I remember driving through the San Joaquin Valley at night because the temperature during the day was unbearable. Even then, I sped along with all the windows open and did my best to make it through without a rest stop.
As the article states, nothing on the radio but Spanish: ranchera music, boleros, corridos, ballads of spurned love, and the distinctive norteño sound—percussive, driving, no brass.
A place where life is, to say the least, miserable for the vast majority of people who live and toil there. Consider the following:
In response to the argument that immigrants steal jobs from Americans by undercutting their wages, the UFW set up a website offering citizens and legal residents agricultural jobs anywhere in the country through state employment services. This was in 2010, during the Great Recession. The website received about four million hits, out of which around 12,000 people filled out employment forms. Of these, a total of twelve citizens or legal residents actually showed up for work. Not one of them lasted longer than a day. According to a Los Angeles Times report, Silverado, a farm labor contractor in Napa, “has never had a white, American-born person take an entry-level gig, even after the company increased hourly wages to $4 above the minimum.” A wine grower in Stockton couldn’t lure unemployed citizens for $20 an hour.
And they all live in fear of la migra.
It’s a long article but well worth reading @ In the Valley of Fear
