Migrant Workers and Dairy Farmers in Addison County, Vermont

I first started photographing Latino farm workers in 2006, after I noticed several young Mexican men shopping at the Whiting General Store. Vermont is not very diverse and I wondered what these men were doing in the rural Green Mountain State. It turns out they were milking cows. I teamed up with ESL and Spanish teacher Chris Urban, who knew many of the workers, and we created a multimedia exhibit called “The Golden Cage – Migrant Workers and Vermont Dairy Farmers”, with help from the late Greg Sharrow at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury. The exhibit has toured the state, been published in Vermont Life and been shown at Senator Bernie Sander’s office in Washington, DC. It has helped raise awareness about how migrants play a crucial role in Vermont’s economy and about the need for immigration reform. The organization Migrant Justice was formed in 2009 in Burlington, Vermont and organizes for the economic justice and human rights of farm workers in Vermont.