Table of Contents
ALSO BY GABRIEL THOMPSON
Theres No Jos Here
Calling All Radicals
For Daniella, who was with me every step of the way
AUTHORS NOTE
For privacy reasons, the names of workers and supervisors have been changed, and in the case of one worker I altered identifying characteristics. To deal with the challenge of reporting while undercover, I took detailed notes upon arriving home after each shift. During shifts, I used the breaks to disappear whenever possible to jot down scenes or bits of dialogue in a small notebook. I should clarify: Those were the good days. Often, the notebook remained stuffed in my pocket throughout the entire shift. On those days, during breaks, I rested.
INTRODUCTION
I wake up staring into the bluest blue Ive ever seen. I must have fallen into a deep sleep during the short break because I need several seconds to realize that Im looking at the sky, that the pillow beneath my head is a large clump of dirt, and that Manuel is standing over me and smiling. I pull myself to a sitting position. To my left, in the distance, a Border Patrol helicopter is hovering. To my right is Mexico, separated by only a few fields of lettuce.
Buenos das.
How much time left?
Manuel checks his watch. Four minutes.
I stand up gingerly. Its only my third day in the fields, but already my thirty-year-old body is failing me. I feel like someone has dropped a log on my back. And then piled that log onto a truck with many other logs, and driven that truck over my thighs.
I reach down and grab two 32-ounce bottles of Gatorade, both empty. This is nothing new: Yesterday I finished four bottles. A few people on the crew have already suggested that I see a doctor about my sweating problem.
Lets go, I say to Manuel, trying to sound energetic. I fall in line behind him, stumbling across rows of lettuce and thinking about the five-day rule. The five-day rule, according to Manuel, is simple: Survive the first five days and youll be fine. Hes been a farmworker for almost two decades, so he should know. Im on day three of fivethe goal is within sight. Of course, another way to look at my situation is that Im on day three of what I promised myself would be a two-month job. Or that this is only the first in a series of jobs that I hope to survive over the course of the year. But that kind of thinking doesnt benefit anyone. Day three of five.
Ive been thinking, Manuel calls over his shoulder. When you showed up, I could tell right away that you had money. On the first day I was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt Ive had since high school, but I know what he means. Im white, the only white person on the crew and the only white person in the fields. So I thought maybe you were a supervisor. But you dont know what youre doing with the lettuce. He laughs. Candelario thinks youre with immigration. He makes a dismissive gesture with his right hand and turns around, waiting for me to catch up. But why would you be working in the fields and not stopping people at the border?
Weve nearly reached the lettuce machine, where two dozen crewmembers are putting on gloves and sharpening knives. A radio is blasting a Spanish love song and a few men and women are laughing at something; it sounds like a party.
Were late, but Manuel remains stopped in his tracks. Youre an American. But youre not a supervisor and youre not with immigration. So what are you doing?
I shrug my shoulders. I dont know, I just
Manuel! Gabriel! Lets go! The foreman is impatient and the question is quickly forgotten. Vmonos! We hustle our butts to the machine, grab our knives from a box of chlorinated water, and set up in neighboring rows, just as the machine starts moving slowly down another endless field.
WHAT ARE YOU doing here? Over the course of the year I would hear Manuels question dozens of times. Id ask it myself when things werent going wellwhich was often. But because I was undercover, I couldnt explain that I was writing a book. Instead I made up a variety of responses: I was traveling and needed money to continue my journey; I enjoyed learning new skills; or, later in the year, with the economy collapsing, I needed whatever work I could find. At other times, in the middle of a shift so draining that I didnt have the energy to make something up, I would simply say, I dont know. At those moments the answer felt honest enough.
I do know what gave me the idea for this book. In the fall of 2007 the New York Times published an article entitled Crackdown Upends Slaughterhouses Workforce. Written by labor correspondent Steven Greenhouse, the piece documented the difficulty that Smithfield Foods was having in securing a stable workforce at its massive hog slaughterhouse in North Carolina after a series of raids by immigration agents. Although the crackdown resulted in the arrest of only twenty-one undocumented immigrants, more than 1,100 Latino workers subsequently quit, leaving the 5,200-employee plant severely short staffed. Some of the workers were no doubt working without proper papers, while others simply wanted to avoid a situation in which government agents could come barging into their trailers in the middle of the night.
In response to the exodus of immigrants, Smithfield stepped up efforts to recruit U.S. citizens. Based on wages alone, this shouldnt have been overly difficult: Most of the local jobs paid minimum wage and positions at the plant averaged $12 an hour. Still, as Greenhouse reported, The turnover rate for new workersmany find the work grueling and the smell awfulis twice what it was when Hispanics dominated the workforce... At the end of the shifts, many workers complain that their muscles are sore and their minds are numb.
As a teenager, I relished George Orwells accounts of going into dangerous coal mines in The Road to Wigan Pier and washing dishes in Down and Out in Paris and London, and was likewise moved by Barbara Ehrenreichs adventures scrubbing floors and waiting tables in Nickel and Dimed. Ive always been drawn to chronicles of immersion journalism; they have a unique ability to explore fascinating and sometimes brutal worlds that are usually kept out of sight. I thought it would be exciting to try this type of reporting myself, and immediately upon finishing the Times article, a project formed in my head. I would enter the low-wage immigrant workforce for a year and write about it.
In many ways, this project was a natural outgrowth of my previous work. I had reported on immigrants for the past three yearsmostly Latino because I speak Spanishand I have always been interested in documenting what life looks like through the eyes of my subjects, transforming them from statistics to real people. The notion of going undercover to work alongside immigrants in the factories and fieldsassuming I could actually get hiredheld an immense appeal. In 2008, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that there were 8.3 million undocumented workers in the United States, making up 5.4 percent of the workforce. The role that these low-wage workers play in our economy is, of course, a matter of much debate. But whether one believes they are a threat or a boon to the economy, the fact remains that very few of us nonimmigrants know what its like to do the jobs they do. I wanted to find out.
