Farm Workers Center

On a weekday morning, the doors of the New El Paso Farm Worker Center are open for business. The $1 million facility is funded by the City of El Paso, and owned and managed by Sinfrontetis Organizing Project, a non-profit farm worker advocacy group. Situated just yards from the Mexican border, this center is one of the first buildings a farm worker would see when he enters the United States. It's a place where farm workers like Jose, Augustina Sparsa, can chat with friends while waiting for work. Outside the multi-level building, Sinfrontetis Director Carlos Manantes describes the eclectic architecture of the structure. It utilizes indigenous Mexican styles alongside a reproduction of a North American barn. The construction symbolizes the interrelationship of U.S. agriculture and Mexican farm workers.

Manantes says the center is the fruit of a 10-year struggle waged by his group to force the City of El Paso to provide shelter and support 200 of homeless farm workers. Nothing was given to us by the own will of the city. Sinfrontetis was a result of a struggle, protest, blocking the international bridges, taking over city buildings. The multi-purpose facility provides beds and showers as well as social and medical services. In its first few weeks, the center has served several dozen workers every day, but Manantes expects the facility will serve between 250 and 500 farm workers daily during the regional summer harvest peak. The idea is that in this place, the farm workers, who basically like a place to stay, to spend the day or to spend the night, find everything they need to survive, you know, from drinking

a cup of coffee to filling a paper, receiving correspondents from relatives, calling their destination, their places where they supposed to be working next season. One of the complaints of the agencies is that farm workers do not apply for benefits and for services, well, the center is providing the opportunity to reach the farm worker community. An important goal of the center is to create grassroots leadership. Many of the farm workers are encouraged to be on committees that run day-to-day activities. According to staffer Alicia Manantes, women farm workers are an integral part of the organization. The goals of the center are to educate women, not in the sense of them being illiterates or anything like that, but rather that they develop as women as leaders of tomorrow.

And we also have a housing project. We're in a committee right now in which we're developing 40 or 50 housing units. According to the Sinferontetis Organizing Project, the center will initially run on a $150,000 government-funded budget, but project directors say there are drawbacks in reliant on government funding and subjecting the center to possible bureaucratic interference. The group hopes to make the center financially self-sufficient as soon as possible through private income. Before the KUNM evening report, I'm Kent Patterson.