Divya Aikat, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, spent her summer supporting the RESPIRAR field team as a field sampling and outreach assistant. Divya stayed in Salisbury University housing, a central location on the Eastern Shore, where she helped recruit farmworker participants, administered questionnaires, and collected environmental and human bio-samples.

Divya recently spoke with Alisha Camacho, RESPIRAR’s Science Communications graduate assistant, to reflect on her work over the summer by sharing observations and key takeaways as she prepares to graduate this academic year.

What brought you to the RESPIRAR Project?

I was just very interested in immigration and health ... how does immigration affect health? Things like that. And so, I felt RESPIRAR kind of combined everything, where we’re looking at racial disparities, we’re looking at immigration, and we’re looking at these different like power structures between the farmers and the farmworkers.

Walk me through a day in a life as a research assistant over the summer. What did this look like?

We would typically meet at a central location to touch base, debrief, and split up into two groups. Field collection would start between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. We’d start calling the farmworkers the same day to see when they get off work. We’d meet them wherever they’re free ... For example, one time, a guy was fixing his car at a neighborhood over, so we were like, “Hey, can we collect your sample today?” So, it’s very community-based.

Once the collection was done, or once we had spoken to all of the farmworkers, we would head back. And I think typically 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., and sometimes it was 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. It really depended on the day.

During your travels and visits to farm housing locations, what observations stood out to you?

*An active bathroom used by farmworkers at a housing location partaking in the study.*

On a less positive note, I observed certain conditions that should have been met that weren’t. There was one housing location ... where there were just so many flies, so many fly traps. And in one of the rooms, as they’re cooking, they had one fan in every single corner running because the ventilation was just not up to par.

[Another thing] that stood out to me was when we went inside the bathrooms [at one location], there were all of these signs that were like, “Do not drink the water.” And when we turned the water just to see what we could observe about it, it smelled very strongly like Sulfur. We talked a lot about [housing conditions like this] as a group ... what does it mean for this to be allowed within the regulations if they’re only being exposed for X number of months? Why can we not do something about this?

But as far to day-to-day observations, I think that I was really struck by the community that the farmworkers had. One time, they threw a potluck and invited us when we were collecting stories about them, things like that. Another time, they were just like playing the guitar and singing songs together ... I think there are a lot of ways to look at the lack in the community or ways that health needs are not being met outside of that group. But I think there was so much richness in the people there and in the ways that they went about their days, the ways that they saw their work and saw each other. That, I think, really stood out to me.

How do you think the conditions you observed affected the farmworkers you met?

I’m not sure. Because I do think, in some ways, we were looking for problems in a way that maybe the farmworkers weren’t. But I do think that certain things, like when they’re cooking and there’s no ventilation ... the air quality being poorer will affect their health, regardless of perceptions of health.

But I do think that in some ways, having a good community and that social support could buffer other negative health effects.

What were some observations you were looking for, outside of the sample collections, as part of the research?

We’re looking at racial disparities, we’re looking at immigration, we’re looking at these different power structures between the farmers and farmworkers, things like that.

If I can give an example [at one housing site] there’s a long gravel road. And as you go through the gravel road, there are many, many signs to keep people out, and also, I think, to keep people in ... there are actually cameras on this property, and it’s basically a very panopticon view, where it’s like, okay, they feel that they’re always being surveilled in some way. And then when you think about ... legal status, racial status, not being able to speak the local language fluently ... to keep in mind certain ways that this system benefits the farm owners, and allows them to elicit more fear in the farmworkers. I think I saw things like that where I was like, “Oh, that’s a very that’s a very interesting way to go about things ... ‘'

Another time, we went to this location, and there were a bunch of men, and [there was] the impression, they are not going to want to talk to us ... You could tell from the outside, [the housing conditions] were not at all up to par ... And they basically were like, “Do you have permission from our boss?”

Sometimes I think if you’re asking those questions, there’s already been some repercussions that have happened or some fear that’s been instilled into you. And so, I think that we saw that ... there’s this sense of, oh, at any moment, we could get in trouble for things that are not bad at all.

*Farmworkers relax after a long day of work by grilling harvested corn and tortillas on a set-up they built themselves.*

*One of the housing locations participating in the RESPIRAR study comes into view at the bottom of the hill while driving down a dirt road.*

What were some of the dynamics you observed between farmowners and farmworkers?

I did feel like there was maybe a lack of trust in the farmworkers, and also just maybe ... the cultural competencies weren’t there ... there was just a disconnect. If you are bringing these same people back again and again and like hosting them, and they’re working for you, then maybe you should be more attuned to their needs and the lives that they lead.

