PERU, New York – At Rulfs Orchard, men travel from Jamaica yearly to live and work in the Adirondack community from April to November. This is part of a long tradition of Jamaican workers who have helped to sustain the orchard since the 1980s, when they began recruiting laborers under the federal government’s H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural work.

For this feature, David Escobar used multimedia skills to tell the story of a group of people living hidden in plain sight in an upstate New York community. He not only put together both audio and written versions of the story, but also did his own photography.

This is a piece community members often mention in conversation with David. Some already knew about the Jamaican apple pickers at a local farm, while others learned of them for the first time through his work. “In a time where immigrants are scapegoated for stealing jobs or committing crimes, it was important for me to uplift these H-2A workers with compassion,” he said. The audio version of the piece was republished on The World from PRX, and the print version appeared on the front page of the most popular daily newspaper in the area. 

David Escobar is a Report For America corps member covering diversity in the Adirondacks for the Adirondack Explorer/North Country Public Radio in Saranac Lake, New York.