0 n april 20, 1997, at around 10 p.m., the highlands county,

0
n April 20, 1997, at around 10 P.M., the Highlands County,
Florida, Sheriff's Office received a 911 call; something strange
had
happened out in the migrant-worker ghetto near Highlands
Boulevard. The "neighborhood," a mishmash of rotting trailer
homes
and plywood shacks, was hidden outside the town of Lake
Placid, a mile
or two back from the main road. By day, the place was
forbidding and
cheerless, silent, its forlorn dwellings perched awry, in seeming
danger
of oozing into the swamp. By night, it was downright menacing,
humid
and thick with mosquitoes.
When the sheriff's officers arrived, they found an empty van
parked
beside a lonely, narrow lane. The doors were closed, the lights
were still
on, and a few feet away, in the steamy hiss of night, a man lay

facedown
in a pool of blood. He had been shot once in the back of the
head,
c·xecution -style. Beyond his body stood a pay phone, mounted
on a pole.
The 911 caller had offered a description of a truck the sheriff's
offi-
rcrs recognized as belonging to a local labor contractor named
Ramiro
Ramos. At 1:30 A.M . , officers were dispatched to Ramos's
house.
It's unclear how much the officers knew about the relationship
be-
4 NOBODIES
tween Ramos and his employees. Migrant farm workers-nearly
all un-
documented Mexican and Central Americans, in this case-
usually ar-
rive in this country with little comprehension of English or of
American
culture. Since they frequently come with little money and few
connec-

tions, the contractor, or crew boss, as he's often called, often
provides
food, housing, and transportation to and from work. As a result,
many
farmworkers labor under the near-total control of their
employers.
Whether the sheriffs officers were or weren't clued in to the
fraught im-
plications of this dynamic, they would undoubtedly have gained.
insight
into Ramos's temperament if they'd known the nickname for hun
used
by his crew of seven hundred orange pickers. They called him
"El Dia-
blo."
At Ramos's house, police found a truck fitting the caller's
description.
When a quick search of the vehicle yielded a .45-caliber bullet,
police de -
cided to bring in Ramos, his son, and a cousin for questioning.
Interro-
gated at the station house, Ramos admitted that the night
~efore, he had
gone driving around the dirt roads outside town, collectmg rent

from
his workers and looking, he said, "for one of his people." But
when the
police asked him if his search had any connection with the
s~ooting, he
said he didn't know anything about it. According to the shenffs
report,
Ramos at this point became "upset" and said he wished to leave.
He and
his relatives were released.
The deputies went into the night, looking for migrant workers
who
might be willing to offer additional testimony. Witness by
witness, a story
began to take shape. The dead c·hoje1; or van driver, was a
Guatemalan
named Ariosto Roblero. The van had belonged to a servicio de
transporte,
a sort of informal bus company used by migrants. The van and
its pas-
sengers had been heading from South Florida, where orange
season was
ending, to North Carolina, where cucumber season was getting
un~er

way. Everything seemed fine until they hit the migrant ghetto
outstde
Lake Placid. Roblero had stopped to to make a pickup. And
then, as t he
van waited, a car and a pickup truck raced up, screeched to a
halt behind
and in front of it, and blocked it off. An unknown number of
men
jumped out, yanked the chofer from his seat, and shot him. The
other
driver and the terrified passengers scattered into the night.
FLORIDA
5
With each new detail, an increasingly disturbing picture of
Ramos's
operation began to emerge. El Diablo, it seemed, had been
lending money
to h1s workers, then overcharging them for substandard
"barracks-
style" housing, gouging them with miscellaneous fees, and
encouraging
th.em to shop at a high-priced grocery store, conveniently
owned by his

wtfe. By the time El Diablo had deducted for this, that, and the
other
thing, workers said, they were barely breaking even.
Worse, they were trapped. El Diablo's labor camp was in a tiny,
iso-
lated country town. He and his family, a network of cousins and
in-laws,
many of whom also worked as labor contractors, patrolled the
area in
their massive Ford F-250 pickup trucks, communicating with
one an-
other through Nextel walkie-talkie phones. For foreigners
unfamiliar
with the area, escape was almost unthinkable. But just to make
matters
cry.s tal clear, El Diablo told his workers that anyone indebted
caught
trymg to run away would be killed.
The previous night's murder, the witnesses alleged, had taken
place
when an indebted employee had left. The murder was meant to
send a
signa l to local workers and to chafers thinking about aiding
their depar-
rure from El Diablo's territory.

If the case sounds like a slam dunk, what happened next was,
unfor-
tunately, all too common in cases involving undocumented
workers.
Afte r spilling most of the beans off the record, all the
informand but one
declined to name Ramos or his accomplices as the perpetrators,
or even
10
offer their own names. One of the passengers in the murder
victim's
V; 111 told detectives that he couldn't remember a single thing
about the
1
11rident. He managed not to see the color, the model, or the
make of ei-
liHT assailant's vehicle, nor did he see who shot whom, or
whether, in
l.ir t •. anyone had even been shot. He only said that he was
leaving for
fl lcxJco the next day, never to return .
1 no~her witness acknowledged seeing the murder but,
according to
liw shen ffs report, refused to name the shooter, stating his
belief that "if
1
11

told, he would be killed by the Ramos family." The Ramoses
knew
'' lwre his family lived in Mexico, he said; if they didn't kill him
person-
ill y, they would kill one of his relatives. He, too, was leaving
town and
11 111ddn't tell where he could be reached.
6
NOBODIES
The sheriffs office was stumped. There wasn't much they could
do
without firmer testimony. However, they contacted federal
authorities,
and a few weeks later, at dawn on May 1, 1997, local law
enforcement
agents, backed by the Border Patrol and the U.S. Department of
Labor,
returned to Ramiro Ramos's house armed with a search warrant.
The
house and office yielded an arsenal of weapons not generally
consid-
ered essential to labor management, including a Savage 7-
millimeter