There were also just so many random and odd rules. Like at, oh my gosh, at [one housing location], we couldn’t even set up [air monitors] because they weren’t allowed to plug things into the electrical sockets ... That to me felt like a method of control where it’s like, okay, we’re giving you these things ... don’t use your own things, don’t stray from like these group norms. So that was something odd.

How do you think this experience will affect you moving forward?

The RESPIRAR approach of field epidemiology, where you are out in the field, you’re talking to people, you’re writing things down, you’re observing things, I think was so up my alley. I loved it ... I also typically do a lot of remote work, or I’m in a very small lab ... so the community aspect of the team ... there was just so much community that I felt that summer that I’ve never felt in a research lab.

Did you gain any new skill sets from this experience?

We were ... trained in the first week in rapid ethnographic assessments and ... I’ve done oral histories, which are really long-form qualitative methods. And so, to kind of do these really, rapid-fire assessments, I think was also so different, even in terms of qualitative research.

As an [oral history] interviewer, it’s hard to be like, okay, I’m thinking of my next question, and I’m in the moment, and I’m doing this, and it’s so many things to juggle. I feel like with fieldwork, you kind of have to be fully present to pick things up. Okay, what am I hearing? What am I like smelling in the water? What are they talking about? Things like that, where I felt like it was just a very good personal exercise as well to kind of fully absorb a moment.

And it was definitely a learning curve for me, because almost all of the farmworkers spoke Spanish and I had not spoken Spanish since I was 16, and I was trying to harness all of that, and translate everything in my head. And, it was definitely a learning process, but it was very cool, and it was cool to be able to connect with them in another language, and I think that also gave me a lot of perspective.

*Workers prepare to process watermelons recently harvested from the fields.*

What do you wish people knew about the farmworkers that you interacted with?

One of the things I felt that I gained from the summer is taking it less for granted, the things I eat and the way that produce comes from the ground to my plate ... I just didn’t know so many intricacies of the process, and they really work very grueling hours, and they do so much intense work.

So, I think I wish people knew how much work went into it ... there’s just this disconnect of, how was this built? How was is this made? How is it sustained? Who does the work, and is that work fair? ... And so I guess that’s what I wish, that people would learn more and listen more.

Is there anything else that comes to mind that you would like to share about your experience?

I've never done community-based participatory research before, and after this experience, I was like, “Oh, well, this is how all research should be done.” And I also want to give an acknowledgement to CATA (Farmworker Support Committee) and especially Leila.*

I think community is just a a line through all of the work, because, obviously, without Leila and these community figureheads, we wouldn’t even be able to do the project in the capacity that we do it. So, I think that, that was just so critical and so necessary to be able to contact all the farmworkers.

I was also personally inspired by the many daily routines of care that I saw Leila enacting. She would bring socks to some of the farmworkers ... anytime they said they needed something, she would be there with it. And she just brought a lot of joy and care into the process in all of these small farms that can’t really be measured. And so, that’s what I would say, is that I think that it’s really important to partner with a community organization that’s got somebody who’s linked into the happenings of a community. We talk about this a lot, but just the ways that people are taking care of each other that have nothing to do with health departments or institutions or research. This, I think, was very important to me this summer.

*Leila Borrero Krouse is an organizer and immigration specialist at CATA and supports the project’s outreach efforts to farmworkers.

Field sampling and outreach team members prepare to depart a housing location after collecting biosamples on July 31, 2024, at around 8:15 p.m. Front row, from left to right: Matias Cacheiro (driver's seat) and Leila Borrero Krouse (backset). Back row: Jean-Frany Philogene (passenger seat) and Christencie Phenelus (backseat).

About Divya Aikat

Divya is studying Biostatistics and Sociology and serves as a research assistant in the Social Epidemiology lab at the University of North Carolina. Over the past two years, her work has focused on studying uterine fibroids in Black women. She is currently completing her senior honors thesis, which seeks to better understand why Black women experience uterine fibroids at nearly three times the rate of White women and why their symptoms tend to be more severe.

In addition to her work at the lab, Divya is also an Asian American Studies Fellow at the South Asian American Digital Archive. In this role, she is researching the formation of Asian-American studies programs, with the goal of helping to establish a similar program at UNC.

Divya’s passion for addressing racial disparities in women’s health began in high school, where she researched access to cervical cancer screenings for Black and Brown women. Later, during a summer research experience, she explored the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on the increased rates of breast cancer for Black and Brown women.

RESPIRAR research assistant reflects on her work with migrant & seasonal farmworkers over the summer