Squid Sweatshops: The Slimy Truth About How Imported Seafood Gets To Your Table

It was a little after eight in the evening, and the sun was just beginning to set over the Gulf of California. Our small motorboat, known here in Santa Rosalia, Mexico, as a panga, sped out over the shimmering water. The breezy sea air felt good and clean after the heat of the day, and soon Delmar, the 26-year-old squid fisherman who had agreed to take us out for his night's work, was cracking open cans of Tecate with my Mexican translator, Emmanuel Ruiz.

When we reached Delmar's fishing spot, he cut the engine and flipped on the rusty battery pack that powers a tiny light bulb duct-taped to a pole on the to a thousand feet of clear fishing line. He tossed it overboard, wrapping the other end around a piece of scrap wood. When the line went tight after a few minutes, he began to pull, bare hand over bare hand, hauling the line back up through hundreds of feet of water. Seconds later, a 40-pound Humboldt squid splashed up from the depths with an enormous spray of salt water and sticky, black ink. From tentacles to tail, it was almost as long as the panga is wide. I understood why the pescadores call the giant red squid Diablo Rojo (Red Devil).

In one fluid movement, Delmar yanked the squid out of the water and slapped it down on the wooden plank he used as a table. It snorted, flopped, and sprayed ink, arms wriggling. Delmar donned an already soaked pair of gardening gloves, grabbed a rusty machete, and neatly chopped off the squid's head. Then he sliced open its body, ripping out the squid's entrails, brain, beak, and still-blinking yellow eyeball and throwing them overboard, before tossing the head and body into the separate wells made by the panga's benches.

Four hours of nonstop hauling, spraying, and slicing later, the piles of red squid bodies and heads had grown so large that we had to balance with our feet braced awkwardly against the slippery benches. When we had to move around the boat, we'd slip on spare eyeballs and black slime, and occasionally a spastic tentacle would wrap itself around the odd ankle. Everything we wore was soaked with salt water and squid guts, and the air turned cold.

There were no life vests, radios, or emergency lights on board Delmar's panga. Every season, at least two or three fishermen die at sea, from accidents, drug overdoses, or a heart attack that sets in before a pescadoro can return to shore.

"We know each other, but when we're fishing, we aren't friends, we're competitors," Delmar says of the other fishermen, most of whom have been at it since they were 13.

"Nobody will tell you when they find a good fishing spot, or even help you if your boat capsizes. The work is too hard."

These grotesque working conditions are just the beginning of problems for the people of Santa Rosalia, a town of around 10,000 that is located in Baja California Sur, a long day's drive from Tijuana. When Hurricane Jimena swept through last September, entire neighborhoods were destroyed, leaving many families homeless. Though the Baja peninsula is a mecca for tourists, few of them stay in Santa Rosalia for long. There are no spring break parties here. Not one of the few motels or cafes has a credit card machine. The small beach has black sand, thanks to run-off from a now defunct copper mine, and is littered with old tires and other trash. The rest of the waterfront is devoted to three squid factories and the panga docks, because fishing the 10 million Humboldt squid swimming in 25 square miles of Santa Rosalia's waters is the only game in town.

The squid processing plants consist of Korean-owned Brumar de San Bruno, Korean-owned Hanjin Mexico, and Chinese-owned Pesquera de Longing, SA. These factories buy each day's catch from middlemen known as permissionarios, who have frozen the price the fishermen receive for their squid at just two pesos per kilo. That means most consider a $50 paycheck for a 10-hour fishing trip to be a good night. And it is, compared to what their wives, mothers, and daughters make working in the plants themselves, where things are even worse.