Alfonzo Abeyta, 74, a fourth-generation Mexican American rancher and farmer and a onetime U.S. Marine, recalls that after he was denied his first farm loan in the 1960s, the Farm Service Agency loan officer told him, "Well, son, you know, God made you Spanish people to be farm workers, not farm owners."
Abeyta’s story was far from unusual. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has an ugly history of discrimination against Hispanic, black, women, and Native American farmers. The department acknowledged the harm it had done as part of three landmark settlements with black and Native American farmers in 1999 and 2010, shelling out $1.25 billion in payouts to the first group of black claimants, two-thirds of whom recovered damages. Billions more in claims have since been filed in the 2010 settlements, and are close to being paid out.
