From March to May of 2006, millions of people took to the streets across the nation in protest of proposed changes to immigration policy, including making it a felony to be in the U.S. without legal immigration status.
On May 1, International Workers’ Day, some 30,000 people turned out in Orlando for what was called “A Day Without Immigrants.” Yesica Ramirez was among them. She had volunteered to pick up garbage along the route of the march. A vocation for activism was born.
Actually, though, it’s likely the activist had long been within her, evolving, incrementally, along her journey. With that humble gesture, it emerged.
Six years prior, at 16, Ramirez had left her home in the rural Mexican state of Michoacan with family members, bound for the United States. They walked for several days with little food or water, crossing the border and eventually making their way to Apopka, Florida, just outside Orlando, where Ramirez found work in a plant nursery. She was accustomed to hard work, but not to the chemicals she and her coworkers were exposed to, the rashes, headaches, and nausea.
She volunteered, marched, and, with assistance from the Farmworker Association of Florida, educated herself on job-related risks and workers’ rights. She joined the association’s board and was hired as its receptionist – just a temporary stopover, she figured. She then became its Apopka area organizer, serving in that role for 12 years.
Today, she serves as the Farmworker Association of Florida’s general coordinator, the first woman to hold that position in its nearly half-century history.
“It was only going to be for three months,” Ramirez said of her tenure at the association. It’s been 20 years.
She’s helped organize demonstrations and community meetings, overseen hurricane disaster relief and response work, lobbied state and national politicians, stood with farmworkers in defense of their rights.
“Yesica has been an extraordinary example of a campesina and Chicana leader,” said Mily Trevino-Sauceda, executive director of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas (National Alliance for Farmworker Women). “Her passion for mobilizing her community – shaped by her experiences as a farmworker, mother, and leader – gives her the foresight to define justice and innovate ways to bring attention to it.”
In her childhood, Ramirez experienced the pain of separation, her father traveling to the U.S. for seasonal work. She’s labored under unsafe conditions; she’s withstood injustice. She is uniquely positioned to help chart a less-arduous path forward.
Longtime friend and Farmworker Association volunteer Maria Pareda attests: “She’s got powers.”
‘Unity and Much Hope’
Founded in 1983 by farmworkers after severe winter freezes left them unemployed, the Farmworker Association of Florida today has more than 10,000 members and five offices. Ramirez has little formal education but a wealth of practical experience and an empathetic nature.
“Sometimes people come with a resume that’s longer than this table,” said Giselda Payne, a Farmworker Association colleague, but “they don’t know how to connect with people.” Ramirez makes a genuine connection.
As general coordinator, through coalition-building, Trevino-Sauceda said, Ramirez has brought “unity and much hope” to her community.
A primary responsibility is educating farmworkers on occupational risks – about pesticide exposure, for example.
“They get a headache while they’re working and they just think this is normal,” Ramirez said, speaking with the assistance of an interpreter. “That’s why it’s very important for us to go out into the fields and let them know about these risks.”
For many years, the Farmworker Association conducted voter-registration drives; then Florida passed a law prohibiting noncitizens from “collecting or handling” voter registration applications.
The association discontinued voter registration about four years ago, Ramirez said, but they still encourage people to vote. Young people, the sons and daughters of immigrants, are helping spearhead such initiatives.
Throughout the pandemic, the Farmworker Association promoted the use of vaccines and distributed essential supplies. They went into the fields and plant nurseries to give demonstrations on how to properly wear masks.
Wage theft is another issue of primary concern – employers neglecting to pay their workers – which Ramirez said has become more rampant since the onset of mass deportation. When a worker threatens to report an employer, she said, the employer not uncommonly says, “Do it; I’ll call immigration.”
Ramirez takes farmworker volunteers to Tallahassee, the state capital, and Washington, D.C., to talk with politicians, to share their stories, “Most [politicians]” she said, “don’t know these stories.”
Racial Profiling
While most of the rest of the country has only in the past two years been awakened to an aggressive deportation campaign, Florida, Ramirez said, has been subjected to such tactics for some time now.
In May 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718 into law. Among its provisions is that hospitals and emergency departments that receive Medicaid are required to ask patients their immigration status.
The effects, Ramirez said, have been nightmarish: misinformation, rumors, confusion, fear. She tells of women choosing to deliver their babies at home, fearful of being arrested while hospitalized.
Of the day-to-day reality for so many immigrants in Florida, she said, “Before Trump took office this time, it was bad.” Since, “the persecution of our communities hasn’t just doubled; it’s become ten times worse.”
Many people, Ramirez said, are going out only when necessary. “It’s, like, I need groceries, so I need to go out real fast and pray to God that nothing happens from here to the grocery store.”
Mothers are frightened to take their kids to school; many stay home. Farmers are losing money, unable to find enough workers.
People are pulled over for suspect reasons, she said – a person of color transporting construction equipment, for example. “It’s racial profiling. We can’t prove per se that it’s racial profiling, but it is.”
Even those with legal status are subject. “Of course, it’s harder for them to take a citizen away, but people are still afraid.”
Many talk of leaving, exhausted by the specter of the unknown. But most hold on, Ramirez said, for the opportunities for their children, the promise.
Ramirez takes farmworker volunteers to Tallahassee, the state capital, and Washington, D.C., to talk with politicians, to share their stories. (Photo by Taylor Sisk)
Faith in Action
When Ramirez and her family came to this country, their plan was to work “hard, hard, hard for one year,” save money, then return to Mexico and build their own home. That aspiration was common, she said. But along the way, so often, something happened.
“They fell in love with the United States,” she said. That promise seemed genuine. Clearly, though, today, faith in its realization is somewhat diminished.
Still, Ramirez said, many remain hopeful that these dark days will pass, that things will change for the better. “We have to be resilient.”
When she crossed into the United States, Ramirez said, she began experiencing things she didn’t understand. Now, witnessing people experiencing those same challenges, she’s convinced she was destined to help others navigate forward.
If your heart’s not fully in this work, Giselda Payne affirmed, “you’re in the wrong place.” There are those who arrive full of good intentions but don’t have what’s required. “They don’t have that spirit of serving, or that charisma to connect…They don’t have that passion.”
Ramirez has it all, Maria Pareda said: “The work she’s doing, she does in a very special way.”
Ramirez leans into her faith in a better future, “but faith without action is worthless. You can’t stay at home with faith, thinking that anything’s going to change.”
“Her tenacity and hard work building trust in Florida despite everything that is going on within the state and this government are what make her so impressive and effective,” Mily Trevino-Sauceda said. Ramirez “is ready to keep going no matter the obstacles. She is not only resilient; she is a thriver.”
“A Rural Calling” is a Daily Yonder profile series featuring people throughout rural America who are making significant contributions to their communities.
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