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| A farm worker cleans a head of lettuce. |
My quads were already screaming.
In front of me, they deftly separated the crop from the ground, slicing away the waste leaves and tossing the Romaine lettuce onto stainless steel trays to be rinsed and packed into a box for the trip to the cooler warehouse for further prep for market. Within days this fresh vegetable would be on its way to a supermarket or restaurant somewhere in the US.
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| Workers head for their crew buses to begin the work day |
The accumulating mud threatened to suck my boots off my feet as I stepped backwards in front of the advancing farmworkers as they harvested.
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| Workers wait for their bus departure at Circle K near the border. |
I stood in the only place I could, the water-carrying troughs between the vast rows of salad.
Always trying to see into my subjects' faces, I get as low as possible to witness the work, literally in the trenches. If I didn't have to keep moving, I probably would have sacrificed my clothes to get low enough to find the very best and interesting view of my subjects.
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| A cutter tosses lettuce onto the packing table to be boxed. |
As the sunlight changed from ideal early day warmth to that unflattering midday quality, it was time to head back to the car. My coworker Robyn, one of CRS' regional information officers, could only laugh at me as I stumbled from muddy field trying to keep my gear out of harm's way.
We'd already been out "in the field" for six hours, beginning at 5 a.m. at a convenience store, two blocks from the San Luis border crossing where several hundred workers daily cross the border to meet their crew buses and travel to their place of work. We wanted to get a sense of what the workers went through to earn a day's pay. It's a long day for them.
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| Howard G. Buffet meets with CITA personel. |
It was only the second time I've had the opportunity to shoot
domestically for one of my biggest non-governmental organization clients,
Catholic Relief Services, documenting the work of Mexican farm workers
who benefit from a program that helps them navigate the bureaucratically
tangled process of obtaining a farmworker's H-2a visa to care for, and
harvest a large portion of America's lettuce.
The visa process, set up by the
U.S. government, requires farmers to search for domestic employees before
granting visas allowing farms to hire foreign workers.
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| Workers entertain each other while cutting red lettuce |
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| Hot breakfast at Farmworkers Day celebration |
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| Taking off the worst of the bottom leaves. |
The cumbersome nature of the process discourages many farmers and workers
from attempting the process on their own. The Howard G. Buffet Foundation partnered with CRS to work with CITA, a
farmworkers organization in Yuma, to match farmers and farmworkers to
navigate the process.
In Yuma, most
of the crews are an even mix of Arizona residents and Mexican citizens doing this back-breaking work.
As the CRS information officer/writer and I crossed the hotel lobby, after a day literally in the field, I'm sure I was followed with disapproving looks at the several pounds of mud that still clung to my boots in spite of my best effort to lighten their weight.
It didn't matter, I was tickled to be back at it, teaming up again with a great colleague and for one my NGO clients whose assignments I always enjoy.
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| Waiting for breakfast at Farmworkers day on San Luis morning |
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