Rebecca Clarren

I have a white bandana that I carry around with me. It’s thin cotton; it offers the smallest of comfort when I cry or sneeze or spill something. However for thousands of immigrant women who weed, prune and harvest fruits and vegetables throughout the West, bandanas such as mine are their singular shield from sun, pesticides and a more formidable threat: sexual assault and harassment from their coworker or boss.

Patricia Zavella, a professor of Latina American and Latino Studies at UC Santa Cruz revealed in a 2003 journal article that bandanas and baggy clothes help women to mask their beauty and figures. Yet very often, these shields aren’t sufficient. I report in High Country News this week [Plowing Under the Fields of Shame] that sexual abuse and harassment of farm worker women is a serious problem.

The abuse - and dismissal - of immigrant women who work in agriculture is epidemic. In a 1997 study, 90 percent of female farmworkers in California reported sexual harassment as a major problem. Ten years later, those who work with farmworkers say that abuse - which ranges from obscene jokes and sexual innuendo to inappropriate rubbing, pinching and even rape - affects thousands of women. Workers in Salinas, Calif., refer to one company as the field de calzon, or “field of panties,” because so many supervisors rape women there. In several recent cases brought before federal court in California, women who resisted advances were fired or suspended without pay.

In an effort to raise awareness about this problem, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit based in Alabama that promotes civil rights, created the Bandana Project. Participants in the national initiative are decorating white bandanas this month to show solidarity with those who have spoken up and taken action against sexual abuse. The bandanas will be displayed throughout April (which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month) on clotheslines in public places, including libraries, government buildings and universities, with the goal of raising public awareness. In more than 40 cities throughout the country, the Center has helped local groups organize displays. Look to the bottom of this posting for an incomplete list of display locations throughout the west.

But you don’t have to live in one of those cities to participate – anyone can decorate their bandana in solidarity with victims of assault and abuse. Here’s how:

Plain white cotton bandanas are used for this project. They are 21-1/2 x 21-1/2″
- You can contact Esperanza to find out if we can send you some white bandanas to start your display. We have a limited number of supplies but we are happy to help our partners start their display if we have enough bandanas to share.
- You can also buy white material and cut bandanas to the same size. We ask that you use a white cotton material and that it be the same size as the official bandanas used by Esperanza in order to keep them uniform with the other bandanas being created throughout the country.

After you’ve made your own bandana, take a photo and upload it to Flicker, a web-based photo sharing site. Click here to see some of the beauties people have produced.

In the face of issues like this one, it’s easy for all of us to feel disempowered. Making a bandana may seem like it doesn’t make much of a difference for someone who has been raped by their boss while working in the fields, but part of what allows this problem to thrive is that it exists so completely beneath the radar. It’s public apathy that allows politicians and business owners to ignore such abuse. These bandanas help to spread the word about how often immigrant women pay a devastating price for the privilege of backbreaking work in the fields.

CALIFORNIA
VALLE VERDE MIGRANT HEAD START: April 14 through 18, 490 El Camino Real, Greenfield, California

CLINICA DE SALUD DEL VALLE DE SALINAS: April 21 through 25, 219 N. Sanborn Road, Salinas, California

CLINICA DE SALUD DEL VALLE DE SALINAS: April 28 through May 2, 799 Front St., Soledad, California

CALIFORNIA RURAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE: May 5 through 9, 3 Williams Road, Salinas, California

CALIFORNIA RURAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE: April 3-30th, 20 N. Sutter St. Stockton, CA 95202 (Contact CRLA for display viewing hours)

LIDERES CAMPESINAS

Display: April 12-13, 2008 in Oxnard, CA in the CET offices located at: 761 S “C” St Oxnard, CA 93030

Display: April 16, 2008 in Santa Paula at the house of Maria Alonso located at: 128 Santa Ana St, Santa Paula, CA 93060

OREGON
VICTIM RIGHTS LAW CENTER, Portland Office
621 SW Morrison Street, Suite 900
Portland, OR 97205

STATE OF OREGON ATTORNEY GENERAL’S SEXUAL ASSAULT TASK FORCE, April 3-30th, 1162 Court Street NE, Justice Building, Salem, Oregon 97310

For additional questions about the Bandana Project, contact Monica Ramirez at the Southern Poverty Law Center.