Children of the Fields A digital scrapbook of my life from 1900-1912 as a Migrant Farm Worker. Created by Miguel Angel Rodriguez Module 3 Section 2 Turn of the Century Project

About Me Hi, my name is Daniel Escamilla. I was born in Palermo Valley, California on October 17, 1900. The photo on the left is that of my family. I have two older brothers, Juan who is 7 and Hector who is 9. My mother said we could have had a sister, but she died a few months after she was born for lack of medical attention. Most of the photographs in this scrapbook were taken by a reporter and his Kodak Brownie Camera who followed our journey. I grew up in a farm workers community. You see, my parents were migrant farm workers. We travelled from farm to farm in various parts of the U.S. during harvest time picking fruits or vegetables.

Life as a Migrant Farm Worker We were not the only family working the fields. Other families from places I had never even heard of also joined our labor force. The photo on the right is that of my best friend Kim Le with her mom taking a break after picking broccoli. Her family came from China and are also migrant workers. Life as a migrant worker was not easy. Everyone in the family, no matter your age, had to work the fields from sun-up to sunset. The hours were long, usually from 12 to 16 hours a day, and we worked six days a week. The pay was about 15 cents per hour, which came to about $5 a day.

Living in a Farm Migrant Community It was not uncommon to see hundreds of child farm workers. We were cheap labor and there weren’t any laws to protect us. We were also paid less than the adults; about $1.00 a day for the same full day’s work. Since we travelled from farm to farm, we never knew what type of housing we would be living in. At times we lived in large warehouses with bunk-beds and at other times we lived in shanty houses. Some things were always certain, everyone lived together under the same poor conditions and received very little food to eat. If we got sick, there was no doctor and for fear of loosing our jobs, many of us continued working whiled we were ill.

No Schools for Migrant Farm Workers My parents tell me I was lucky to have gone to school, even if it was just for a month. This happened when we travelled to Oregon and we stayed for three months to pick apples. My dad quickly pulled me out of school so I could help the family in the apple orchards – extra hands equals extra income. I was indeed lucky to have gone to school for at least four weeks, since there are no such thing as schools for migrant workers. We are never in one place long enough to attend school and the company boss doesn’t want us to learn to read and write. My first day of school was not a happy memory. The teacher had slapped my hand with a ruler for speaking Spanish in class.

Life on the Road Life on the road was difficult. Just to get from California were we harvested tomatoes to Oregon where we harvest apples, we all had to hop on a train along with the cattle. Once we arrived at our destinations, we either walked from farm to farm, or were loaded onto horse-driven wagons that carried the produce. Automobiles were rare and were not mass produced until 1908.

From a Child Worker’s Hands to Your Grocery Store The majority of the produce sold in stores or the corner market came from the fields were migrant children like myself worked. The general public did not care how their food got to their table. Companies new about young children like me, but ignored us since child labor laws were weak and not enforced.

What My Future Holds If you are born into the life of a migrant farm worker, you are very likely to live this lifestyle until your final days. You can try to leave, as my brother Juan and Hector did when they were teenagers and decided to move to the city for better jobs. Child labor was everywhere across the U.S. since there was no age at which children could work. Sadly, the only work my brothers could find in the city was more hard labor such as in factories, warehouses, mills, or packaging plants.

Hope is Still A Long Way By 1912 I was 12 years old and still working the fields with my parents as a migrant farm worker. My brothers who were in the city wrote to me that some change is in the air. A progressive movement is taking place and people are starting to speak up against child labor. My brothers tell me that thanks to people like Jane Addams, a social worker who cares about the working conditions of children like me, hope is not that far away. But hope is still a long way for us migrant farm workers who roam from state to state.

The End Children of the Fields: A digital scrapbook of my life from 1900-1912 as a Migrant Farm Worker. Created by Miguel Angel Rodriguez Module 3 Section 2 Turn of the Century Project