I lived in Naples, FL for over eight years and never realized that there were human slaves toiling in the agricultural fields less than 45 minutes away. This is the case for much of the population of Naples, one of the wealthiest towns in America and the only city in the world that has two Ritz Carltons in it — the beach and golf resorts. Furthermore, it is the case for much of America. While the trendy green movement has led us to scrutinize trans fats and demand hybrid cars we haven’t paid enough attention to where our food comes from.

When I was 21 years old I visited Immokalee for the first time and began volunteering with a local organization that provided much needed goods and services to the community. I saw first hand the living conditions that many farm workers live in. Numerous families will often share one trailer home in terrible conditions and pay high rents due to greedy landlords and fear of being deported. I formed relationships with residents, listened to their stories and met people who had been slaves. I learned about the working conditions and injustice in the fields. But my education took a few years and very well may not have ever happened had I not visited Immokalee one day with my mother.

That’s why the latest project from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is an important contribution to our understanding and awareness of food justice issues. After many successful campaigns to reform the agricultural industry resulted in a victories over some of the largest fast food giants-Taco Bell, McDonalds and Burger King the CIW has now launched a traveling modern day slavery museum. Perhaps with efforts like this more people will grow up in Naples knowing about how issues of justice are related to our food. Barry Estabrook recently visited the museum and wrote about it for the Atlantic Monthly:

Since the mid-1990s, more than 1,000 slaves have been freed in at least six cases in Florida…

Fittingly, the museum is housed in a 24-foot box truck once used to haul produce. The truck is a replica of one in which several men were kept locked up for as long as two and a half years until the slavery ring that held them was broken in 2007. They slept in the truck, urinated and defecated in one corner, and were driven in the truck daily to fields where they were forced to pick tomatoes, often for no pay. Some of the men who were imprisoned acted as “consultants” on the project to assure authenticity. In late 2008, several members of a family were sentenced to jail terms in the case.

Slavery has a rich, time-honored, and unbroken history in Florida. The museum traces that story from the days of chattel slavery before the Civil War, through the press gangs of black convicts in the early 1900s and post-Depression-era poor whites portrayed in Edward R. Murrow’s 1960 documentary Harvest of Shame, right up to today’s migrant workers. And make no mistake: it’s happening as you read this.