EUGENE–A University of Oregon anthropologist is leading a student research project that will help Oregonians understand the human cost of producing the abundant fruits and vegetables that grace their tables.

To produce the first written history of the farm worker movement in Oregon and of PCUN, Piñeros y Campesiños Unidos del Noreste (Northwest Tree Planters and Farm Workers United), anthropology professor Lynn Stephen and a small group of students spent several months poring over documents in the archives of PCUN. Stephen and the students also interviewed farm workers, lawyers, union organizers, and religious and community leaders.

PCUN, the largest farm workers’ advocacy organization in Oregon, was founded in 1985 to unite and organize farm workers to improve their working conditions. The group organized and led the first farm worker strike in Oregon in 1991 and won a 33 percent wage increase for strawberry pickers.

Stephen is incorporating much of the PCUN data into an undergraduate class she is teaching on the relationship between U. S. immigration policy in this century and the experience of Mexicans who have labored on U.S. farms. The class also is supported by the university’s Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics endowment.

Just under half the students in the farm worker class are Latinos. Five have parents who were or are farm workers. Some were surprised to learn of the working and living conditions their parents endured as field workers.

Mayra Gomez is enrolled in the class and also helped with the farm worker history.

"My dad always joked about the years he spent picking crops," Gomez says. "I had no idea of the bad conditions field workers face both on the job and in migrant camps. While working on the project I saw videos of children as young as five working in the fields. I was shocked."

"As many as 100,000 farm workers, primarily Mexican, now labor in Oregon during some part of each year. It’s important to understand and respect these people who have their hands in the dirt, work in the rain and earn minimum wage or less to harvest the food we put on our tables," Stephen says. "We need to know how the strawberries, broccoli and the other produce we consume is connected to the lives of the people who grow and harvest it," she adds.

The research project on the history of the farm worker movement in Oregon is supported by a "Vision Grant" from the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics in cooperation with PCUN and the student group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanos de Aztlan (MECHA). The history will be available at the PCUN office in Woodburn, in the Knight Library at the University of Oregon and eventually on the Internet.

The written mission of the Morse Chair is to bring to campus appointees who "exemplify the traditions and qualities associated with Wayne Morse–statesmanship, integrity, foresight, independence and fearless championing of the public interest." Since 1980, the endowment has been used each year to bring a noted scholar, author or activist from the areas of law or politics to the university and community.

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