Everglades Farm Village: From Farmworker Struggle to Community Building in South Florida, 1970s–1980s

August 2026

During the 1970s and 1980s, Everglades Farm Village emerged from a broader movement to improve the living and working conditions of migrant and seasonal farmworkers in South Florida. Although the Homestead area's agricultural economy depended heavily on their labor, many farmworker families lived in overcrowded labor camps and aging trailers with inadequate infrastructure and limited access to healthcare, education, and other services. Everglades Farm Village represented a shift from temporary farmworker accommodations toward permanent housing and a more stable community.

Central to this effort was Organized Migrants in Community Action (OMICA), founded in the late 1960s by Rodolfo "Rudy" Juarez. Through organizing and advocacy, OMICA addressed housing, employment conditions, healthcare, and education. In 1972, the organization established Centro Campesino, which developed housing and community programs and eventually carried forward many of OMICA's initiatives. Juanita Alvarez Mainster, herself a former migrant worker, became a longtime advocate for South Florida's farmworker families and worked closely with Centro Campesino. She later served as Director of Resident Services for the Everglades Community Association, supporting residents as the community transitioned from temporary trailer housing to permanent homes.

An important record of this history is Nuestra Lucha ("Our Struggle"), a primarily Spanish-language community newspaper published by OMICA and later associated with Centro Campesino. Its pages, along with photographs, correspondence, architectural drawings, reports, and other records, document housing projects, community meetings, labor issues, educational and health initiatives, celebrations, and everyday life. Together, these materials provide a community-centered perspective on farmworkers not simply as recipients of assistance, but as active participants in building and shaping their community.

In 2025, the Miami-Dade Public Library System connected with representatives of the community through the Annual History Collaborative, organized by Miami-Dade County's Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, Office of Historic Preservation. That encounter led to a broader collaboration with Everglades Village Rural Neighborhoods to help preserve this history and make its records more accessible. Through this partnership, historical materials documenting Everglades Farm Village and the surrounding farmworker community are being digitized and made available to researchers and the public through the Library's Digital Collections.

Explore the Everglades Farm Village Archive Digital Collection to discover photographs, issues of Nuestra Lucha, documents, and other materials in this significant chapter in South Florida’s history.