SHARING WORK WITH THE UNDOCUMENTED
By Don C. Reed
One hot Summer morning years ago, I rode in the back of a truck to the strawberry fields, to earn money to buy a ring for my 8thgrade girlfriend.
It was not easy. Bending over to pluck berries from the ground brought stabbing pain in my back: not muscular fatigue, the kind you can get used to, but a feeling that your spine was being cut.
The pay was a dollar a row; each row was a quarter-mile long.
“Don’t bruise the fruit,” said the foreman.
I was overwhelmed.
When I reached the end of my second row, a little brown lady called to me.
“You no make money that way,” she said, “Come sit here, I show you.” She patted the ground beside her.
We had boxes to fill, after we plucked the green stems out. Some were huge, you could only fit one to a box. Those we set aside for jam. You could eat them like apples; big and sweet.
“Don’t eat too many, “ my new friend said, “You get stomach sick.”
After a while the inevitable occurred. I asked where the bathroom was.
.”Go behind bushes,” she said, “is what we do.”
I tried to explain, that was not the nature of the problem.
She shrugged, pointed to a home-made wooden outhouse. As I approached, a horde of buzzing flies arose…
On the drive afterward we told stories, although their English was much better than my Espanol.
Everyone seemed to be sending money home, to help their families; One man was buying construction materials, to build a house, one pile of boards at a time.
The work was hard, the pay below minimum wage.
“We follow the crops”, said my friend, and for a Summer I did the same, bending for berries, climbing ladders for apricots and peaches.
The workers had very little, but what they had, they shared, offering me a soda from their cooler.
The ring cost $35 (this was 1959) and my girlfriend and I broke up anyway.
But what stays with me forever was the memory of people who worked long and hard, under miserable conditions, but who were kind to a stranger.
I hate to hear politicians trash-talking Latinos. What are they so afraid of? Statistically, Mexican-Americans (even undocumented ones) have a lower crime rate than other nationalities. (1)
I don’t pretend to know the number of people we should allow across our borders every year.
But I do know this: immigrants (even undocumented ones) pay taxes — $8.5 billion in 2024 California.(2).
They keep America’s economy strong, and deserve a hard-work path — to citizenship. (3)
1. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/debunking-myth-immigrants-and-crime/