All together, it adds up to a set of working conditions that makes farmwork one of the most dangerous occupations in the U.S. and farmworkers the most indigent population in the country, according to a General Accounting Office (GAO) survey.

This is an uncomfortable story. But not a new one.

The History of the American Farmworker

“The American agriculture industry has always relied on marginalized workers,” says Daniel Rothenberg, who has written extensively on farmworker issues. First it was African-American slaves in the South, then indentured Chinese in the West. Around the time of World War II, Mexican workers became a major part of U.S. agricultural history after the passage of the Labor Importation Program. Commonly known as the “bracero program,” it brought 4.8 million Mexican workers to the United States, establishing a pattern of Mexico-to-U.S. migration that persists today across the 1,969 mile-long border, one of the world’s longest land borders separating a rich country from a poor one.

Under the bracero program, at least 15,000 Mexican workers were brought to Oregon to work on farms before the program was terminated in 1964 under public pressure by unions, churches, and community groups that exposed stories of worker exploitation and mistreatment. Since then, lawmakers have taken various stabs at immigration reform, none of which have met farmers’ needs for an adequate legal workforce or quelled the tide of immigrants crossing the border undocumented.

The reality behind the production of our food cracks against the conscience. It makes most people yearn for a broom and a rug. It pits farmworker activists against farmers like bears against bulls and annoys the hurried consumer, who resents the fact that he is an unwitting accomplice: Let’s just eat the damn cheeseburger and get on with the day.

The problem with the debate around farmworkers is that it’s instantaneously polarizing and automatically demonizing, like a Vaudeville play in which farmers are cast as the villain and the farmworkers are tied to the tracks. It is, in reality, a whole lot more nuanced than that.