Maria Bucio: A chance for better pay and a steady job
documented, speak limited English and are rarely voices of the #MeToo movement, especially vulnerable.
It’s a liminal existence that Bucio can’t quite come to terms with: one foot in Mexico, one foot in California, at home in neither.
“I suffered 13 years to make my home in Mexico beautiful, to raise my children,” she says. “When can I enjoy that?”
Every year, the same familiar tableau shows itself in Wine Country in late summer — the beginning of harvest season, as grapes ripen and plump on rows of lush green vines. Now, more and more, that landscape is dotted with pink and purple hoods shuffling through the fields.
Underneath these hoods are women chatting, laughing, as they power through the rows. Their crescentshaped sickles blur, severing clusters of grapes from the vines. Bandannas cover their mouths: checkered, patterned with pink hearts, adorned with the Mexican flag. Sunglasses obscure their eyes. Their hoodies match pink and purple gloves.
That scene — a mostly female vineyard crew, with just one or two men among them — is commonplace today. But it wasn’t always. Even just five years ago, the proportions were reversed, says Bucio. Back then, she was often the only woman in a crew. “The men weren’t used to women working next to them,” she says. “That’s changed.”
On a sunny morning last September, Bucio moves through the rows of the Renteria 360 Vineyard, in the Rutherford valley floor, at rapid speed. “I’m one of the fastest,” she says, smiling. Her speech is as quick and sure as her handiwork.
Lunchtime for the Renteria crew, which has been at work since 6 a.m., comes at 11:30. Bucio darts to a picnic table, immersed suddenly in her cell phone screen. She pulls her bandanna down to her neck and removes her gloves, revealing an immaculate French manicure.
These are precious moments for Bucio to connect with her family back in Mexico. She laughs as she watches a video her sister has just sent her of her son Manuel. She quickly tries to make a video call to them, but can’t connect.
“Things had gotten complicated,” Bucio says of her difficult decision to come to the United States. Before emigrating, she had finally ended a 13-year relationship with her children’s father, who she says is an alcoholic and was physically abusive toward her and their children. Bucio had left him several times, and each time taken him back.
Manuel’s cerebral palsy requires long weekly journeys to medical specialists. One day, after a two-day trip to Guanajuato with Manuel to see a doctor, Bucio returned home to find one of her other children severely beaten. That’s when she knew enough was enough.
Bucio left her husband once and for all, and sought government assistance so that she and her children could live on their own. She found a job cutting lumber, but when a pile of wood fell on her one day and injured her back, she was left temporarily unable to work. She and the kids moved in with her mother, who lives in the countryside. She couldn’t find any work nearby.
California, Bucio knew, could promise a solution. She’d been here before: as a teenager, with her aunt, working at a clothing factory in Los Angeles. U.S. wages were the only chance of continuing Manuel’s treatments. So she went. First to L.A., where she worked in a bridal shop, then to the Bay Area.
Like many of her colleagues, Bucio turned to vineyard work initially because it pays well. Renteria starts new employees between $16 and $18 an hour, and wages rise with ability and experience. During the peak of harvest, when the work pays piecerate rather than hourly, Bucio can earn as much as $1,200 a week.
She sends about $800 a month to cover Manuel’s medical care. When her mother began experiencing heart problems last year, Bucio started sending extra money for her treatment, too. because, in the face of this labor shortage, he can’t afford to drive away the women. He has fired multiple male employees, including a couple of foremen, for “profane language.”
Beyond individual employers like Renteria, there are signs of hope for a culture change in vineyards. As of October, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 295 into law, sexual harassment training is legally required for all farmworkers in California, and employers who fail to provide the training are subject to civil fines.
Even in the wake of change, however, cultural biases can die hard. Last year, Renteria hired a woman who had never worked before. She quickly became one of his best employees, earning promotions. But at the end of the year, she gave notice, saying that her husband — a farmworker — felt insecure about her success and preferred she stay home with their children.
A glass ceiling of sorts still exists for these women. To the extent that women populate the fields, they’re still largely confined to nimble hand work. “I have requested all female crews for thinning,” Stephy Terrizzi, a Paso Robles (San Luis Obispo County) viticulturist, wrote in an email. “I feel their smaller hands are less prone to break the other shoots, and I feel females are more gentle with the process.”
Delicate, dexterous female fingers are prized. But women operating heavy equipment? Still a stretch. Tractor driving, spraying vine treatments and pruning — those higherpaying tasks requiring either more brawn or more brain power — remain the domain of men.
Slowly, these divisions may be eroding. Silverado Farming Company, another major vineyard management company in Napa, just named four women equipment operators. Renteria now has two female foremen.
And during the 2017 harvest season, Bucio was promoted to tractor driver.
Yet despite her successes, in November Bucio made a change. Once the wine grape harvest ended, she traveled back to Mexico, her first trip in six years, and is still there. She hopes to return to the U.S. soon — with her children. But without visas, and with border-crossing conditions more dangerous than ever, she doesn’t know how she’ll make it happen. Will she come back without them? Will she stay, and hope to find work in Mexico? Will José join them? How will she continue to support her family, especially Manuel?
Bucio’s journey home, just before Thanksgiving, was smooth and uneventful, and she’s relishing her time with her children. They’re all safe and healthy, she says. Although she had been in constant communication with her family during their separation, she speaks of her children now with haggard relief. “Thank God” follows every statement. José, she adds, misses her. But the future remains hazy as ever. To cross the border with her children, she estimates, could cost $40,000 in coyote fees.
“It’s sad to leave,” she says. “But at the same time, now I’m happy because I get to see my children.”