The grower and the crew leader advance him groceries and other necessities against his wages. and he never comes out ahead. He is powerlessboth politically and economicallyto affect his situation. The cycle is well on its way again. __ Migrants are the poorest paid. the most underfed. the least healthy. the worst housed. the most undereducated. and perhaps the most abused human beings in our society today. What goes on from generation to generation is the awful wholesale destruction. physically and psychologically. of hundreds of thousands of American childrenmigrant children. What is especially discouraging is that these remarks of mine are obviously not the first time. or the hundredth or the thousandth. that this tragedy has been brought to public attention. A half century of rhetoric--of books. poetry. song. presidential reports. congressional hearings. and television documentarieshas documented this modern day slave system again and again. To say that nothing has been done to help the migrant child would be unfair. A Migrant Health Act was passed about 10 years ago. which now provides a very limited $36 a year for the health of each migrant child. as opposed to the $96 which the average middle income family spends annually on each of its childrens health. The poverty program. the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and other Federal programs have titles or special provisions providing funds for migrant children. but these funds are very meager. The most important hope for the migrant child of the future has been the rising of a great movement among the farmworkersthe movement to organize for the improvement of wages and working conditions through collective bargaining. After a half century of broken strikes and failed efforts. Cesar Chavez has molded a union which is surviving. But if Chavez has succeeded to some extent in California. there are still thousands of migrant children in Texas and Florida. and. indeed. New York and New Jersey and Michigan. for that matter. whose life is essentially unchanged. There are still horrendous gaps in coverage by Federal labor law and social programs. includingof special significance to the migrant child--child labor laws. The generational trap of poverty. the slave labor. the premature deterioration of health. the inevitable destruction of lifeall these things remain essentially as they have perennially been for nearly a million migrant children in America. "The Grapes of Wrath" was written almost 40 years ago. and John Steinbeck is dead. but the conditions continue. If we are going to have White House Conferences on Children. let us put as much passion into the implementation as we do into the parlor discussion. Otherwise. 10 more years will pass. A few million more migrant children will go down the drain. And another conference will surely convene to talk about new directions for the future. The black child in the rural South.
Identified stereotypes
Migrants are the poorest paid, the most underfed, the least healthy, the worst housed, the most undereducated, and perhaps the most abused human beings in our society today.