Hindawi Publishing Corporation Nursing Research and Practice Volume 2012, Article ID 760418, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/760418 Review Article The Impact of Invisibility on the Health of Migrant Farmworkers in the Southeastern United States: A Case Study from Georgia Kari M. Bail, Jennifer Foster, Saﬁya George Dalmida, Ursula Kelly, Maeve Howett, Erin P. Ferranti, and Judith Wold Nell Hodgson Woodruﬀ School of Nursing, Emory University, 1520 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Jennifer Foster, jennifer.foster@emory.edu Received 2 December 2011; Revised 20 February 2012; Accepted 5 March 2012 Academic Editor: Panayota Sourtzi Copyright © 2012 Kari M. Bail et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Migrant farmworkers represent one of the most marginalized and underserved populations in the United States. Acculturation theory cannot be easily mapped onto the transnational experience of migrant farmworkers, who navigate multiple physical and cultural spaces yearly, and who are not recognized by the state they constitute, “the Citizen’s Other” (Kerber, 2009). This paper utilizes narrative analysis of a case study to illustrate, through the relationship of the narrator to migrant farmworkers and years of participant observation by the coauthors, how isolation from family and community, as well as invisibility within institutions, aﬀect the health and well-being of migrant farmworkers in southeastern Georgia. Invisibility of farmworkers within institutions, such as health care, the educational system, social services, domestic violence shelters, and churches contribute to illness among farmworkers. The dominant American discourse surrounding immigration policy addresses the strain immigrants put on the social systems, educational system, and the health care system. Nurses who work with farmworkers are well positioned to bring the subjective experience of farmworkers to light, especially for those engaged with socially just policies. Those who contribute to the abundant agricultural produce that feeds Americans deserve the recognition upon which social integration depends. 1. Introduction The agricultural industry in the Southeast of the United States is an important contributor to the economy of the region. The industry relies on the manual labor of farmwork- ers who plant and harvest crops, work in packing houses, processing plants, and preparation facilities associated with farms [1]. The majority of farmworkers in the southeastern United States are migrants from Latin America, with some representation from other regions [2]. A migrant farm- worker is deﬁned as an individual whose principal employ- ment (at least 51%) is in agriculture on a seasonal basis and lives in temporary housing (US Code, Public Health Services Act, “Migrant Health”). Currently, there are over 3 million migrant farmworkers in the United States [1]. In 1964, the USA federal H-2A program was created to meet agricul- tural production needs. The H-2A temporary agricultural program enables farmers who are unable to recruit suﬃcient domestic workers to bring foreign workers to USA to per- form agricultural labor or services of a temporary or seasonal nature. Legal protections that apply to these H-2A workers are enforced through the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor [3]. The state of Georgia in the United States has a robust agricultural industry. For example, in one county alone, Riverside County, there are over 600 farms (Riverside County is a pseudonym, for conﬁdentiality reasons.). Many farms rely on human labor from farmworkers to plant and harvest the crops. Riverside County, an agriculture intensive region in southern Georgia, has over 600 farms, of which just 3 are H-2A farms. The balance of farms in Riverside County is staﬀed by undocumented farmworkers. Up until 10 years ago, there was just 1 H-2A grower in the state of Georgia. The rights of farmworkers and responsibilities of farmers are delineated in the Migrant and Seasonal Agricul- tural Worker Protection Act (MSPA), which apply to both