy and thoughts each evening to write a daily journal of his experiences. His entries, condensed and edited by The Blade, accompany this article.

FULL story and photo at link.