A Migrant Family’s Struggle, and a Question of Survival

The cover story by Mark Arax on a migrant farmworker family, with photographs by Matt Black, generated more than 70 responses from readers.

*

Thanks for the serious, well- researched and well-written story on the immigrant farmworker experience through the eyes of Hilario Guzman’s family and through your lens (“The Summer of the Death of Hilario Guzman,” by Mark Arax, Sept. 3). Stories such as this are essential to keeping Californians human and aware.

Karen and Michael Gilman

Los Angeles

As an immigrant from Central America, I appreciate personal stories of survival, triumph and dogged determination to improve one’s lot in life. This one, however, made me uncomfortable. I had just returned from a big-box warehouse where I purchased a box of peaches for about $6. I couldn’t help but wonder who had picked the fruit and whether their lives were as wretched as Guzman’s and his family.

The article painfully reminded me of how complicit we are in the immigration conundrum. Arax’s thinking out loud about a better and improved bracero program is an idea whose time has come, as it may mean the survival of two societies that need each other in order to live in dignity and peaceful coexistence.

George Saadeh

Mission Viejo

If Arax’s story doesn’t garner Pulitzer Prizes for him and photographer Matt Black, then there really is no justice in the world. What a compelling piece of journalism. Thank you for publishing it.

Susan Newell

San Diego

Yet another article designed to increase sympathy for illegal immigrants. I’ll bet bank robbers and rapists have sad lives and pathetic histories. When do we see articles glamorizing them?

Of course, it’s always sad to see children suffer the effects of irresponsible parenting. Perhaps Guzman should have considered the results of bringing five children into a world where he couldn’t provide for them.

Pam Wright

Pasadena

Arax’s colorful wordsmithing and Black’s stark black-and-white photographic realism justify the existence of West. Regardless of how we may feel toward illegal immigrants, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to justify or allow the appalling conditions the farmworkers endure. To read this story and not have a new appreciation of the harvest on your table and those who make it possible is to be without an iota of compassion.

Jon Goodman

Northridge

I wept! Seventy-five years ago at the age of 5, I went to work in the fields. Seventy-five years later, so little has changed. I wept!

Raymond Rodriguez

Via the Internet

With all of the money this family spent on committing an illegal act, they could have set themselves up in a small business in their own country or used it to educate their kids. It’s shameful that families continue to have children when they know they cannot afford to take care of them, but I guess these families don’t seem to get the fact that U.S. citizens are having to subsidize them through their tax dollars. I would gladly pay the extra buck for a head of lettuce rather than allow this to continue. Guzman is no hero, and his drunkenness and his family’s illegal activities shouldn’t have been glorified in the magazine.

Carin Maher

El Segundo

The feature on migrant workers was balanced, poignant and powerful. The best I have seen.

Arthur M. Cohen

Los Angeles