Picking crops

Regarding Mr. White’s statement in a letter to the Editor, “Each time I drive past the fields, I have not seen one white male picking the crops.”

I have the following comments: From 1948 to 1956, I worked In the fields picking all kinds of crops. The two main crops that we picked were cotton and picking up potatoes.

Picking up potatoes was a very labor intensive job because the first row you simply set the 55 pound sacks upright, but the second row of sacks had to swung over to the first row.

The normal age for white children to start picking up potatoes was 12 but they started picking cotton as young as 6 years old. In California, 99 percent of picking up potatoes was done by white children and white adults. Although, some of them were part Native American.

We earned our living that way, but white teenagers (mostly boys) would also earn spending money by picking cotton. I know because I saw them.

In fact in the state of Missouri, the kids went to school in August and school shut down during cotton picking time so the kids could help bring in the crops. One reason that you don’t see any white men in the fields is because the farmers can get the illegals to do the work cheaper and do not hire anyone else. There are many white homeless men that would probably like to earn some money. Maybe some teenagers, too.

My question to Mr. White is this: Did you ever work in the fields picking crops? If so, how long? Many white men did that their entire life. You only see what you want to see.

Jeanie Stephens

Rosamond