Think immigrants are taking our jobs? Try picking strawberries for a day

[Journeyman]

5. I picked strawberries once. Company I worked for also owned fields, let us glean the leftovers . . .

Corn wasn't too bad. Bush beans left our backs sore, stooping over all day. Tomatoes were terrible: the smell, the itching, the worms. But strawberries? Strawberries were murder.

Mind, I was under no timeline or quota. Just show up, pick what I wanted, go home. We were on our knees all morning. To make a proper go, to make a profit at it, you'd have to stoop. Screw that: crawling was a little less exhausting. But it was the little hairs, and the juice, which were the killers. The little hairs got all over your arms and neck, up in your ears and in your eyes. Itchy. Unbelievably itchy. And the juice. You were constantly kneeling on strawberries, or sitting on them, squishing them or dropping them on your body. Sticky. And they attracted flies and other critters too numerous to recall.

That was 40 years ago. I don't care what they pay strawberry pickers. They could make $15, $30, $40,000 an hour and it would be too little. That they do it for such a pittance is testament to their need and an indictment of the farmer's greed and our complicity.