Resilience to Cope with Natural Disasters in a Farmworker Community Presented by Fernando I. Rivera, PhD Department of Sociology 2016 Disasters, Extreme Events, Trauma and Resilience Conference

Study Area Resilience the ability to adapt trough the redevelopment of the community in ways that reflect the community’s values, and goals, and its evolving understanding of external forces with which it must contend

Extreme Events 2004 Florida Hurricanes 2007 Groundhog Day Tornadoes

Methods The data for this presentation come from a series of semi-structured focus groups conducted between November 2011 and March 2012, as part of a larger project analyzing rural disaster resiliency in Central Florida. U.S. Department of Agriculture Award No. 2010-67023-21698. The results are from data from the Volusia County focus group conducted in the rural town of Pierson, Florida.

Disaster Experience “…because there had never been hurricanes…and they came hard one after another…some three weeks in a row…but, in reality, we weren’t prepared…we as organizations…like this one but in reality we weren’t prepared…” “…when we came back to the house we found a terrible mess, everything thrown off the bed, everything was a mess in the bathroom too, a lot of things covered in black (dirty) and after that it was worse because one of our children has bad asthma and with this was getting worse.”

Coping Self-Organizing Collective Action self-organizing systems emphasize the networks of interactions among actors who foster norms of trust and reciprocity. After the disaster experiences, farmworkers decided to organize and reach out to other groups to be ready in the event of another natural disaster. Alliance of Active Women, (AMA), Farmworkers Association, Florida Catholic conference, Hispanos Unidos (Hispanics United), Volusia County Office of Emergency Management, and Univision

Resilience In conjunction with the Volusia County Office of Emergency Management, the Farmworker Association of Florida, along with other members of the community, created the “Grupo Comunitario de Respuesta a Desastres,” or Disaster Response Community Group.

“Now we feel a little more [prepared]…we know where…we know that we are going to look for help here or if we don’t find the help at least we have adequate knowledge.”

Challenges Language Anti-immigrant Sentiment “There is no communication because of language. It is an obstacle… the people who don’t speak English do not communicate with the people who are not Hispanic…except those Hispanics that speak English speak with them…” Anti-immigrant Sentiment The perception of a growing anti-immigrant sentiment created an atmosphere of fear and distrust of disaster emergency organizations.

Challenges Relations with Police Volunteers in Disaster Response “here the police, rather than keeping the people confident/trustful, they keep them fearful…” Volunteers in Disaster Response “…but I think the county needs an established person, that is bilingual, so there is more trust with the people…” Lack of Work “….for the farmworkers I think that when there is a disaster…the rural workers, this is when they suffer most, because in reality the insurance companies pay for our work…but the farmworker remains without work and sometimes there is no help for them…in reality this is when they suffer a lot…”

Conclusions Disaster experiences can serve as a pathway to disaster resilience. The collaboration of the farmworkers groups with the County Office of Emergency Management suggests the challenges of rural areas require local leadership. The characteristics of the local population may influence the extent to which residents participate in government centered programs and activities

Conclusions The results indicate that the challenges identified by the study participants are a constant reminder of the need to lessened or eradicated these barriers in order to foster disaster resilient communities.

Questions Thank you for your attention Email: Fernando.Rivera@ucf.edu Rivera, Fernando I. and Naim Kapucu. 2015. Disaster Vulnerability, Hazards, and Resilience: Perspectives from Florida. Springer International Publishing, Switzerland. ISBN 978-3-319-16452-6