Posted on 11/23/2003 1:40:03 PM PST by yonif
Jose already has the scenario in mind. He's seen other homecomings: The men who had disappeared into California's fields years before returning to their small hometowns in Mexico, driving nice trucks and with pockets full of cash.
"When you go back, they treat you like a king," said Jose, through a translator, just a few months before his own trip back home to Ecuandureo, Michoacan, for the first time in three years.
The dream of the grand return contrasts with the months that have just passed for this 19-year-old undocumented worker. Jose speaks no English, has few possessions beyond the clothes on his back, and travels all over the state looking for work.
"They make it look nice and beautiful but when you're up here, it's not," Jose said. He was in Napa County for harvest, one of the toughest in years. It's just his luck that it turned out to be a bad year for his first time, he said, his sarcasm coming through in the translation. The time spent in Napa wasn't easy, from stretches of days without work to getting fidgety at the River Ranch Farmworker Center, the new camp in St. Helena where he was one of three or four teenagers living in an all-male dormitory.
Boredom kicked in often, said Jose, adding that he missed the "pretty women" in Los Angeles, where he spends the other half of the year, living with extended family members. "There's nothing to do here," he said, smoking outside the dormitory on a hot afternoon when he couldn't find any more work for the day.
On the surface, he doesn't look like an immigrant or a fieldworker. His bright yellow and baby blue ball cap, worn backwards, and baggy shorts barely held onto his waist give him the look of any teenager from the United States.
One early weekday morning, he cuts Sangiovese grapes from the vines in a local field. Walking in twos or threes down perfect rows with friends, Jose uses a small knife to strike at the stems, letting the grapes fall into a plastic bin beneath him. It's the tail end of harvest, and many bunches of grapes have already shriveled in the sun. The vineyard owner had trouble finding a buyer this year. It only takes an hour to get the work done, so the crew waits more hours at a picnic table nearby. They already know there's more work tomorrow, this time in Angwin.
A young farmworker, who at first says he is 14 but shows an ID card that puts him at a fake 18, drives over to the area. In Spanish, Jose defends his friend for getting behind the wheel, saying he has a license from Dios. Everyone laughs, knowing that it doesn't matter if you're 14 or 44 if you are an illegal immigrant and driving: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sworn to overturn a law allowing illegal immigrants to get licenses. That doesn't stop many of these men are driving from job to job anyway.
The only identification Jose has is a high school ID card from a school he attended for one month in Southern California. He didn't have enough energy to go to school and then work eight hour shifts in construction. He had been making roughly $8 an hour.
The money in grapes is much better than the money in mortar. On a good week last harvest, he made $600. On a bad week, he made $300.
Jose heard about the opportunities in the Napa Valley through his brother, also a migrant laborer, so he came up here from the south, settling at the farmworker camp for three months of harvest. He shared a small room with his older brother. It had an old television set, a stereo and two beds. All of Jose's belongings, mostly CDs of Mexican folk music and rap, fit on a small shelf over his bed.
He pulled out a receipt showing the earnings he was able to send home one week: $1,000 for the month, which his parents have put into a savings account. Jose said they haven't used any of his savings, though he's told them they can. Jose keeps $400, which mostly goes for room and board at the farmworker center.
When he goes back to his parents' house in December, he's got a mission in mind. He's planning to find a wife, though he's playing his cards carefully, not promising himself to the 16-year-old who's been showing up at his parent's goat farm for the past year. "Girls down there fall in love if you have money," Jose said. "But love is more important."
On a whim three years ago -- not out of necessity -- Jose decided to cross the border with his uncle, taking two attempts to get across. The first time, United States immigration officials found him, locked him up for a few hours, fed him and sent him back. He's glad he didn't get caught on the other side, he said. He started a different route the very next day, which involved days of walking through desert and a perilous river crossing in which he says at least one person drowned.
Jose's planning to pay $1,500 to get back across again in January. "I've just saved enough money up," said Jose, adding that he's worried about the trip. "It's just how it is. It's worth it. There's a lot of money out here."
He's planning a more expansive migrant route when he returns to the United States in January. His sister, who's married to a U.S. citizen in Chicago, wants him to go out there for restaurant work. He also wants to work harvest again in Napa in the future, not marred by the experience of being in Napa for one of the slowest harvests in recent memory.
On this particular morning, Jose and less than 20 men work for a few hours before they're done, then they take a rest under a tree near the field. Sitting around picnic tables, Jose is asked if he's related to anyone else in this crew.
"They're all my family," he says in Spanish. "Right?" he asks them. Yes, they all nod in agreement, smiling at each other. "My cousins and brothers," he adds.
You're right ... but you overlooked a crucial consideration on the way to your punch line ... while doubling the harvest costs would not raise the retail price significantly, it would remove the head of lettuce from Mrs. Soccer Mommy's shopping cart because it wouldn't be available in the grocery store ... the farmesr would stop growing lettuce or any other produce for that matter ... the economics of producing at a loss couldn't be justified.
Conversly let's apply your equitable solution to the food chain from field to shopping cart. Let's pay the laborer a "living wage" ... and for good measure we'll provide the farmer a profit margin on par with that enjoyed by the packer/shipper and the broker ... and let's extend that same courtesy to the grocer ... again no lettuce in Mrs. Mommy's basket because there is no lettuce in the store .... because there is no demand for such an overpriced product.
Let's review the results of your national ag policies. We'd have three things in grocery stores; Mom and pop owner/managers struggling to survive, overpaid union clerks with little business to justify their existance and of course, a group of really angry shoppers cursing your name.
And after they take all these type jobs Americans were doing, they then say we have to have the illegals because they do the jobs "no one wants to do".
The next industry in line for this scam is trucking. As soon as those borders open up to the Mexicans under NAFTA, they will put independent American truckers out of business since they'll work for half the price or less. Then of course we'll hear how we need them since no one in the US wants to truck any longer.
And us Americans do not have a pot to piss in right?!
Of course, Arnold has said he would consider a law that got illegals to register and go through background checks or whatever, but he opposed the current law which would hand out licenses to anyone. Arnold is just being responsible--and if anything, pro-illegal immigrant.
The Wall St. Journal published an article earlier this year about the German government ordering at least some of the long-term unemployed to work on farms if they wished to continue receiving their checks. German farmers normally hire Polish schoolteachers during the summer. Anyway, it's surprising how many of the unemployed found jobs rather than face the prospect of working on an asparagus farm.
That's true --- there are more illegals than there is work --- and millions more packing up to come --- they're starting to come from Brazil now --- but there is a finite number of jobs. It was a real bad year for illegals here ---- and they can't go back because things are getting worse for them in Mexico --- so once they find out about our welfare system that's where they turn.
When I grew up in Michigan, you'd see all kinds of middle class housewives and their kids picking blueberries for money. It's a good summer job for kids wanting to buy school clothes and stay-at-home mothers wanting a little extra money for their household. The $600 a week after taxes isn't as good --- but very good for illegals who don't have to pay taxes on that income.
The obvious question: why did this poor soul not stay in his Mexican paradise?
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