Field Workers

Cause and Effect

    People tend to be racist about agricultural workers, but they don’t know the story behind it. In the article “Morder Farmer", describes how people often see agricultural workers and feel ashamed of them or disrespect them, but  to be a field worker it's not as easy as people think. It is true, we as people tend to react differently towards situations without reflecting that is to say, we judge people. However, working on the field is an honorable job. Agricultural workers are one large group of people whose work is to maintain the local businesses and even the country’s economy. However, society, racism comes first rather than acceptance and equality for all. people from the same ethnic group criticize themselves without realizing the story behind their families and like to make themselves superior under certain situations, but aren’t superior at all. "Once people realize how hard and tough it is to be an agricultural worker they might end up changing their minds". It is true that working in the field will never be easy because it is a very hard job and ignorant people will never understand.

Research Article- Field Workers

 In Morder Farmer we learn, for the state’s first hundred-plus years, certain unspoken rules governed California politics. In a state where agriculture produced more wealth than any industry, the first rule was that growers held enormous power. Tax dollars built giant water projects that turned the Central and Imperial Valleys into some of the nation’s most productive farmland. Land ownership was concentrated in huge corporate plantation-like farms. Growers used political power to assure a steady flow of workers from one country after another—Japan, China, the Philippines, Yemen, India, and of course Mexico—to provide the labor that made the land productive. More and more health-conscious individuals are scrutinizing the source of the food their family consumes. However, even the most conscientious consumer is not fully aware of the exhaustive efforts and struggle to get a juicy, ripe strawberry or that plump tomato in the middle of winter. These foods are harvested and picked mostly by seasonal and field workers. field workers must endure challenging conditions so that Americans can have the beautiful selection of berries, tomatoes, and other fresh foods often found at places like a farmer’s market or a traditional super market.

The Anecdote

  Faces of Imperial

      
     Since I was born, my father has always been a hard-working man who has given us support and love for his family. He is the most special person in my life. He is a very good dad for me. My dad had always tried to give us the best by working hard every day. I have always been very proud of him because he never gave up. Although my father was tired from work, he always had time to be with his family.
 I remember that at weekends he loved to play with me the whole day. He has always taught me good values. He has gifted me many things that I always wish to have. My Dad has always tried the best to make me a good human being. He wanted to spend time with his family because he missed them.

            However, with the economic crisis on 2008 a lot of people loosed the jobs included my dad. That crisis affected us in the family. Also, my dad got stressed because he couldn't find work anywhere. I remember that my dad was looking for work everywhere but nobody hired him. It passed a month and he didn't find any work, so my dad met a friend and told him that there was a lot of work in the field. My dad thought about it many times if it was good work in the field because he knew that work was very tired, hard, and the paid was not very good. After, he started working in the field. When he started working in the fields, he always complained that her body hurt, he came home and went straight to sleep because the next day he had to get up at 3 in the morning to go back to work. I start thinking about all those terrible conditions in which agricultural workers are exposed and how my dad kept working to give us a better life, even knowing that working in the fields are very dangerous and difficult.

Field Workers

         Work in the fields is one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States, but many people work there because they need a quick job and easy money. Field workers are very common to be seen around the Imperial Valley. However, the question is who are the workers in the field are and what is known about them? Field workers are those workers, who go to work  on the fields,but people tend to generalize and say that they are just a bunch of wet backs, but that is just an old and silly racist generalization. Most people don’t know what it is to work on the fields, how hard it is, and how important it is for the local businesses. Being a field worker implies to risk the worker’s life, to impair the worker’s health and define it for their future and work for like 12 hours and getting paid way below minimum wage. My father, is a field worker and while many people think is it an embarrassing job, I realize it might be the hardest and most tiresome job for him. My dad always wakes up at 3 am, so he can be waiting for his ride since 4  am, but the workers start working around 5 and 6 am. They work until 5 pm and throughout their working hours they have 30 minutes to eat and 15 minutes to take a break. They have many risks at the work because they are exposed to insecticides, chemicals used in the crops, being bitten by poisonous insects such as spiders and snakes. People who work at the field end up with health problems such as allergies, respiratory diseases, back problems, joint problems that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Many field workers continue to work no matter how heavy that job is; they will always continue working for support their families. Finally, if people had a moment to think about it, they would realize that field workers work way harder in a day than someone who works at a restaurant cooking burgers.