Today I want to tell you about farmworkers.
Specifically, the child farmworkers of California's Central Valley.
As young as 12 years old.
In a blue state that is failing to ensure their health and safety.
Amazing investigation in 2 parts from our friends at @capitalandmain.bsky.social. Part I:

November 28, 2025 - 15:32 UTC

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@gavinnewsom.bsky.social #Vetoed a bill that would have protected #All #FarmWorkers @ufw.bsky.social from #PFAS #ForeverChemicals which are sprayed on #Crops #LetThatSinkIn
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It will get way worse once ICE gets rid of the brown farm workers.
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We're repeating a lot of the exact same labour struggles that arose from the late 1800s Gilded Age.
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This cannot change swiftly enough.
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No punishment for the People that hire them.
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pues
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Leave the farms they got no respect for you . Let magas pick them
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I live in Fresno. I was born in Fresno.

This is MAGA country

The people who are in control of the Central Valley don't give a goddamn about farm workers or their families
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Visalia, but the same attitude.
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Same.
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I worked as a child, but not like that! I babysat kids, sometime 5 at a time for $.50 per hour. I liked it, but it was a big responsibility when I was only 10. There need to be laws to protect children. It’s especially urgent for kids doing field work, so start there…NOW!
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ditto. 10 when i babysat my own siblings, 11 when i started babysitting for neighbors. yeah. 50 cents/hr, with which i bought my school clothes. sometimes til 3 am.
i cant imagine working like these children do. very sad. & then to face such health issues, as well. too sad.
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Isn't the major issue "employers failed to provide shade for workers, as required by state law," and just as blithely violated laws related to child labor?
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Some also say no water, no bathrooms, no breaks.

Working for exploitative poverty wages to help feed their families, harvesting food that their family likely cannot afford for their own tables. That children are living their lives in C21 America like this is infuriatingly unjust.
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If the agricultural industry paid a decent wage, American farmers would not be able to import & exploit desperate brown people. (Minimum wage in Australia is $24.95 an hour. Even for agricultural workers. We should be ashamed of how American farmers are allowed to treat workers.)
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Bc legal citizens. Who the f are we???
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OH PLEASE IT HAPPENS ALL OVER AMERICA INCLUDING POTUS'S HOTELS AND GOLF COURSES. SO GET OVER YOURSELF.
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Yes, California is a blue state, but the SJV is captured by big Ag and very red. That does not excuse the state from protecting children, whatever district they live in.
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Knew a doctor in the Valley. She lost track of the number of women farm workers she had to tell to completely avoid pregnancy because of pesticide exposure.
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This is heartbreaking on so many levels. We (adults) suck at protecting the vulnerable and marginalized. Shame on us all for not demanding better until better is actually had.
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There are huge swathes of the country that never seen anything but centrist right to far right media in their lives. Some make it out okay, but the rest depend on their tribalism to exist. It is straight up feudal. And no one really knows any better.
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This has always been rampant in Florida too.
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12 year Olds shouldn't be working fields. They should be on playgrounds being children. America is a fucked up country!
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And Part II, which is about the exposure of these children to toxic pesticides.
prospect.org/2025/11/28/california-child-farmworkers-exposed-toxic-pesticides-part-2/
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Here's what these kids are earning, based on interviews with 61 workers. Most of them were born in the US to migrant parents.
prospect.org/2025/11/28/california-child-farmworkers-exposed-toxic-pesticides-part-1/
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Bonjour
Si c est vrai c est horrible de faire travailler des enfants plutôt que de les mettre à l ecole.
Comment voulez vous en faire des citoyens
Vous en ferez de bon trumpistrs
C est pas leur place d etre aux champs surtout dans un état aussi riche.
Je vous souhaite un agréable week-end
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This is a tragic and real issue in American farms where everyone looks the other way, and a slap on the wrist for all violations is equivalent to violence on farm worker communities.
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There are republican areas of Ca. In particular the central valley where the farms are located.

But yes better child labor law enforcement. Right now farmers are desperate for labor thanks to their orange God.
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What's wild is a lot of health issues associated with farm work don't show up for a long time. Both of my parents did farm work as kids growing up in the Willamette Valley - decades later, my mother is now part of a class action lawsuit because she has non-genetic Parkinson's Disease.
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A country built on slavery, but now they call it something else. I'm so sick of this country and the morons that run it. Slavery is slavery no matter what words you use
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