So many of us are utterly consumed with fear and our personal prospects for escaping the contagion of the Corona virus. As we stoke our own anxieties, while we shelter in place, there is precious little else to occupy our thoughts except when this will all be over, and when can we return to some sense of normalcy. It’s human nature I suppose, but these musings will make the leap from self absorption to people in our society who are strangers in more ways than one to us. They live and work among us. Many are integral to our survival; they feed us. Others make our lives comfortable; they clean our houses and cut our lawns. Many are educated and round out the roster of employees in the tech trades. They nurse us back to health. They convey us from here to there. They populate the labs that search for cures to all manner of ailments with which we are afflicted. We may not speak their language, and they may struggle with ours. The cultural differences are myriad. The one point of commonality is that they all came here legally or illegally seeking a better life for themselves and their families. For some this has meant an undefined and indefinite incarceration. The people I speak of are immigrants, and they make this nation what it is. I wish to address the needs of a smaller cohort within the larger whole.I wish to make the invisible visible. I wish to acquaint you with the trepidations of those who do the work that most of us will not. I speak out for those whose voices remain muted in an implacable silence for fear of government retribution. I speak to you of those who toil in the open fields and below a sun that offers no respite. Our farmworkers require the same protections that all other essential workers do and more because the accommodations they are offered where they work don’t meet spatial requirements in this age of Corona. Overcrowded housing, cramped transportation, unsanitary working conditions, and cyclical poverty make the Presidents’ Task Force’s recommendations for social distancing, quarantining and/or isolation impossible.This is May, one month into the beginning of a new planting season. Consider what a sustained outbreak of Corona virus might mean to the farmworker’s ability to complete the work for which they were hired. Then extrapolate out to include the central valleys of California, the meat packing plants of the Midwest. Unabated, we are looking at a break in the food supply chain. I can’t minimize the risk because we already have reported outbreaks. Pork producing plants have been shut down. The current situation cries out for an immediate and proportionate response to the threat. Most of us are living in the moment, not looking down the road, or watching the storm clouds gather on the horizon. Will the search for food be an added caveat to the Darkest Winter?For the moment, let’s take a look at specific vulnerabilities of…