In western Massachusetts, farmworkers face barriers to COVID-19 vaccination

Claudia Rosales pointing to the field in western Massachusetts she worked on as an agricultural farmer. (Nirvani Williams/NEPM)

Undocumented farmworkers face many barriers when seeking health care. The pandemic has widened this disparity and now many workers are hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, including in western Massachusetts.

The air is cold and farmworkers in the region have to work through it. One undocumented worker, known as Flori, has dried leaves crunched beneath her boots on a brisk December afternoon at a farm in Franklin County. Working here is difficult, she said: hot in the summertime and very cold in the winter. Imagine coming in early to cut vegetables and being frozen, Flori continued.

New England Public Media is not using these farmworkers’ full names, or disclosing where they work, to protect them from losing their jobs. Another farmworker, Perez, is 21 years old and started working on the farm after arriving from Mexico.

Perez said she doesn’t have time to get the COVID-19 vaccine, or learn adequate information about it. Working for sub-minimum wage — sometimes more than 100 hours a week — she said she barely has enough time to speak with her family back home.

“Este es el trabajo,” she tells her mom. This is the job.

Research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that of 31 states, including Massachusetts, that reported the data, 37% of agricultural workers were identified as Hispanic or Latino, but they represented 73% of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases in the food processing and agriculture industries.

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