A Rural Calling: Yesica Ramirez

Yesica Ramirez left rural Michoacan at 16, crossed into Florida, and found work in a plant nursery where pesticide exposure gave her and her coworkers rashes, headaches, and nausea. A volunteer stint picking up trash after a 2006 immigration march led her into the Farmworker Association of Florida, where she is now general coordinator, the first woman in that role in the organization's 42-year history.

The association, founded in 1983 after freezes left farmworkers jobless, now counts more than 10,000 members. Ramirez's current work includes educating workers on pesticide risk, documenting wage theft that she says has worsened amid mass deportation enforcement, and bringing farmworkers to meet with state and federal lawmakers.

She points to Florida's 2023 law requiring Medicaid-funded hospitals to ask patients' immigration status as driving fear so acute that some women now deliver babies at home rather than risk a hospital visit. She describes life under the current federal deportation push as far harsher than before, with families limiting errands and children kept home from school.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.