Silicon Valley One - Summer 2008 - (Page 9) Hipolito, an agricultural day laborer, works in a field of brussels sprouts along Highway 1 near Pescadero. S top a window shopper on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto and ask what the word “immigrant” brings to mind. The answers, no doubt, will be all over the map. But you’ll also likely get an answer unique to Silicon Valley. Here, an “immigrant” is likely to be a software engineer with a degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and a pocketful of stock options from the latest social networking startup. Travel just a few miles from the million-dollar homes and humming technology parks, however, and you’ll find parallel immigrant communities, borne on similar hopes and dreams, but where opportunities are limited, living conditions are basic and struggles are concentrated around securing the basic necessities. They are the seasonal migrant workers, separated from their families and isolated on the farms and ranches along the coast, whose health and welfare needs are intensified by a lack of transportation to very limited services, shops, stores and schools. innovation through philanthropy c www.siliconvalleycf.org one 9 http://www.siliconvalleycf.org
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