A monument to women of the Confederacy punctuates the landscape at Confederate Park in Jacksonville, where homeless men congregate and
become targets of recruiters for farm work that leaves them in poverty and squalor. NURI VALLBONA/HERALD STAFF
'I felt like being a slave, just working to support his family,' said farmworker Isiah Brown, 43, speaking about the boss who controlled him. NURI VALLBONA/HERALD STAFF
Neglect compounds the problems of farm laborers. Richard Williams, a picker for nine years, had to have a finger amputated because of an infection that he believes began while he was picking cabbage in North Carolina. NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
'You might as well owe them your soul, because where can you go?' said William Anderson, who spent four months as a farmworker and left with $90. NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Putnam County code enforcement supervisor John Salmons checks a building he condemned at a farmworker housing camp run by Ronald Jones in East Palatka. NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Crew leader Ronald Jones gives workers cash in Hastings. At least five laborers said he charged 100 percent interest on loans. NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
'They didn’t want us there,' Lisa Butler, of Florida Rural Legal Services, said after visiting a labor camp with fliers on workers' rights. Crew chiefs object, but she persists. NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Displaying what he says is the bloodied shirt of a farm laborer beaten in 1996, farmworker rights advocate Lucas Benitez declares: 'When we say the tomatoes that leave Immokalee have sweat, have blood, we’re not exaggerating.' NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
A mobile home near Immokalee housed two dozen undocumented immigrant farmworkers who were kept in involuntary servitude and docked pay. Their crew chief, Abel Cuello Jr., was sentenced to prison. NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Migrant workers await a bus ride to Immokalee tomato fields for a day of picking. Hundreds of them, mostly from Mexico, make the trek daily during the harvest season. NURI VALLBONA/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
