THIRD WORLD USA

A catastrophic year casts a pall of uncertainty across California’s agricultural valleys


Photograph: Matt Black/Magnum/The Guardian

In the state’s Central, Eastern Coachella and Imperial valleys, several challenges have compounded to create a tenor of uncertainty

Photographs and story by Matt Black

Mon 14 Dec 2020

Nowhere are the effects of the multiple crises that hit California this year more visible than in the state’s agricultural valleys.

The region faced a list of challenges almost too long to comprehend: record-breaking heat, smog and smoke from historic wildfires resulting in air quality too poor to be outside in. High rates of Covid-19 infections and the anxiety, isolation and job losses that go with it. Tensions around a divisive election. Fears and conflict over immigration policies.

In 2020, California’s Central, Eastern Coachella and Imperial valleys were no longer the outlying edges, but the center of the state’s troubles. A two-week reporting trip in October and November revealed that not knowing the outcome of so much, not knowing where things will go from here, has created a tenor of uncertainty that vibrated through the small towns and across the broad fields. 

Buttonwillow, California. More than 43% of Buttonwillow’s 1,583 residents live below the poverty line


Victorville, California. A burned and overturned car. Victorville is home to the Adelanto Ice Processing Center, where activists have regularly gathered to demand the release of detained immigrants with health conditions that make them vulnerable to Covid-19.



Firebaugh, California. Firebaugh has a poverty rate of 27.7%, and its farm worker residents must continue to work picking crops despite the pandemic. The wildfires in the state exacerbated already tough working conditions for valley farm workers.

Fresno, California. A fire at a homeless encampment downtown.
Fresno has a population of 961,820 and 24.1% live below the poverty level.

Taft, Kern county, California. Taft has a population of 7,294 and 24.5% of residents live below the poverty level. Like many other parts of the state, the city was under a “red-flag warning” for severe fire conditions in mid-October.

Mendota, Fresno county, California. Mendota has a population of 11,307 and has seen more than a 1,000 cases of Covid-19. Ninety per cent of California’s 381,000 farmworkers come from Mexico. Covid-19 has disproportionately affected Latino communities, accounting for 58% of all cases in the state as of August.


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A catastrophic year casts a pall of uncertainty across California’s agricultural valleys | US news | The Guardian