Some time last year I remember writing about my experience picking raspberries for a day in a farm/field in the mid-west. At the time, that's what my family was doing to make a living, so I joined them for a day because work is easier when you do it as a family. Well, my mom and sister left L.A. yesterday to go back to that farm/field to pick raspberries again for the summer. My mom hasn't worked much since she was arrested for being a tamal vendor, so she helps my father with his business endeavor.
They're going to gone for three, four months depending on how things go over there. They'll be pretty much living on the farm/field with the owners, cause they're super cool like that. Working everyday, except when they go visit family near by or they decide to go out and have fun river tubing and what not.
My mom doesn't make a big deal out of this the way I am on here because this is all she knows. She grew up on a farm/field in Mexico and grew up doing this kind of work. She also grew up working to make ends meat and through out our lives here in the U.S. we've always had the tenacity to follow work. If work was in Long Beach, Pico Union, Compton, South Central we would give chase and move there.
But for me, it just means that despite years of effort to make a feasible living in the shadows not bothering anyone, we still gotta struggle one way or another. I actually would have gone with them, but that would mean missing school, just as I'm about getting ready to transfer. I'm not gonna lie and say that I'm not horribly grief stricken and sad because of this, because I am. But I have a better understanding of our situation that affords me understanding and some acceptance, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it. FYI Yes my mother is undocumented, my was born here and NO, she is not taking way ANY AMERICAN citizens job, place, money or leeching of tax payers. Everything she does is on her own accord. She's traveling hundreds of miles to work in a field because people there won't do the work. So there's no underlining agenda, or stereotypical argument to be made about her going back to Mexico and doing this work over there.The U.S. made sure that can't happen anymore thanks to NAFTA.
