Stories from Around the World

Jorge A. Velazquez

JV: From Mexicali, Baja California.

CV: Have you ever worked in the field?

JV: Yes, I've worked a long time.

CV: At what age did you start to work in the field?

JV: Well, at the age of 18 years and on.

CV: Was it difficult for you to work in the field so young?

JV: Well, at the beginning when they were teaching you it was; then it wasn't,it became a habit.

CV: And what places did you work?

JV: Here in California I worked in the Imperial Valley, in the Valley of San Joaquin, and farther north in Manteca, Livingston, Fresno and other places that I don't even remember. And in Arizona, the ones that are near the Imperial Valley like Blythe, Palo Verde, that's all.

CV: And what were they harvesting?

JV: Well everything that was fruit of the season like watermelon, cantaloupe and other things in the summer; in the winter it was lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus.

CV: And do you think it is different today than before?

JV: Well, before we worked the crops with our hands, and now there are more machines and more technology in the field; it is different and as the years pass it will be different.

CV: And what was the crop where you worked the hardest, like what kind of vegetable was it?

JV: Well since I was working in a group of men and I think the hardest was the cantaloupe and the watermelon for the other people.

CV: And they were telling me that the hoe was short and now it's long?

JV: Oh yes, I remember that when we used a short hoe. It was for sure that the first day you got a fever, and you had a fever for 3 days long, and you still had to be working so that your body could adapt and so that you could get used to it, And now there are long hoes and there are fewer problems with your back or in your waist.

CV: Can you tell us what was it like when you were harvesting the crops, like what did you have to do?

JV: Well you needed to get up at 3:00 o'clock in the morning and be at the bus places at 5:00 o'clock of the morning, everything was so nice because you were meeting new people and you talked with them, it was like a part of our culture, and you went to work, you did your day's work and you got home tired.

CV: How did you harvest the crop?

JV: For example, harvesting the cantaloupe, we had to make group of 11 or 13 men and we started to work all together and everybody was filling a sack that they were carrying on the back and then a truck passed by picking the sacks up, but the truck never stopped. It had pieces of timber like steps that you were supposed to walk on and put the sack filled with cantaloupes, and everything was fast because we worked so fast and when you filled up the truck with sacks of cantaloupes then that was your break to drink water and to wait for another truck, but since it wasn't paid by the hour it was like a contract, sometimes people needed to run to catch an empty truck because they didn't wanted to stop working and that's why we left work so tired.

CV: And what was the minimum that they paid you?

JV: Well the payment was a little bit for the first time and it was $4.50 the hour, and then they started to pay by contract, it was seven dollars and fifty cents the lineal foot of the truck, but the money wasn't enough, 100 dollars a day. It was money, but not a lot, not for the hard work we had to do.

CV: What benefits did you have or what kind of health protection was there?

JV: In that time there was no benefits. The union of Cesar Chavez was just forming I remember that they had some activities that they were called pickets. The pickets were that people didn't let you to go in the field to work because they wanted you to join the Cesar Chavez's union, and at the beginning I didn't believe them but then little by little I realized that without them we wouldn't have health benefits, the union of the farm workers were giving more benefits to all the people that were working in the field like unemployment insurance, that came because of Cesar Chavez, sick pay for the people that were working in the field, increased insurance, everything thanks to them.

CV: Did they pay your salary when you were sick or you had an injury?

JV: Before at the beginning the people were scared to have an accident because the first thing that they were thinking was that they were going to stop working without any insurance but little by little it changed and now when people are hurt they get paid if they don't go to work.

CV: What advice can you give us?

JV: Well, one of the first advice to all the people is that they should prepare, to go to the school,at least to study a trade and if God permits you, to get a profession so that when you get old and you are not strong anymore you can still know how to get money to survive in comfortable way because I get sad when I see people so young in the street without a job.

Juan de Dios Guala (Argentina)

Mrs. Juanita Hurtado (USA)

Mike Patin (USA)

Jorge A. Velazquez (USA)