My Summer as a Migrant Worker

A learning experience? A trial by adversity?

My summer as a Migrant Worker

I was only 13. I convinced my parents to let me get a summer job. There were a few challenges. Besides their hesitation, my world was not exactly a welcoming place for a young job seeker.

1. Who would hire a skinny 13-year-old girl?

2. What did I have to offer an employer?

3. We lived in the country where jobs were scarce.

4. How would I get back and forth to a job?

One by one, I set out to meet these challenges. I was motivated to get a job, and I had to convince my parents that it was possible. I would prove my worth, to myself and to them, despite raging doubt.

My first step was to engage in a self-evaluation process. What skills did I have to offer? At 13, I felt that I had many. I was a victim of rabid self-aggrandizement! What were my skills? I could cook! I had been preparing evening meals for the family for over three years. Desserts, of course, were my favorite! As a 4-H’er I could raise and care for animals. As a country girl, I knew more than the average 13-year-old about the realities of country life: hard work was required to survive. My biggest and best skill was my determination. Now I was determined to find a job and keep it for the entire summer. At 13, the summer seemed like an eternity! There was no arguing with that kind of determination.

The first question to be answered was who would hire a 13-year-old, especially one equipped with determination in spite of indeterminate skills. Our location in the country and absolute absence of public transportation loomed large. The job had to be somewhere near to where we lived so that it would be accessible by walking or bicycle. The options were limited, perhaps even scarce!

As the school year wound down, I spent my hour-long bus ride each day, scoping out the options in the area. I could babysit. But in those days, moms did not work, cooked their own meals, and tended their own gardens and children.

All around the area were farms: apple farms, berry farms, hay fields, horse pastures, cattle grazing, and truck farms. No, trucks weren’t raised there! They took a variety of produce to market, usually by small, old, trucks!

The livestock farms were out as at that time I looked like an escapee from Auschwitz. I doubted if I had the bulk necessary to convince a rancher to hire me. I couldn’t wrestle cattle or muck stalls and tossing hay bales was out of the question!

This left the apple and berry farms. Apples were harvested once a season and were done for the year. Crews of farm workers moved from orchard to orchard and efficiently stripped the trees before moving to the next orchard. Carrying the heavy boxes of fruit and moving ladders that weighed more than I did made this even more problematic.

This narrowed the options down to the berry farms. The fruit was smaller, it was a season long job, and there were no ladders to wrangle. The new question was what kind of berries? Rows of strawberries wrapped around the rolling hills or stretched for miles across open fields. Berry farms lined the roads and ran as far as the eye could see. Through the process of elimination, berry farms became my focus. I played up this option at the dinner table and successfully planted the seed of possibility in my parent’s minds. Hopefully the farms required limited skills, accommodated my physical limitations, were located close by, and would provide work throughout the season.

As luck would have it, my mother knew a woman who was the owner-manager of some nearby fields. Convincing the woman to hire me was my next challenge. This would be my first, but not my last, experience in convincing someone to hire me despite my minimal experience.

We met the woman at her home, my mother and I. My mother said not a single word. She had made the connection for me. Her job was done. The rest was up to me. While I can’t remember the exact words of the encounter, I do remember the owner’s reservations.

“Look at you!” she said. “You look like a strong wind would not only blow you over, but then it would blow you away!”

I could not argue with this observation as it was obviously the truth.

“And then there are the other workers,” she commented, not sure how to approach this subject. These were the days before being PC was even considered. “You would be the only one in the field who wasn’t Mexican.”

I had not even thought of this before. I was just naive enough to not consider it a problem. I convinced the owner I didn’t much care where the other workers came from, I would be there to work, and that was enough for me.

“How tough are you?” She asked, bending close to look me in the eye. “We start at 7 in the morning and finish at 5 , or whenever the field is picked. Can you handle that long day?”

Being young, this sounded doable. I usually caught the school bus at 7 and went to bed at 10 or 11. A 10-hour day did not throw me.

I’m not sure how, but I got the job! I was now going to be the first and only WASP berry picker they had ever had. I could not wait for summer to begin!