rifle, a Marlin .22 rifle, an AK-47, a semiautomatic rifle, a
Browning
9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, and a Remington 700 7-
millimeter
Magnum rifle. The agents arrested Ramos and charged him with
immi-
gration violations.
One would think, perhaps, that authorities would have enough
evi-
dence to halt a clearly and alarmingly exploitive situation. Here
were
seven hundred workers on U.S. soil working under threat of
death, for
low pay or possibly no money at all.
Five days later, Ramos was released on $20,000 bail. The labor
charges were dropped. Weapons charges were never brought.
Business
went on as usual. And the murder of Ariosto Roblero remains,
to this
day, "unsolved."
T
he collective image of the South Florida interi~r is usually
conj~red
by a single word: swamp. Beyond a smattenng of self-descnbed

"crackers" and a few thousand American Indians sweating it out
on
sleepy reservations, the area has traditionally been reluctantly
popu-
lated. The reasons for this are easy enough to understand: the
landscape
is unremittingly flat; summer temperatures are stultifying. Even
in win-
ter, the air hangs heavy, dank, and still--except, of course,
during the
frequent thunderstorms and devastating hurricanes for which the
area
is known.
"I've got swampland in Florida I'd like to sell you" has long
been a
way of teasing a person for being gullible. The joke refers to the
Florida
land boom of the 1920s, which began when the increasing
popularity of
bona fide boomtowns like Miami and Palm Beach caused
parcels else-
where in the state to be gobbled up, usually sight unseen, by
speculation-
FLORIDA 7

crazed northerners. Tracts billed as "oceanfront" were often
situated
dozens of miles away from open water or roads and chopped
into ridicu-
lous proportions, most famously by a Mr. Charles Ponzi, to as
many as
twenty-three lots per acre. The fact that few buyers had ever
dreamt of
actually moving to the "Riviera of America" didn't deter Florida
land
prices from rising as much as 1,000 percent annually-that is,
until the
fall of 1926, when the famous Miami hurricane battered the
area, crash-
ing the market and causing the overpriced deeds to become as
worthless
as the muck they represented.
In the last eighty years or so, the area has been tamed, drained,
canaled, paved, built upon, planted over, covered with ethylene
plastic,
injected with pesticides and fertilizers, and thereby induced into
yield-
ing a more predictably handsome return on investment. The
steamy

lowlands have become an outdoor food factory, a hydroponic
stew of
gook and chemicals capable of producing year-round. Florida
now
churns out more fruits and vegetables than any state but
California,
reaping an average of about $7 billion per year.
Almost anything can be grown on Florida's 44,000 farms: some
280
different crops, including tobacco, potatoes, peanuts, escarole,
pecans,
okra, peppers, cucumbers, snap peas, radishes, sweet corn, and
even nor-
mally cold-weather-loving blueberries. But the principal
commodities
are juice oranges (1.2 billion gallons from 103 million trees),
tomatoes
( 1.5 billion pounds a year), and sugarcane (about a half billion
dollars a
year).
Some forty miles inland from Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel
Island
1s the town oflmmokalee. A few towns down from Lake Placid,
it sits

.tt the bottom of a cluster of remote agricultural outposts
dotting the
South Florida interior. Three stoplights long, Immokalee (which
1 hymes with broccoli and means "my home" in Seminole) is
bordered on
dtc south by the Big Cypress Swamp and surrounded on all
other sides
l.y ci trus groves and tomato fields. Outside town, there are
pretty-
1'1tough sights to be seen: stands of cypress, southern pine
draped with
" 1•an ish moss, canals lined with cattails, and wading pink
flamingoes.
ln~ide the town limits, however, the place looks more like a
work camp
111 (tctory than an American community.
8 NOBODIES
Municipal authorities in Immokalee bother little with public
ser-
vices; for several days when I was there in 2002 , a visitor
turning onto

Main Street would pass a decapitated black dog, left to rot on
the median
strip across frotn a new-looking Walgreens. In 2001, a county
sheriffs
deputy was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for dealing
crack and
shaking down local drug dealers.
The town's official population is about twenty thousand, but
during
the growing season, between Novetnber and May, it increases to
nearly
twice that. The year-to-year population reflects the current wave
of tni-
grants and the detritus of previous ones: forty years ago, the
town con-
sisted largely of poor vvhites, African Americans, and Puerto
Ricans. In
the 1980s, Haitians arrived . A little later, the Mexicans and
Guatemalans
trickled in. Today, sotne Haitians, whites, and African
Americans re-
n1ain, but the bulk of the population consists of Mexican and
Central
American migrants.
The arduousness of farm labor has been well docun1ented. The

aver-
age migrant has a life expectancy of just forty-nine years.
Twenty thou-
sand farm workers require tnedical treatment for acute pesticide
poisoning
each year; at least that tnany n1ore cases go unreported.
Nationally, 50 per-
cent of migrants up from 12 percent in 1990 are without legal
work
papers. Their median annual income is sotnewhere around
$7,500.
Florida farm workers have it even worse. No one knows for sure
how
1n .any there are. The tnost reliable guess is about three
hundred thou-
sand. An estitnated 80 percent of thetn have no work papers,
and at last
count, in 1998, their average yearly pay was an estin1ated
$6,574. Ad-
justed for inflation, these incotne levels have fallen by as much
as 60 per--
cent in the last twenty years.
According to the Florida Tomato Committee, during the 2005-
2006

