Florida Farmworkers, Rocked by Covid and a Fatal Police Shooting, Are Demanding Justice

In the early hours of a September morning last year, Nicolas Morales Besanilla, a 37-year-old farmworker, woke his 12-year-old son and namesake, Nicolas Jr., from sleep in their home in Immokalee, Florida . He told his son he was seeing "spirits and creatures," and shortly thereafter climbed through a back window to seek help. It was highly unusual behavior for Morales; family and friends say they were unaware of him having any such break with reality before. That morning before he left for work, Morales had complained of a fever and headache to his neighbor, Nicolas Jr.'s longtime babysitter. He speculated whether he could have the coronavirus and asked if she had any pain reliever — she didn't. Even still, Morales carried out his daily morning routine: Wake at 4 a.m., prepare his son's lunch for school, take the sleepy child to the babysitter's and walk roughly two miles to work. Immokalee is the "tomato capital of the United States," and Morales, who moved to Florida from Hidalgo, Mexico, some 10 years earlier, split his time between working in the fields and in the packing houses where the harvest was prepared for distribution. "You'd better take care of yourself, Nicolas,"… Read full this story

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