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To the editor:
On Nov. 26, 1960, CBS broadcast a landmark documentary, “Harvest of Shame.” Presented by Edward R. Murrow, it showed the filth, degradation and exploitation of Black and white migrant farmworkers. Murrow called it a 1960s “Grapes of Wrath.”
The program ended with these words by Murrow, “The migrants have no lobby. Only an enlightened, aroused and perhaps angered public opinion can do anything about the migrants. The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do.”
Sixty-five years later, farmworkers, most of them immigrants, are still being exploited and child labor remains a problem. In some ways, this “Harvest of Shame” is worse than in 1960, because of President Trump’s mass detention and mass deportation policies. Farms have become a target of his crackdown with approximately two-thirds of U.S. farmworkers, mainly from Mexico. In mid-July, for example, ICE raided cannabis farms and agricultural fields in Camarillo and Carpinteria, California. Over 300 immigrants were detained, and one farmworker hiding on a roof fell to his death.
“Harvest of Shame” began in Florida with the recruitment of Black farmworkers. In July 2025, Human Rights Watch released a report, “You Feel Like Your Life Is Over.” It documents horrific conditions in three Florida immigration detention centers, since Trump began his second term. One conclusion is that the “administration’s one-track immigration policy … focused on mass deportation will continue to send more people into … detention facilities … and will only worsen the conditions described in this report.”
As in 1960, the American people should be outraged that their fellow human beings, whether undocumented or documented, are dehumanized, demonized and treated with a lack of compassion. The Phil Ochs lyric from his 1960s song was prescient, “There but for fortune go you or I.”
Howard Elterman
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Word Man
In the sixty-five years since the landmark documentary “Harvest of Shame,” humans have made no progress. Farmworkers, particularly immigrants, continue to face exploitation and child labor. The situation has worsened due to mass detention and deportation policies, particularly affecting farms and resulting in inhumane conditions in detention centers. These policies exploit the most vulnerable members of society, creating a sickening cycle: give me your most vulnerable workers, and I will exploit them for profit and keep them in bondage.
Wednesday, September 10 Report this