To the editor: In Bakersfield in the course of the summer time of 1966, most teenage jobs have been tied to agriculture, and mine was no exception. Columnist Gustavo Arellano has written about these occasions with accuracy (“Can homegrown teenagers exchange immigrant farm labor? In 1965, the U.S. tried,” Aug. 14), however my very own expertise got here in a cantaloupe subject close to Mettler, Calif. I lasted precisely one week.
The work was relentless. A tractor pulled an extended conveyor belt by the rows, dictating our tempo. As pickers, we spent the day both on our knees or bent over, tossing melons onto the shifting belt that carried them to a ready truck. Breaks have been uncommon — simply lengthy sufficient for the tractor to show round on the finish of a quarter-mile furrow earlier than beginning up once more.
By the tip of every shift, I had eaten sufficient mud to bury a big canine. The exhaustion wasn’t simply bodily; it was grinding, joyless labor. After seven days, I knew this life wasn’t for me. In truth, we highschool athletes have been so inefficient that the growers needed to rent a second crew to return and repick the identical subject.
Michael Cowan, Torrance
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To the editor: I grew up within the Willamette Valley of Oregon, and within the Sixties, junior excessive college students have been routinely employed to select strawberries and inexperienced beans in the course of the summer time. Highschool college students labored the late shifts within the area’s canneries. There have been no braceros and, no matter socioeconomic standing, it was a provided that the scholars would work to usher in and course of the crops.
Indubitably it was onerous work, however we did what needed to be achieved.
Lori Haythorn, Westchester