growing season, Florida farmers were paid $10.27 per twenty-
five-
pound box of totnatoes . The tnigrants who pick the tomatoes,
however,
are paid an average of 45 cents per bucket, a rate that has
remained un-
changed for thirty years.
To earn $50 in a day, an Immokalee picker tnust harvest two
tons of
totnatoes, or 125 buckets. Each bucket weighs about thirty-two
pounds.
Once a worker has picked enough tom atoes to fill it about fifty,
de-
FLORID A 9
pending on the size he must then hoist the bucket onto his
shoulder
and walk/run across soft, spongy, lumpy soil to the dumpeado1;
an over-
seer who checks each bucket for ripeness. The worker then
raises his
bucket, dun1ps its contents into a central bin, and runs back to
the
ton1ato plant, anywhere from a few yards to a hundred yards
away.

Orange and grapefruit picking pay slightly better, but the hours
are
longer. To get to the fruit, pickers must clitnb twelve- to
eighteen-foot-
high ladders, shakily propped on soggy soil against shifty
boughs, then
reach deep into thorny branches, thrusting both hands among
pesticide-
coated leaves before twisting the fruit from its stetn and rapidly
stuffing
it into a shoulder ... slung moral} or pick sack. A full sack
weighs about a
hundred pounds; it takes ten sacks about two thousand oranges
to
fill a bano) a bin the size of a large wading pool. Each bin earns
the
vvorker afic:ha, or token, redeen1.able for about seven dollars.
An average
worker in a typical field under decent conditions can fill six,
seven,
rnaybe eight bins a day. After a rain, though, or in an aging
field with
overgrown trees, the same picker might work an entire day and
fill only
three bins.
Most Atnericans have by now heard about the dangers of illegal
mi-

gration. For starters, there are the perils of crossing the border,
which in-
rl ude running out of food and water and dying in the desert
heat.
Between 1995 and 2004, tnore than 3,000 Mexicans died while
trying to
<' llter the United States. According to the U.S. Border Patrol,
the death
r: tte is rising; in a recent twelve-month period, a record 460
migrants
t I icd crossing the border.
Moreover, gangs and police on the Mexican side of the border
prey
' Hl tnigrants, knowing that they are seldom armed and
frequently carry-
tng cash . (The terrn used by coyotes, the notorious
professionals who
)', ttid e or smuggle tnigrants across the border, to describe their
clients is
f'ollos chickens, vulnerable and ripe for plucking.) On the
Atnerican
·· ~< lc of the border, migrants lucky enough to survive the
crossing face
.I I'll led Border Patrol guards, canines, choppers, and, tnost
recently, self-

.,, vied vigilante groups like the Arizona-based Minuteman
Project,
wlti ch, since April2005, has chartered at least twenty chapters
across th e
1t1ttntry.
10
NOBODIES
Although farm work has never been a lark, it's possible to find
fairly
recent accounts of farm workers who were happy with their
profession.
In Daniel Rothenberg's With These Hands, published in 2000,
numerous
farm workers in the United States recount their experiences.
One, a for-
mer Vietnam veteran named Gino Mancini, recalled:
If somebody asks me what I do for a living, I say, ''I'm a fruit
tramp."
To me, fruit tramp is not an insult. I'm proud of what I do. I
pick
fruit. I migrate. Once, I cut out an article that listed two
hundred

and fifty jobs, from the most prestigious to the least prestigious.
The
last job, number two hundred and fifty, was migrant worker.
Bot-
tom of the list. It actually made me feel good. I chose this
lifestyle
and I like it. Look at what a lot of other people do--advertising
and
shit like that. What does that do for the world? At least I'm
helping
to feed somebody. I mean, it might not be much, but I'm not
destroy-
ing anything. A lot of stuffl see just seems mindless to me. Just
think
of the jobs people have-"I'm a public relations officer"; ''I'm a
con-
sultant"-What do they really do? Mostly nothing.
I do physical labor. It's honest. I'm not especially proud, but I
work hard. I make an honest living. I don't know what farm
work is
about to everybody else, but to me it's good hard work. You
know,
we're all different. Everybody's an individual. . · ·
I couldn't handle a year-round job with maybe three weeks' va-

cation a year. I like to move around, to live day to day. That's
the way
I've always lived. That's the only way I know. To me, farmwork
is
about freedom.
A farmworker named Henry Dover mused:
Farmwork is kind of beautiful. It's peaceful. In the city, there's
a
whole lot of killing and shooting going on. Out here, you can
breathe nice clean air. You can hear the birds. You can look up
and
see the sky. You're not cramped. Whenever I look up at the sky,
I'll
be thinking about God. That's what makes me happy, just seeing
th
FLORIDA
plants, seeing how they change color, seeing the flowers. You
can see
all of God's nature out there.
11
Today's fannworkers are almost entirely foreign-born. For the
vast

majority of them, farm work isn't a lifestyle choice or a
preference. It's a
matter of survival. Due to overpopulation, and declining
commodity
prices, largely brought on by free-trade agreements and First
World
subsidies to farmers, they can no longer afford to live on their
own land
in their own countries.
The migrants streaming to South Florida these days from the
high-
lands ~f s_outhern Mexico and Guatemala speak dozens of
Mayan or
~>ther mdtgenous languages, such as Quiche, Zapotecan, Mam,
Kan-
robal, Tzotzil, Nahuatl, and Mixtec. For many of them, even
Spanish-
never mind English-is a foreign language, and communication
among
g roups can be difficult.
In the postpastoral fields of modern, industrialized agriculture
~ u ch quaint notions as worker solidarity are unrealistic. As a
forme;
Immokalee tomato picker named Francisca Cortes told me,
every

