Latina Migrants in the North Carolina Crab Industry

Project Description

Latina Migrants in the North Carolina Crab Industry

Project Summary:

Through in depth qualitative interviews, this project will explore the Latina migrants’ experiences of working in the North Carolina crab industry and their barriers to primary care. This project aims not only to contribute formative research to the field but also to help the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program extend its existing network of health care and outreach services.

Project Description:

In 2010, the Federal Bureau of Primary Health Care modified its definition of an agricultural worker to include migrant and seasonal workers in the poultry, cattle, and aquaculture industries (U.S. Department of Health and Human Serivices, 2010). This effectively changed the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program’s (NCFHP) state mandate, allowing the organization to expand its medical care and public health outreach to these previously unserved and largely Latino populations.  NCFHP now must identify these communities’ needs and assess its role in improving the health of workers and their families.

NCFHP has almost 20 years of experience providing services to migrant and seasonal workers.  Although the organization has an extensive network of contacts among health providers, outreach workers, photojournalists, and case managers, it does not have the staff to perform on-the-ground research in this remote community of migrant workers. I plan to involve the workers as well as partners that have a commitment to crab workers’ health and welfare from across disciplines. The qualitative approach to this issue will allow the workers themselves to identify their needs, gaps in care, and barriers to access. By partnering with NCFHP, I will not only develop my skills in qualitative data collection and analysis, I will also be providing a much needed service to NCFHP in its goal of extending health access and health education to Latina crab workers.

Community Need:

The North Carolina blue crab industry is a vital part of the regional economy of Eastern North Carolina. In 2009, North Carolina produced almost 30 million pounds of crab, valued at approximately $25 million (NC Division of Marine Fisheries, 2010). The industry is mainly composed of small, family-run businesses in Beaufort, Carteret, and Pamlico counties. Crab processing provides important sources of revenue in an isolated area of the state that has limited economic alternatives. While the crab industry has traditionally employed low-income white and black women as pickers, over the past two decades employers have increasingly come to rely on Latina workers entering the country on temporary H-2B visas (Selby et al., 2001). By 1993, 75% of the crab pickers in North Carolina were temporary guestworkers from Mexico (Mosher, 1993). In 2009, over 2,000 H-2B visas were granted to the crab industry, most of these in North Carolina (United States Department of Labor, 2009).

The struggles of migrant workers in North Carolina’s crab industry have been, on the whole, overlooked by academia. Both quantitative and qualitative data on aquaculture, and especially crab workers, remains sparse. Studies in the Maryland crab industry have shown that although working legally in the United States, these women often face challenges to obtaining health care that are similar to undocumented workers. There is a substantial need for more information on women working in the North Carolina crab industry in order to extend services to this vulnerable population.

Goals:

The main goal of this project is to assist the North Carolina Farmworker Health Program in its mission of providing quality, affordable, community-based, culturally appropriate, and comprehensive healthcare services for migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Using the data collected, NCFHP and I will work together to make recommendations for how its clinics and outreach workers should best address the community needs.  This may include health outreach, safety trainings, or improving physicians’ cultural competency. This deliverable will include a specific organizational action plan as well as allies and potential adversaries.

A secondary goal is to produce a process manual for NCFHP detailing the steps I took throughout the project. This deliverable will provide a replicable framework should NCFHP choose to expand its services into new industries (such as poultry processing or forestry) in the future.

This project will also strive to raise awareness of migrant crab workers in North Carolina. Using the data collected and tapping in to NCFHP’s contacts, I will meet with organizations currently focused on farmworker issues so that crab workers can be included in their advocacy and educational efforts.  Success of this goal will be defined as specific recommendations for how organizations like Student Action with Farmworkers, Farmworker Advocacy Network, and UNC’s Allianza student group can get involved.

This project will fulfill the practicum requirement for my Master’s degree in Public Health. It will increase my skills in qualitative data collection and analysis as well as giving me substantial experience in formative research.  During the fall semester of 2011, I plan to enroll in an Advanced Qualitative Analysis course. Using the data collected this summer, this course will guide me through a more in-depth investigation of Latina migrants’ experiences of living in North Carolina with the end goal of producing an article to publish.  This will not only make an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge on Latinos in North Carolina, it will also further my academic career.