The first day of work, 6:30 AM, I jumped on my brother’s old bike and set out through the fog to the field. The foreman there welcomed the crew and assigned us to rows. We picked into buckets strung around our waist on a cord. As soon as one bucket was at least half full, we rotated the belt to access an empty bucket. Speed was of the essence; a rhythm was essential, and efficiency was critical. After filling all your buckets, you took the berries to the crate and gently dumped them in.

None of this sounds too difficult. I was quickly discovering the challenges. At 7AM the vines were wet from the fog. You quickly became wet too. The vines were covered in stickers. Thankfully I had worn a long-sleeved work shirt for my early morning bike ride. This was protection against the stickers but was soon wet to the shoulder. The rows were pretty close together, so mornings in the field were wet, cold and shady.

Picture this: already tired from an early morning bike ride, wet to the shoulders, and sticker-ed. Now I discovered I was an anomaly. The owner had been right. Everyone else in the field was Mexican. They were professional agricultural workers, migrants in that day. They arrived at the field knowing their job and each other. I knew no one and was green at the job. They spoke Spanish. I did not! They were not alone as they brought their families. I had no one. It was lonely and scary and isolated. White privilege was not existent here. Good thing I was determined to make it work, as conditions were less than accommodating!

Cleaning your assigned row was essential. Every last berry came off the vines but leave the green ones! The ripe ones tended to be sneaky. They hid deep within the scratchy, wet vines. Eagle eyes and an almost OCD mentality was necessary to do a decent job. The foreman cruised the field, checking your row for missed berries. I often got requests to “clean” my row. My fellow workers dispatched their children to do this time-consuming job.

Just when exhaustion was rearing its ugly head, the foreman blew a whistle and the field shut down for lunch. Time for a warm sandwich and an energy and vitamin milkshake I had brought. I had known this experience would deplete my limited resources. I had packed what was really a senior’s drink. It may have saved my life throughout that summer.

My fellow migrant workers brought out baskets of foil wrapped burritos and jars of tea, juice and Kamchatka (a coconut milk and rice drink popular in Latin countries.) They must have taken pity on the skinny white girl who wasn’t a very good picker as they offered me burritos. Keep in mind this was happening before burritos were an ethnically cool food. I quickly developed a taste for burritos, and other Latin inspired cuisine.

All I can say about lunch was that I was so tired that I could hardly eat!

Now the afternoon shift was upon us. The foreman blew the whistle again and everyone scrambled out of whatever shade they had found and spread out through the field. The sun was now directly overhead. It was hot. Vines were no longer wet and soon, the wet sleeves of work shirts were dry. The shirts remained on as they protected pickers against the stickers and the sun.

I will admit I had trouble carrying a filled create to the foreman’s truck. My determination was stronger than my arms, and I made it work. Every create was checked for minimum weight and if accepted, received a punch on a card. You received the card back along with a new empty create. It all began again.

Day after day, 5 or 6 days a week, it repeated. Ride, pick, eat, pick, ride home. Repeat. The farmer had about six fields and we rotated through the fields all summer. Some were close to my home and some were 4 or 5 miles away. You went where the work was.

I made it. The season ended. I had spent the summer sleeping through my day off, picking stickers out of my fingers each night, bleaching the berry stains off my fingers and clothes, and keeping my old bike in running order. Packing my lunch became a ritual.

I learned a lot. By summer’s end, I could pick and clean a row with efficiency. I knew some Spanish. I developed a taste for burritos and rice beverage. I realized a real empathy for migrant workers and their families. They worked hard in difficult conditions. They treated me, the only white person and a girl, with respect. I always thought my sense of determination resonated with them. They identified with it. It was a staple in their own life.

Summer came to an end. I think I earned $196.00 for 2.5 months work. It might have been decent pay; I really had no idea. All I knew was that I had done it. I had gotten a job and seen it to completion. I had met my own expectations. It was work for work’s sake. It had helped me develop a personal mantra that stuck with me through the years: If you are doing it for the money, you are doing it for all the wrong reasons.

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