111o rning is like a free-for-all: when the bus pulls off the
highway and
Ii ll o th e day's tomato field, workers scramble and elbow one
another out
" ' 1 he way in a dog-eat-dog race for the most advantageous
positions in
rllr field. A row that faces the sun more directly will have riper
fruit,
111nk mg for easier, faster picking than a row in the shade. A
row closer to
llw ro ll ection bin cuts the length of the heavy slog back and
forth with a
fril l bu cket. Each gradient of productivity is worth another
quarter, an-
Ht hn dollar. Under these circumstances, Francisca said with a
shrug
11'~ ru st a bunch of men and some women. You're with
strangers. Yo~
loon' r k now them. You're not there to say 'What's your name?
How are
•ud I low long have you been here?' There just isn't any time for
that."
"' "" '' Y parts of the Southeast, like the migrant ghetto where
Ariosto
l oo lolno was murdered, agricultural workers are quartered in
trailer
111 1"' 111il es from town; Immokalee's "pickers," as citrus and
tomato

12
NOBOD I ES
workers are often called, live in plain sight, densely
concentrated be-
tween First and Ninth streets, close to the South Third Street
pickup
spot. Those who don't live there are forced either to walk a
great dis-
tance twice a day or to pay extra for a ride to work. As a result,
rents near
the parking lot are high. The town's largest landlord, a family
named
Blocker, owns several hundred old shacks and mobile homes,
many
rusting and mildew-stained, which can rent for upward of two
hundred
dollars a week, a square-footage rate approaching Manhattan's.
(Heat
and phone service are not provided.) It isn't unusual for twelve
workers
to share a trailer.
Between four-thirty and five o'clock every morning, a convoy of

crudely painted red and blue school buses arrives at a parking
lot on
South Third Street, a block from Main Street, to carry workers
to the
fields . In the afternoon, the buses return and the sidewalks fill
with
weary men in muddy white rubber boots. In the evening, some
stay
home to wash their few items of clothing or cook dinner; others
run er-
rands on bicycles with the handles turned up, wearing tucked-in
West-
ern shirts, baseball caps or cowboy hats, and Reebok knockoffs
. Those
with time left on their phone cards line up in parking lots and
on street
corners before seemingly innumerable pay phones (a staple of
migra nt
towns) to call Chiapas, Oaxaca, or Huehuetenango, the
mountain towns
of home.
About 40 percent of South Florida's laborers are new each
season,
and they are often unsure of their rights (or the idea of rights in
general).

Most of these migrants come from small towns, where everyone
knows
one another. While farmwork back home pays little, they say,
mistreat-
ment of workers is rare. As one immigrant from southern
Mexico ex-
plained, "Back in my village, it was so small, we really didn't
have
situations where a boss or a farmer didn't pay a worker. They
had to
walk the same streets as the workers. If they didn't pay, word
would get
out. It ended up being, you know, not like the law here, but the
law of
cojones"--or balls. "If you didn't pay, you were going to get
your cojones
cut off."
It's hard to imagine immigrant farmworkers in the United States
FLOR I DA 13
cutting their bosses' balls off. In fact, in most circumstances it's
difficult
to imagine them getting up the nerve to complain about
anything.

There are many reasons why immigrant workers in the United
States are reluctant to discuss bad, dangerous, and abusive
situations
with their employers, much less with bolillos, or whites. Fear of
losing
their jobs and being labeled troublemakers is only one. Another
reason,
of course, is that immigrant workers live in constant fear of
being seized
by Ia Migra-the Immigration and Naturalization Service-and de-
ported. Unscrupulous labor contractors use this implicit threat
of expo-
sure to keep workers in line. Workers often borrow money to
travel
north from loan sharks back home at interest rates as high as 25
percent
per month. If they are deported, the loan is foreclosed.
Frequently,
homes are put up as collateral, so deportation can be a financial
calamity
for an entire family.
All of this helps explain why South Florida has rapidly become
one
of the most exploitive labor environments in the country,

earning the
designation by a former prosecutor with the Justice Department
of
"ground zero for modern slavery."
Nothing drives horne the rea lity of migrant farmwork in South
Florida as well as som ething told to me by Michael Baron, an
agent with
the U.S. Border Patrol who knows the area well. "You know,"
he said,
"these workers are so vulnerable. They're housed miles from
civiliza-
tion, with no telephones or cars. Whatever they're told they're
gonna do,
they're gonna do. They're controllable. There's no escape. If you
does-
cape, what are you gonna do? Run seventeen m il es to the
nearest town?
When you don't even know where it is? And, if you have a
brother or a
cousin in the group, are you gonna leave them behind? You
gonna es-
cape with seventeen people? You're gonna make tracks like a
herd of

elephants. They'll find you. And heaven help you when they
do."
Adan Garda Orozco is a stocky man, about five feet two, with
ruddy, copper-brown skin, a mustache, and the broad features
and round,
soft eyes of Central American indigenous people. His hair is
lightly
14 NOBODIES
gelled and buzz cut down the sides, and when I met him, he
wore what
appeared to be snakeskin cowboy boots, and looked much
younger than
his thirty-eight years. (I have changed his name, as well as the
names of
his family and friends.)
Garda Orozco gets along in Spanish, but his first language is
Mixe, a
Mayan language spoken by the Mixe Indians of southern
Mexico. Ini-
tially, he appears to be studiously reserved. When he loosens
up, how-
ever, he's a pretty funny guy. When asked, for instance, if he
had ever
owned any land, he almost laughed. "I don't even own the dirt

