California's migrant farmworkers face evictions with no safety net amid pandemic
LODI, Calif. - Three weeks ago on a Saturday evening, Irma Barbosa was startled by a knock on her door in this San Joaquin Valley town.
It was the landlord's son. She was two months behind on her rent.
As she stood in the faded yellow threshold of her $300 unit, which lacks running water and is nearly entirely filled by a twin bed, he told her to be gone by 5 a.m. the next day, she said.
Barbosa speaks little English, lacks immigration documents and was panicked at the thought of being homeless within hours, she said through an interpreter. With jobs scarce because of the pandemic and while suffering from a work injury, she has been unable to return to the packing plants where she has earned a living for 12 years. Nor can she return to her off-season job at the auto parts factory where she hurt her knee while filling boxes. She had offered to pay rent in installments, but
