Abstract
‘I’m afraid I won’t see my family again. I don’t want to die in this country.’’These are the words of Arturo, a thirty-year-old from Mexico, who, when Imet him, was working as a fruit packer at an orchard in Columbia County,about two hours north of New York City.∞ He was housed in a trailer on thefarm, amid apple trees. During our interview he was seated on a pile of bare,soiled mattresses in the middle of his livingroom. The housing was poor, heexplained. I could see that for myself. Arturo had only been in the UnitedStates—having traveled directly to this farm—for one month. He told me, ‘‘Icame out of necessity. There was no work at home.’’ As a fruit packer, heworked six 8-hour days a week and was paid $6 an hour, around $200 a weekafter his employer-deducted taxes. He had just sent $450 to his wife andmother in Mexico; he planned to do the same the following month. Althoughhe thought he should be paid $8.50 an hour (that would raise his weeklyearnings by about $80), he told me, ‘‘I know it is not possible to earn more.’’He acknowledged that he didn’t know the laws for farmworkers and under-stood his paycheck only ‘‘a little.’’ Agriculture was not Arturo’s preferredpursuit. He wanted to be a mechanic, but realized he could not do this: ‘‘I’mjust trying to survive. I need English. I have no support. There are too manyrequirements here to be a mechanic, you need a diploma.’’ At home, back inMexico, he had been an artisan and a farmworker. With only a second-gradeformal education and no English-language skills, his opportunities wereseverely limited. He hoped things would be di√erent for his children: ‘‘I wantthem to work hard to have what I can’t get—a better future.’’