under my
fingernails!" He paused, bemused. "Who in the world has land?"
Garda Orozco lived with his wife, Concepcion, and their six
chil-
dren in a one-room house on the Yucatan Peninsula. The town is
small,
like most in the area-about ten or fifteen blocks square, home to
per-
haps five hundred people-and surrounded by cleared
pastureland. It's
fair to describe it as sleepy, the kind of place where kids bathe
one an-
other outside the house in rainwater buckets and hairy black
pigs
saunter down the street with billy goat escorts.
Inland from the beaches and the verdant coastal plain, the
Yucatan
forms a low, flat plateau with shallow soils and hardscrabble
limestone
outcroppings. Most of the terrain is chopped into small, rocky
fincas or
ranchos, which raise a little bit-but never a lot--of corn, beans,
cattle,
oranges, mangos, bananas, and coconuts.

Like many poor areas of the world, the Yucatan is a place where
most people seem to spend their time waiting. They wait in
hamlets
with plaintive names like Centenario or Justicia Social, and
towns near
crumbling temples with names recalling the area's Mayan past,
like
Xbonil, Xpujil, Hecelchakan, and Dzibilchaltun. They wait in
houses
without windows. They wait in yards of dirt, meticulously
swept, be-
neath trees without leaves and trees abloom with fiery orange
flowers.
They wait by the road, on bikes, for cars, for taxis, and of
course, they
wait for jobs.
Garda Orozco began to work when he was nine years old as a
farm-
hand, performing such tasks as clearing brush for local ranchers
or har-
vesting sugarcane. When work was available, it paid about five
or six
dollars a day. However, as he explained, "Not to criticize my
country,

FLORIDA 15
but where I come from, there aren't any jobs. And when there
are, you
work two, three days sometimes. Maybe sometimes fifteen or
twenty.
But other times there's none, and you have to go around looking
for it,
wherever it is. You don't want to leave your hometown, but if
there's a
chance there may be work somewhere else, well, you have to
leave. But
you end up coming out the same anyway. Because even if you
earn a lit-
tle more in the city, or in whatever town you go to, you have to
pay for
rent, you have to pay for food. You can't get by, and once again,
you end
up going home with nothing."
Garda Orozco felt increasingly unable to provide for his
growing
family. "People use the term 'provide for' just to refer to a plate
of beans
and salsa and some tortillas," he said. But it wasn't nearly
enough. "I

think for a family you've got to have milk. Right?" Besides, he
said, one
of his kids was sick, and the medicine was costing a fortune.
Garda Orozco's house is a mishmash of salvaged boards slapped
and
lashed together, with wide, irregular gaps and a corrugated roof.
The
yard is a beleaguered mess of tattered banana trees, an orange
tree, and
a junk pile, which serves as bathroom and outhouse.
When I visited them, Adan and Concepcion told me they wage a
continual battle to make improvements, but bricks were
expensive, and
it was hard to make headway. What bothered them the most
were the
pools of water that surrounded the house, six inches deep during
the
ramy season.
Inside the house I found two beds, a tangle of hammocks, five
white
plastic chairs, an enormous boom box with a bright neon digital
display,

and six--or maybe it was eight-kids, dusty, barefoot, sprawled,
po-
litely trying not to giggle: Nestor, the oldest at fifteen, then
Alejandro,
Enrique, Gabriela, Cruz, and Yesenia, an adorable girl of three
too shy
to say hi. Two of the older boys were plopped on the floor,
playing soc-
cer on a PlayStation. The current match pitted the United States
against
Germa ny. As the boys competed, madly clicking and twitching
their re-
mote controls, teasing each other, Concepcion whispered to me
that one
of their neighbors had actually had the gall to try to charge kids
to use
their PlayStation. Did I want any tacos?
The door to the house remained open. Sunlight streamed in. I
no-
16 NOBODIES
ticed a large hen carefully set atop one of the beds. Was it usual
for the

chickens to share the family beds? I asked. One of the kids
explained
that the hen had nearly expired …
Running iiHead: Marketing Plan Milestone 1
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Marketing Plan Milestone 1
2
i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
i i i i i i i i ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii
ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii
Marketing Strategies
Huawei Situational Analysis
11/08/2020
Huawei is a Chinese multinational corporation (MNC) started
and set up in 1987, and headquartered in Shenzhen, China. It
has grown to be a giant in the telecommunications industry,
being among the leading companies in the manufacture,
provision, and supply of Informatio n communication and

technology infrastructures. The company also provides
application software and devices with wireline, wireless, and
Internet Protocol technologies. The company has spread its
wings to over 150 countries globally and is on a mission to be
the leading company in spearheading technological benefits
worldwide (Huawei, 2020). The company produces various
products like mobile and smartphones, fixed broadband
networks, tablet computers, multimedia technology, and Smart
TV.
The most significant and cardinal opportunity that the company
stands to gain from is marketing. The company has to end up
over-relying on quality and pricing as a strategy towards
increasing her clientele base. Compared to its competitors, the
company is doing dismally in marketing. The company has to
advertise herself and making her presence seen and felt through
outdoor advertising, print, and media advertisings as a strategy
to make its brand better known (Fangzhu, 2018). The major
threats that the company faces competitio n from other
telecommunication companies. Huawei risks being driven out of
the market if it does not gear up and keep up the pace set in the
telecommunications industry. Government regulations and
pressures also pose a significant threat. Due to the standoff
between China and the USA, the company finds it hard thriving
in the USA economy from the sanctions imposed on it and the
stringent policies and regulations from host governments. These
threats curtail its development will drastically limit Huawei's
international business.
The company attributes the under listed strengths for her rapid
expansion in the world all in a short period:
International Presence
Huawei has her presence in about 170 countries and has a
presence in areas ignored by other telco companies. Huawei is
attributed to have a presence in more than half the countries in
Africa, with 70% of Africa's 4G networks being her doing
(Huawei, 2020). Her presence in these countries has led to good
revenue, a large market, and a clientele base. Her global

