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

[SergeStorms]

27. As a teenager....

I used to pick apples, harvest cabbage, cut cabbage, cut and bale hay etc. You had to get a "work permit" at age 13 (in N.Y. State anyway) in order to get a farm job. I grew up in a rural area where jobs were scarce if you didn't want to work on a farm. For a kid, this was the only work around. This was in the early to mid-60s. Backbreaking work, even for a young, strong kid. I had muscles on top of my muscles back then. When I graduated from high-school I was out of there! No way was I going to do that type of work any longer than I had to. Could I do that work when I was older? Maybe, but I would have been wracked with pain and my longevity on the job would have been very short.

I really don't know how the Central American laborers do what they do, and for so long. They get paid shit-wages by corporate farms (generally owned by Republicans, who hire them without batting an eye, then complain about "immigrants" ) and usually send most of their money back to relatives in their country of origin. Yet they love this country, and contrary to what the racists say, they avoid trouble like the plague. I grew up with these people. Their children would start school with us in the fall, but as soon as the crops were finished, they moved south where there was work in the winter months. Yet the still valued their kids education. I felt so sorry for the kids, because they never got a chance to make lasting relationships anywhere. They were "itinerant laborers", and as such didn't qualify for any of the school "perks" we white kids always took for granted. I'm almost 70 now, but I still remember their names and faces.

My god, I'm starting to cry. That happens when you reach a certain age, and think of things you haven't thought of in quite some time. You also have the advantage of looking back with different eyes, and a different heart. Ahhh shit, that's it for awhile.