Huron, California May not Exist in a Year

By Viji Sundaram, New America Media. Posted July 9, 2009.

For a town whose majority of residents face language barriers and have few options other than working in the fields, such restrictions imposed by the feds can only be devastating. Nearly 98 percent of Huron’s population is Hispanic, and although it is hard to know exactly how many of them are undocumented, Chief Steenport ventured a guess: between 60 and 70 percent, with some of them possibly awaiting an “adjustment of status.”

“Yes, there are a lot of them who are undocumented,” agreed Mayor Pro Tem Hilda Plasencia.

The unemployment rate in Huron in recent months is “off the charts,” Gilmore said, driving people to hunger and desperation. Plasencia estimated that around 35 percent of the residents are unemployed, even higher if you count all the undocumented who are out of work. California’s unemployment rate in May was 11.5 percent, while Fresno County’s was 15.4 percent, according to the California Employment Development Department.

The situation in Huron is so grim that Chief Steenport is pessimistic about its future.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he said, tapping his desk. “A year from now, we may not be here.”

He said that over the last few months, while the city was trying to fill the vacancies created by the departure of the city manager and public works director, he agreed to fill in, as well as oversee the city’s finances. He said he declined any increase in his salary so two other city employees’ jobs could be saved.

“Frank thinks Huron will turn into a ghost town in the next year or two,” said Assemblyman Gilmore. “I agree with him.”

Indeed, Huron, all 3.5 square miles of it, appears to be a town on the brink of a precipice. Its harvests, which even until a couple of years ago, rose and fell like an inchworm’s back, seem unlikely to rise much longer. Where once outside farm hands poured in for work during the peak of the two lettuce seasons, doubling the city’s population, the town now finds its own labor going to Salinas and other neighboring communities in search of work.

“The lettuce seasons are shorter here, and there are fewer farms growing them,” said Huron native Rey Leon, associate president of the Central Valley region of the Mexican American Political Association. “So farmhands go wherever there’s work. They follow the harvests.”

Huron city officials say the nomadic lives of its residents isn’t helping local businesses. Westamerica Bank, Huron’s only financial institution, for instance, gets very little business from the farmhands because many of them are undocumented, said Huron Police Sgt. Robert Herndon, who has been on the city’s police force for eight years. He said Huron’s economy is mostly “cash driven.”

“They just stash their earnings away in jars in their home, or carry it on their person, instead of banking it,” Herndon said. “And because it’s not reported, there’s no benefit to the city, county or state.”

To make extra money, many residents sublease whatever additional space they have in their homes, often packing in as many as 25 people into a garage, in violation of building codes, Herndon said. And it’s not uncommon to find around 35 people sharing a three-bedroom house, he said.

“During the harvest season, just a bunk bed in a garage could cost you $180 a month. And if you provide amenities like a shower, a commode, a washer and dryer you could get $100 a week,” he noted.

On a recent day, about 25 farm hands worked a cotton field on Highway 198. Headscarves, baseball hats or sombreros protected them from the relentless midday sun. A few wore masks to protect themselves from the pesticides sprayed on the plants.

Hoes in hand, they trudged up and down between rows and rows of cotton plants, removing errant weeds. They kept their eyes glued to the earth. A few cast furtive glances at visitors.

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