presence has turned out to be her primary strength.
Competitive Pricing
Competitive pricing is a strategy adopted by Huawei in reaching
and satisfying its customer base. The company strives towards
guaranteeing quality but at an affordable and lower price,
resulting in catapulting Huawei in popularity and its recognition
as a brand worldwide, more so in developing countries with a
high population, thus being projected markets for Huawei
products and services (Fangzhu, 2018). The company's prices
target all economic classes, therefore fitting comfortably in all
the markets and identify with all the different economic levels,
which translates to a significant market share, thus increasing
her income in terms of revenue.
Innovation in Technology
The company invests a humongous amount of money in research
and development and embraced innovation. As a brand, many
innovative technologies have come up from Huawei. The
company is a vanguard at sponsoring its staff and students in
technological courses who become resources. Due to its
emphasis on technological development, Huawei is attributed to
most of Africa's 4G network and is in the process of rolling out
the 5G technology as well (Luong, 2019). These technological
developments generate massive revenue for her and save income
in her running – the company has embraced artificial
intelligence. It has replaced human resources with Artificial
intelligence that proves to be more efficient, and saves her
revenue.
The company has identified weaknesses that slow her down in
its operation. These weaknesses, if addressed and mitigated,
will catapult the company to greater heights. These weaknesses
are:
Controversies
The company has in recent years been accused of espionage for
the Chinese government. Huawei's closeness to the Chinese
government has also tainted her image to governments that are
always in rivalry with the Chinese government (Deng, 2017).

The controversies hurt and tarnish Huawei's image, thus being
treated as a plague by potential clients and denying her presence
in some markets.
Weak brand
The company does not have a defined nor a strong marketing
strategy (Deng, 2017). Despite Huawei's presence in most
countries globally, some people in these countries remain
unaware of Huawei and the services they offer. The brand is
also less prevalent in top markets.
Lack of Capital
Juxtaposed to other brands, Huawei generates less revenue,
faces a cash shortage, and foregoes marketing.
The Huawei company should embark on Multinational
marketing to increase its sales and customer base around the
world. Global marketing will give Huawei a platform that
allows her to expand into new markets via the Internet,
international distribution, and competitive pricing. The Internet
has made the world a global village- one can follow what
happens in one corner of the world in real-time despite being
separated by miles. Huawei should capitalize on this and make
her presence felt on the Internet. The company should run
electronic advertisements that come with low budgets to make
herself and products felt. The company should also make fair
use of its social media platform from where it can interact with
its clients to absorb them and use it as an avenue of recruiting
more customers. With an increase in clientele base who are
more aware of their products and services, revenue will
automatically increase. The company should also localize these
adverts to connect more with the population. The local
community should feature more in their adverts and avoid using
foreigners and foreign language since this will detach the
intended message from the targeted audience.

References
Deng, H. (2017). China Huawei Enterprise Strategy Analysis.
Thesis, 1-59.
Fangzhu, P. (2018). Analysis of the Internationalization
Strategy of Huawei. strategic management.
Huawei. (2020). Huawei. https://www.huawei.com/ke/corporate-
information
Huawei. (2020). Huawei annual report.
https://www.huawei.com/ke/annual-report
Luong, N. (2019). Huawei's strategic efficiency.
Running head: Marketing Plan Milestone 3
2
1/17/2021
Professor Feedback: You are missing the promotional mix
percentages. Also, your in text citations are not done correctly.
Introduction

According to the Corporate Report, Huawei is among the
leading international information/communication technology
(ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. The company was
founded in 1987, and it focuses on providing technology-based
products and services for individuals, homes, and organizations.
Its core values are establishing openness, collaboration, and
shared success through a global industry vision to unfold the
industry blueprint of an intelligent world. This article describes
the marketing mix for Huawei Company based on the product,
pricing, promotion, and distribution elements/strategy.
Huawei marketing mix
Huawei product element and strategy
The product element and a marketing mix strategy include the
actual product and services offered by a particular company.
The product or service must always deliver a minimum level of
performance to meet consumers' expectations and needs. With
this in mind, Huawei offers both products and services. For
example, Goi (2009) suggest that the products the company
offer internationally include: PC, tablets, wearable devices like
watches, smart PV controllers, fixed network, IT infrastructure,
switches, routers, and mobile phones. On the other hand, some
of the company's services include cloud computing services and
Network energy services.
The company uses two business unit division ( Huawei
Consumer products and Huawei Business
Solution
) to ensure its product and services' effective performance and
services. Huang (2019) suggests that Huawei products and
services are consumed by different markets, such as individuals,

