I walked out of the fields two years ago. I saw the need to change the California feudal system, to change the lives of farm workers, to make these huge corporations feel they're not above anybody. I am thirty-four year old and I try to organize for the United Farm Workers of America....
If you're picking lettuce, thumbnails fall off cause they're banged on the box. Your hands get swollen. You can't slow down because the foreman see you're so many boxes behind and you'd better get on. But people would help each other. If you're feeling bad that day, somebody who's feeling pretty good would help.
Any people that are suffering have to stick together, whether they be black,brown,or pink......
I began to see how everything was so wrong. When growers can have an intricate watering system to irrigate their crops but they can't have running water inside the house workers. Veterinarian tend to needs of domestic animals but they can't have medical care for the workers. They can have land subsides for growers but they can't have adequate unemployment compensation for the workers. They treat him like a farm implement. In fact, they treat their implements better and their domestic animals better.
They have heat and insulated barns for the animals but the workers live in beat-up shacks with no heat at all.
