Head Down - Part 1

Latino USA

My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2018, Diego and Mario joined the U.S. government-sponsored H-2A visa program, leaving their families in their home country of Mexico to harvest blueberries at a farm in North Carolina for six months. They had no idea they were about to become victims of human trafficking and that their lives would be derailed forever. In the first episode of two-part special “Head Down,” we go deep into how a visa program that brings more than 300,000 foreign agricultural workers to the U.S. every year is plagued with abuse and wage theft. All of this while the U.S. government plans to expand it.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Futuro.
0:07.8	Futuro, investigate.
0:09.8	Futuro, Futuro, investigate.
0:16.2	When Diego and Mario planned their escape,
0:18.8	they knew they'd have to do it in the middle of the night.
0:21.8	We decided to do it at night because when it's less busy,
0:25.3	the encargated ones from the house are too low.
0:29.2	When the bosses were less vigilant,
0:31.0	and when all the other workers were in their rooms, sleeping.
0:36.5	It was a warm night in May 2018 in a town near Raleigh,
0:40.5	the capital of North Carolina.
0:42.6	It was eerily quiet as they each packed a single bag.
0:46.3	They couldn't carry much on their long walk in the dark,
0:49.1	so they only took some of the clothes they had brought with them from Mexico.
0:59.7	Diego and Mario had only walked the dirt road out of the camp once before,
1:04.2	and it was during the day.
1:05.8	It could be risky getting out to the main road at night.
1:08.7	Two guys alone who were not from there, they could seem suspicious.
1:13.6	They were terrified.
1:15.7	They walked in the dark using their cell phones to light up the way,
1:21.3	scragally brambles with thorns lined their path,
1:24.1	taking every step with trepidation,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.