Speech #920222110

Eleven out of a population of 10.000. So weve given our share. Migrant children are able to profit the least from the traditionally inadequate school system which the community has maintained. due to the fact that they have to leave early and dont return until October or November. The Crystal City Independent School District suffers from one of the highest dropout rates in the nation80%. and tragically most of these dropouts are migrants. The average educational level of adults is 1.7 years in Zavala County. Approximately 25% of the adults are classified as functional illiterates. a very conservative estimate. These grim statistics refer to the majority of Zavala County citizens. nearly all of whom are Chicanos and migrant farmworkers. According to a report from the Migrant Project Group in H.E.W. ("Health Fact Sheet: Migratory Agricultural Workers" April. 1971). the typical migrant child has a life expectancy twenty years shorter than the "average" U.S. citizen. this. of course. assuming that "the child survives infancy and an infant mortality rate 2 and A times higher than the national average. A nutritional study of Southwestern migrant workers disclosed serious dietary deficiencies: 10% who had never had milk. 19% never had citrus fruit. 35% never had green or yellow vegetables. and 14% who had never had meat products. Other findings reflecting the migrants tragic lack of health care include a tuberculosis rate seventeen times greater than the national average. a venereal disease occurrence eighteen times higher. and an incidence of worms thirtyfive times higher than the national average. The occurrence of infectious. respiratory and digestive maladies is two to five times higher than the average citizen of this country. Furthermore. the migrant suffers an accident rate on the job three times that of the national average. as well as an occupational disease rate three times greater than the average for all industries. Incidents such as epidemics of poliomyelitis and diphtheria in South Texas among migrants in the 1970s are unfortunately all too common. Somehow. whether deliberate racial and social prejudice or perhaps due to the simple indifference of the more affluent majority who enjoy the fruit of the migrants labor. the migrant farmworkers has been very effectively excluded from this nations health care system and educational process which would permit him to escape his miserable conditions. Public aid programs. which have been created by the U.S. Congress and various state legislatures to aid the needy. are generally unavailable to the migrant family. The usual reasons include geographic residency requirements. requirements for a linkage to a public assistance category. and the general targeting of federal programs toward the nonworking poor. For example. very few migrant families are able to qualify for AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) assistance. When they travel north. they are effectively. excluded by the "intent to reside" concept that limits so many states programs. In Texas and Florida. two of the major home bases. migrants are excluded by the restriction on giving aid to any family which has an ablebodied male head in residence. That is an integral part of the family. to have a man in the house who can drive the trucks 1400 to 1500 miles during the stay in the migrant stream. For this the families are punished. Similarly. many migrants will toil their entire lives only to discover that they are not eligible for Social Security retirement benefits like other American workers due to the special status given agricultural workers by the Social Security Act. Employers have numerous loopholes. such as the fact that an employee must earn $150 or have worked at least twenty days before any inpayment need be made. that permit them to avoid making any contributions for migrants. Unethical crew leaders often exploit the migrants dependency by overdeducting or not even reporting their wages. Perhaps most tragically of all. the migrants lack of eligibility for retirement benefits results in excluding them from any participation in Medicaid and Medicare services. -Other federal programs set up to assist the needy include the Food Stamps Program and the Surplus Commodities Program. Aside from the fact that many counties (such as Zavala in Texas) refuse to participate in the Food Stamps Program and that the materials provided under the Surplus Commodities Program are definitely not oriented toward maintaining a good diet. migrant farmworkers are seldom capable of effectively utilizing these two public assistance programs. The administrative offices are all too often set up in inaccessible and poorly publicized locations. and hours of service are frequently limited to 9:0012:00. 1:005:00. one day a month. In addition to transportation and related problems. the migrant must sacrifice a full days work in order to stand in line in hopes of receiving some assistance toward feeding his family. Even then. certification of eligibility is a drawnout and humiliating experience. in which many local officials are outright hostile and even insulting to the applicants. . Finally. one is confronted with the all too well documented shortage of private health care services in rural farmwork areas. When this scarcity is compounded by sociocultural barriers. especially the lack of bilingual health care personnel who are sensitive to the plight of lowincome Chicanos. and by financial barriers. in which few institutions are willing to serve families which are ineligible for Medicaid/Medicare. it becomes clear that the migrant farmworker has to "make do" with whatever home remedies his culture and tradition can provide him. This callous disregard of the needs of the migrant is perhaps best typified by a recent experience of ours in Zavala County. With the assistance of sympathetic consultants from the Regional H.E.W. office in Dallas. my office made application to the U.S. National Health Service Corps. requesting the services of a physician for two years in Zavala County. and a dentist.