ABSTRACT
There are people who do the work that no one else in our country wants to do. They labor in the fields tending and harvesting the food we eat. As the U.S. Department of Labor (2000) reports:
Most agricultural workers come to the United States from Mexico (Ruiz-de-Velasco & Fix, 2000). Many choose this work out of desperation when the poverty they encounter in their own country calls for extreme measures. For example, Javier and Manuel were cousins who left their family in Oaxaca, aware of the extreme poverty faced at that time by their siblings, parents, and grandparents. They, like many fathers and uncles before them, ventured out at 14 and 13 years of age, respectively, to enter the migrant stream as undocumented workers. They
hoped to be able to provide some relief to their family. They began their work in southern California and moved north with the season and the ripening of fruits and vegetables. When Mary Clare met these young men, it was summer1 and they were attending evening classes in English and other academic areas after spending all day in the fields harvesting raspberries in Oregon. They spoke from behind smiles of great courage; their fatigue came not only from rising before the sun to spend the day bent over prickly vines, but also from learning the ways of migrancy in the United States. They were young, intimidated by working alongside older Mexican men, but determined to do their parts to support their family in Oaxaca. Neither young man indicated a wish to live in the United States. Both saw their time here as serving to meet their family’s needs in crisis and both wished to return to Oaxaca for their adult lives.