homes, and organizations. Some of the biggest industrial
consumers of Huawei products include government
organizations, railway, media, education, finance, public safety,
and entertainment. The company focuses on digital inclusion,
security/trustworthiness, environmental protection, and a
healthy/harmonious ecosystem when its products and services
are in a different part of the world.
Huawei pricing element and strategy
A particular organization's marketing mix's pricing element
refers to the products or services value that typically depends
on production cost, market purchasing power, targeted market,
and supply-demand factors. An organization can use different
pricing strategies, such as enhance product image,
differentiation, and demarcation (Huang, 2019). Huawei
operates in the information and communication industry. It
faces a lot of competition from multiple competitors such as
Ericson, Apple, Sony, ZTE Corporation, Samsung Electronics,
Nokia, Lenovo, and Cisco Systems.
Due to this high level of competition, consumers in the market
have higher bargaining power and can easily switch to other
brands. Huawei Company recognizes this drawback and creates
the best value for its services, and the product focuses on the
quality and untapped market opportunity (Dmitrijevs, 2020).
This allows it to remain innovative and get an opportunity to

charge high prices for its new products and services that are not
available among other competitors. The company also applies
elastic pricing techniques in marketing strategies, especially
from the products and services through e-commerce. Huawei
(2008) adds that in its Business division enterprise and carrier
product, the company offers products and services through
premium charges. Therefore, the company generally has a
competitive and diverse pricing element for marketing
strategies.
Huawei promotion element and strategy
Dmitrijevs (2020) suggests that the marketing mix's promotional
element refers to actions and activities initiated by an
organization to increase awareness for its product and service in
the market. Based on the same perspective, one of the current
studies in the European market provides a good description of
the Huawei promotion strategy. Huang (2019) suggests that the
company uses different promotional activities to expand its
market and increase its brand image. These include using Omni
channels, such as TV, sponsorship, advertising, business
promotion, and staff selling to attract more customers. For
instance, the company hires local celebrities and integrates
local-based advertising slogans to influence consumers in the

European market. It also hires salesperson, support training in
sale promotion and design to enhance professionalism in its
promotional activities.
Huawei place/distribution element and strategy
According to Xia & Gan (2017), marketing mix refers to point
or means of sale that are designed to attract consumers and
make it easier to access or buy goods or experience services
offered by an organization. Huawei is a global company that has
established itself in more than 170 countries and has about
194,000 employees responsible for 3 billion consumers. It uses
different means such as sales person, distributors, and suppliers
to provide it services and products to consumer in different
parts of the world. According to the company's partnership
ecosystem, there is a strong sales partnership that assists in
delivering and distributing Huawei products, solutions, and
services. Huawei (2018) suggests that the distributors' role in
Huawei marketing mix is to help the company accomplish its
distribution business target in different regional markets in the
world.
Conclusion
The marketing mix for Huawei Company includes products and

services such as tablets, wearable, PC, mobile broadband,
switches, network energy services, IT infrastructure, and smart
PV controller. These products and services are distributed in
more than 170 countries using about 194,000 employees and
sales partnerships while attracting consumers through
promotional activities such as Omnichannel and sales person,
sponsorship, and advertising. It also uses competitive pricing
strategies for its marketing mix.
References
Dmitrijevs, R. (2020). Research on Marketing Strategy of
Huawei Mobile Phone in the European Market. Open Journal of
Business and Management, 8(3), 1138-1150.

Goi, C. L. (2009). A review of the marketing mix: 4Ps or more?.
International journal of marketing studies, 1(1), 2.
Huang, W. (2019). Huawei’s Competition Strategy: A Financial
Perspective. In-Built on value (pp. 31-82). Palgrave Macmillan,
Singapore.
Huawei (2008). The fruit of emerging markets. Huawei -
Building a Fully Connected, Intelligent World. Retrieved from
https://www.huawei.com/mediafiles/CORPORATE/PDF/Magazi
ne/communicate/37/HW-081555.pdf
Huawei (2018). Corporate information - Huawei. Huawei.
Retrieved from https://www.huawei.com/ke/corporate-
information
Huawei (2020). Huawei Partner Handbook. Home. Retrieved
from
https://partner.huawei.com/documents/20829/0/Channel%20Part
ner%20Program%20Briefing/fc25a2ac-9c39-4b75-b3cb-
8f17f5016ee1
Xia, W., & Gan, D. Z. (2017). The Marketing strategy of
HUAWEI Smartphone in China.
Running head: Marketing Plan Milestone 2

7
1/12/2021
Marketing strategies involve the organization's overall plan to
reach expected consumers and turn them into organization
product customers. Therefore, Huawei's marketing strategy
should be made up of data concerning targeted customer
demographics, value proposition, as well as key brand
messaging. The marketing strategy in Huawei will help the
company achieve its objectives. Additionally, a good marketing
strategy will enable Huawei to develop products that can make a
profit. Therefore, a market strategy will help the company to
concentrate its resources on the best opportunities available.

Marketing objectives
The marketing objectives of Huawei will determine what the
company wants to gain from its marketing activities. Therefore,
Huawei's activities should be consistent with its overall
objectives (Parola, Pallis, Risitano, and Ferretti 2018). The
marketing objectives I set for Huawei Company should meet the
criteria of being specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and
time-bond. The marketing objectives I will set should be able to
provide enough details on what should be done. The progress of
marketing objectives I set should be measured to determine the
company's achievements.
Additionally, I will set the marketing objectives of Huawei that
are easy to attain. On the other hand, the marketing objectives I
set will be achieved within a specified time. Some of the
marketing objectives of Huawei are as discussed below;
Increase market share
In order to increase market share, I would ensure that I am
aware of other competitive companies. Through competition
analysis, I will be able to determine where Huawei is in terms
of competition. Additionally, determining the position of
Huawei in the market will help in projecting where I would like
the company to be. The targeted increase in Huawei market
share will be 20% within two years.
I will ensure that Huawei achieves an increase in market share
through innovation, hiring employees with experience, and

