I am not a CA native, but I have heard several speak of harvest jobs like this in their youth. Several did this summer after summer, and often during the school year too, High Schools seem to have allowed ag work leaves.
So not everyone was as easily discouraged as these “long hairs”.
Yup, my mother worked in the fields growing up (eventually earning her Electrical Engineering degree).
Problem nowadays is the Left is he11-bent on criminalizing low-value work. If you can’t produce at least $15/hr value, they want to punish you for working at all.