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Transient Homes
Characters
There are three transient characters:
- The RV camper who enjoys both a permanent and transient lifestyle, having the economic means to spend part of the year at a home base and the rest traveling the country in a RV.
- The hobo, who rejects the notion of permanence in order to live a transient lifestyle, often based on a desire for adventure or wanderlust.
- The migrant farm worker, who is transient due to economic means, having to move from harvest to harvest in order to support themselves and their families back home.
The condition of the migrant farm worker within Yakima is highly debated. Since World War II, Mexican immigrants have been the backbone of the state's giant agricultural industry. The living conditions that workers exist in are often deplorable, being overcrowded, with no running water, sewage, or heating systems. Often migrants live between two trees with a rope strung up and a tarp hanging from the rope, sleeping on cardboard to be off of the ground. The farm workers are concentrated mainly along the periphery of the city, along the river, with easy access to water and to the major transportation systems: the highway and the railroad. Only 44% of migrant farm workers live less than 25 miles from the farm they work at, 39% are shuttle migrants that reside over 75 miles from their job, and 17% hold at least two farm jobs that are 75 miles apart. 14% work for the same employer year round, while 83% have the same employment on a seasonal basis. 2% don't have drinking water available to them at the work place, 16% have no water available to them for washing, and 13% don't have access to toilets.