Posted on 05/03/2013 8:22:46 PM PDT by Route395
About 30 minutes into my job as a picker, the strawberry fairy left her first gift. On one of the beds of berries that seemed to stretch forever into the Santa Maria marine layer, Elvia Lopez had laid a little bundle of picked fruit. She and the other three dozen Mexican immigrants in the field were bent at an almost 90-degree angle, using two hands to pack strawberries into plastic containers that they pushed along on ungainly one-wheeled carts. They moved forward, relentlessly, ever bent, following a hulking machine with a conveyor belt that spirited away their fruit. But Lopez, a 31-year-old immigrant from Baja California, knew I was falling behind.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I have a photo of my Grandma Grace pitching a bale of hay into a pick up truck... one of these days I’ll get it scanned and post here..... she was not a big woman... wonderful photo.
I doubt they are packed in the clamshells in the field. That would be a huge time waster. The photo is probably a publicity ad.
Oh yuck. They do put them right in the clamshells. Goes to show what an innocent I am. Glad I am a fanatic about washing fruit.
Bleah!
LOL!
Hey I worked in the strawberry fields of WA state as a youngster and was SO glad for the opportunity to gain some income and some clothes I wanted, etc. We kids loved the opportunity to work alongside the migrants who came back every year to work alongside us again. Now no one wants to pick the strawberries and our friends are lost to us, enemies now.
Migrant camps were a way of life and child labor was a way to learn work ethic....no more of either. Migrant camps outlawed so the migrants moved to town and the children became spoiled brats.
Of course, you know that the worst part is not loading the bales on to the truck, in the fresh air and sunshine, but rather later unloading them in the barn which you must fill to the rafters - and towards the end crawling on your belly, dragging them in near total darkness, in oven-like heat, in air saturated with dust.
Truly Dantean.
Regards,
That picture somehow isn’t too reassuring, is it?
I thoroughly soak and wash all fruits and vegetables anyway, but it does make you think.
All produce, no matter who picks it, should be washed before consuming, packaged or not. It’s not hard or that time-consuming. As a kid, we lived in Spain, and my mom had to go to the farmers market everyday to get our produce because we didn’t have a refrigerator. She taught me to wash all of our fruits and vegetables in the sink with a little dish soap and then rinsing them to dry before putting them out to eat. I continue that habit to this day, even for packaged produce from the grocery store. My wife and I live in the country in Florida and have a huge garden every year. We wash everything we pick before preparing it to eat, including strawberries, and they are not in packages. And our hands are not “unsanitary”.
I suspect, despite your protestation to the contrary, that your complaint about this practice by Dole to package their strawberries in the field being unsanitary, has more to do with the fact that it is the illegals who pick the fruit who are unsanitary than you want to admit. “Thou doth protest too much.”
Just sayin’......
have a problem with the reduction in illegals due to the new laws in southern states. Fewer illegals means less political action on their behalf as in Fewer taco bell boycotts. California's problem can only grow due to the political climate there.
We picked cotton from the time we were four or five years old until we left home after high school. Yes, it was hard work. No, it didn’t hurt any of us. In fact, we all worked our way through college and got into the professions so we would not have to do that kind of work all our lives.
Happily, when we left home, our father was able to afford his first mechanical picker to replace us. Strawberry farmers should engineer the fruit so it can be picked mechanically, thus freeing these poor oppressed workers to sit on the porch and wait for their welfare checks.
Need to send this boy to me for a couple of weeks and I’ll introduce him to the oilfield. I’ll start him on a roustabout crew then we’ll hit the pulling unit’s and finish it off with a little drilling rig fun, morning tower. Folks thats boot camp for the oilfields and we all go through it but not many graduate. Long hours of hard and dangerous work.
Sounds really interesting, too. Is the money worth it?
Need to send this boy to me for a couple of weeks and I’ll introduce him to the oilfield. I’ll start him on a roustabout crew then we’ll hit the pulling unit’s and finish it off with a little drilling rig fun, morning tower. Folks thats boot camp for the oilfields and we all go through it but not many graduate. Long hours of hard and dangerous work.
I think it sounds like fun, I like working and I like working in a team. What else is there to do? I think what they mean by the jobs Americans won’t do is that those who were former slaves have a psychological reaction to field work and won’t do it. I don’t think western culture has a problem with it, where I am from the kids go west into Kansas in the summer and work baling hay or harvesting wheat to earn money for their first cars, those jobs are very physical and dusty. The Hispanics I know and have seen working, work hard—and from hiring various house cleaners, the best ones are Hispanics, very industrious and can get things really clean.
“their fruit”
um, no.
I mean those descended from former slaves
I remember a story about a guy being put in charge of a farm in Mexico, the first problem he noticed was the laborers were pooping in the field.
He added portapotties.
They still pooped in the fields.
He found out... they didnt know how to use a proper bathroom.
They had to be taught.
We have high school drop outs making 60 to 70 thousand their first year into it. Hard dirty and dangerous with long hours and your always exposed to the weather but if you can get about 3 years of this under your belt you’ll make a hand, then some easier jobs become available. In the early 70’s I was pumping 22 wells, working full time with the Sheriffs Dept and going to college. Got my engineering degree and have been working the production side of the business ever since. I’ve tried to retire twice now but they won’t let me, they just offer more money. January 1st 2020 is my offical retirement date, I’ll be 70 and my wife will be 65, then we’re going to have some fun.
How about an IT guy with a Master’s degree, no oil industry experience, doesn’t mind outdoors (used to be an Infantry Soldier)? I should hope I clear minimum wage at least!
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