strengthening the customer relationship. Through innovation,
Huawei Company will develop phones with new technology that
other competitors have not yet discovered. This will attract a lot
of customers who want to experience the latest technology. By
attracting customers, Huawei's market share will increase.
Therefore, these customers will become loyal to Huawei, and
this will help in increasing market share.
Through strengthening Huawei customer's relationships, Huawei
will be able to maintain its current market share. This can result
because customers will not shift their loyalty to another
company. On the other hand, experienced employees will ensure
that customers attain products that meet their expectations.
Increase growth
I will ensure that Huawei increased its growth by opening new
branches. These new Huawei branches will help ensure potential
customers in different areas are aware of products offered by
Huawei. Additionally, the branches will ensure that all
customers can easily access Huawei products, thus increasing
the company's revenue and growth.
Increase company profit
In order to increase Huawei's profit, I will ensure that there is a
reduction of some product's cost. Mobile phones that have been
in the market for an extended time will be accessible at a lower
price. This will help in attracting customers who will be loyal to
Huawei. Additionally, the company will increase profit by

advertising products through social media. Advertising products
through social media is cheap, and it is widely used by
individuals. This marketing objective will be of benefit to the
company.
Describe any research you would do
The research that I would conduct is regarding customer's
preferences. Customers are the ones that ensure a business
succeeds. Therefore, I would ensure I determine their taste by
getting their opinion on different products as well as customer's
interest. By determining the customer's opinion, the company
will realize what has to be changed or added to the existing
products. When the customer's view has been met, they will
become more satisfied.
On the other hand, I will also ensure I have realized the
customer's interest. Through determining their interest, I will be
able to discover the new technologies that usually attract
customers. This will ensure that Huawei Company is able to
develop products that will create high market demand.
Therefore, the research I conduct will be beneficial to Huawei
Company.
Describe your target market(s)
It is essential to understand the practical facts about Huawei's
business for it to grow, attain new customers, and ensure the

services are effective. Therefore, to achieve the targeted market
for Huawei and increase income, it is essential to create
awareness of its products. Awareness can be created through
marketing, which is critical in each and every business.
Therefore, I can come up with various marketing activities to
increases awareness of Huawei services. Additionally, the
marketing strategy has to keep on changing to ensure that
customers, as well as potential customers, don't get bored by the
same strategy. The new marketing strategy should be able to
attract the required number of customers, be cost-effective and
time-efficient.
Therefore, I will use various marketing strategies to ensure I
meet the targeted market. These marketing strategies include;
relationship marketing, scarcity marketing, and undercover
marketing. These marketing strategies will be beneficial to
Huawei company ad are discussed below;
Relationship marketing
This strategy can be identified as a strategy that encourages
long-lasting as well as a strong connection between customers
and a product. This strategy will ensure that Huawei benefits
through repeated sales, collecting customer information, and
encouraging promotion through word of mouth. Additionally,
through the relationship marketing strategy, I will be able to
provide information to customers concerning their interests as

well as needs.
Undercover marketing
Undercover marketing can be defined as a marketing strategy
that is usually focused on hidden marketing activities. I will use
this marketing strategy to ensure that the Huawei marketing
team is sent to places where there are target customers to talk
about Huawei's products as spontaneous activity. This will
ensure that our targeted market does not realize they are being
marketed. The benefit of this marketing strategy is that it will
help create grassroots buzz, which can go viral.
Scarcity marketing
Scarcity marketing is usually more focused on the fear of
customers to lose freedom of choice. This means that when a
product is not available, it usually becomes more attractive.
Through this marketing strategy, I will ensure that Huawei uses
limited time offers to boost sales. When there is scarce time to
buy a product, customers will start acting faster.
I will ensure that the targeted market for Huawei products will
bring profit to the company. The targeted market will be based
on customers who are likely to purchase products (Rodrigues et
al., 2017). Therefore, the targeted market includes; institutions,
young individuals, and high-income individuals.
Institutions within the area

Institutions are usually likely to purchase products with new
technology to enhance learning, for example, laptops that are
fast and have better properties. Therefore, by developing
products that are beneficial to institutions, Huawei Company
will satisfy the need.
Young individuals
Young people are usually attracted to new technologies. This is
because new technology can allow them to access different
platforms, such as social media. Due to this demand, Huawei
can satisfy their needs by continually upgrading products to new
technology.
High-income customers
Individuals with high income usually purchase new products in
the market more. Therefore, Huawei Company will target these
individuals because they can purchase new products at high
prices. These individuals will help in improving Huawei's
company profit.

References
Parola, F., Pallis, A. A., Risitano, M., & Ferretti, M. (2018).
Marketing strategies of Port Authorities: A multi-dimensional
theorisation. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and
Practice, 111, 199-212.
Rodrigues, C. G., Engle, C., Garcia Neto, B. F., Amorim, R. V.,
& Valenti, W. C. (2019). The effect of choice of targeted
market, production scale, and land tenure on the economics of
integrated tilapia-prawn production. Aquaculture Economics &
Management, 23(2), 204-217.
Three factors to consider before formulating a marketing
strategy. (2018, January 14).
Marketing91. https://www.marketing91.com/factors-
formulating-marketing-strategy/
Marketing planning - Strategic planning in marketing - MBA
knowledge base. (2015, May5). MBA Knowledge
Base. https://www.mbaknol.com/management-
concepts/marketing-planning-strategic-planning-in-marketing/
Chapter 2: Developing marketing strategies and a marketing
plan. (n.d.).Quizlet. https://quizlet.com/414556831/chapter-2-
developing-marketing-strategies-and-a-marketing-plan-flash-

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