Americans on Farms: Should I Have Used the "L" Word?
I was doing a book signing a few weeks ago at a great little Des Moines bookstore. The crowd had been steady thanks largely to an art crawl happening in the East Village that day, and I spent a few hours talking with one person after another.
I often explain in these conversations that, as a journalist, I wasn’t trying to push people in any particular political direction on the immigration issue in my book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation.” After that, the conversations are usually amicable as we share observations - not political "solutions" - related to immigration. It was the same on this particular day as I chatted with a woman. I shared some observations, as did she, but when I made one comment, her mood seemed to shift suddenly and dramatically.
What I had said was that farmers are saying they have trouble finding U.S. citizens who want to work on their farms – particularly with the more demanding jobs such as picking vegetables or milking cows. And many they do hire quit within a few weeks, if not days. Many Americans feel they have better choices and don’t want to work so hard in less-than-ideal conditions.
“That is not true what you just said!” the woman said, her voice suddenly louder.
I was confused for a minute. I asked if she meant it’s not true that farmers are saying they can’t hire and retain enough U.S. citizens? Or she thinks farmers are lying about Americans not wanting these jobs?
I explained that, as a reporter, I had heard it from farmers myself a number of times. Some dairy farmers in the northeast Iowa told me several years earlier that they were having much better luck hiring rural Mexicans or Central Americans to milk the cows, a job that usually begins around 5 a.m. I’d heard the same thing from other farmers, and had read similar comments in various reports from other journalists.
The woman said she felt that agriculture was just using those from south-of-the border because they could pay them less and abuse them when it came to working hours and benefits. I told her that, as a reporter, I had seen evidence of this at one agricultural production facility - a massive egg-laying facility in the Midwest - but that I wasn't convinced that carried over to most family farms.
My own parents raise cattle in the hilly pastures of western Iowa. My dad usually has one or two hired men or women to work alongside him. He has always been able to hire U.S. citizens and has been lucky to find some great, hard-working people. But it’s not always a quick or easy task to find them. The hours on the ranch are long and erratic. Cattle get out of the fields at random times, water supplies freeze over in the middle of blizzards, cows need to be assisted during calving in the middle of the night. All these issues have to be dealt with quickly, despite the hour or the weather. Farming might seem rewarding and fun to those driving by on the highway on a nice, sunny day (and it can be) but it’s the rainy, cold, or snowy days that are the true test.
I think my big mistake in our conversation was that I used the L word - "Lazy" - in reference to some U.S. citizens when it came to types of farms that are less mechanized and still require intensive hands-on work.
Was I going too far in using that word? Perhaps.
Maybe I should have said another L word: "Lucky." Maybe Americans are too lucky to want to do this kind of farm work. Maybe, as a nation, we really could still get out there in the mud and heat, and still do the back-breaking work that comes with raising vegetables, caring for pastured animals, or milking cows.
It was just a few weeks later when I saw this article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/... The headline said: “Hiring Locally for Farm Work Is No Cure-All.”
It told of an onion farmer who described the same experience I had heard about from Iowa’s dairy farmers. The man made a point to hire local help, wondering if he had been unfair about hiring U.S. citizens.
The article said: “Six hours was enough, between the 6 a.m. start time and noon lunch break, for the first wave of local workers to quit. Some simply never came back and gave no reason. Twenty-five of them said specifically, according to farm records, that the work was too hard.”
At least the New York Times reporter was smarter than me.
He didn’t use the L word.
I often explain in these conversations that, as a journalist, I wasn’t trying to push people in any particular political direction on the immigration issue in my book, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation.” After that, the conversations are usually amicable as we share observations - not political "solutions" - related to immigration. It was the same on this particular day as I chatted with a woman. I shared some observations, as did she, but when I made one comment, her mood seemed to shift suddenly and dramatically.
What I had said was that farmers are saying they have trouble finding U.S. citizens who want to work on their farms – particularly with the more demanding jobs such as picking vegetables or milking cows. And many they do hire quit within a few weeks, if not days. Many Americans feel they have better choices and don’t want to work so hard in less-than-ideal conditions.
“That is not true what you just said!” the woman said, her voice suddenly louder.
I was confused for a minute. I asked if she meant it’s not true that farmers are saying they can’t hire and retain enough U.S. citizens? Or she thinks farmers are lying about Americans not wanting these jobs?
I explained that, as a reporter, I had heard it from farmers myself a number of times. Some dairy farmers in the northeast Iowa told me several years earlier that they were having much better luck hiring rural Mexicans or Central Americans to milk the cows, a job that usually begins around 5 a.m. I’d heard the same thing from other farmers, and had read similar comments in various reports from other journalists.
The woman said she felt that agriculture was just using those from south-of-the border because they could pay them less and abuse them when it came to working hours and benefits. I told her that, as a reporter, I had seen evidence of this at one agricultural production facility - a massive egg-laying facility in the Midwest - but that I wasn't convinced that carried over to most family farms.
My own parents raise cattle in the hilly pastures of western Iowa. My dad usually has one or two hired men or women to work alongside him. He has always been able to hire U.S. citizens and has been lucky to find some great, hard-working people. But it’s not always a quick or easy task to find them. The hours on the ranch are long and erratic. Cattle get out of the fields at random times, water supplies freeze over in the middle of blizzards, cows need to be assisted during calving in the middle of the night. All these issues have to be dealt with quickly, despite the hour or the weather. Farming might seem rewarding and fun to those driving by on the highway on a nice, sunny day (and it can be) but it’s the rainy, cold, or snowy days that are the true test.
I think my big mistake in our conversation was that I used the L word - "Lazy" - in reference to some U.S. citizens when it came to types of farms that are less mechanized and still require intensive hands-on work.
Was I going too far in using that word? Perhaps.
Maybe I should have said another L word: "Lucky." Maybe Americans are too lucky to want to do this kind of farm work. Maybe, as a nation, we really could still get out there in the mud and heat, and still do the back-breaking work that comes with raising vegetables, caring for pastured animals, or milking cows.
It was just a few weeks later when I saw this article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/... The headline said: “Hiring Locally for Farm Work Is No Cure-All.”
It told of an onion farmer who described the same experience I had heard about from Iowa’s dairy farmers. The man made a point to hire local help, wondering if he had been unfair about hiring U.S. citizens.
The article said: “Six hours was enough, between the 6 a.m. start time and noon lunch break, for the first wave of local workers to quit. Some simply never came back and gave no reason. Twenty-five of them said specifically, according to farm records, that the work was too hard.”
At least the New York Times reporter was smarter than me.
He didn’t use the L word.
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