Migrant Workers Quotes

“En route to California I had a few drinks with an American executive for Falstaff Brewing Company who said he'd been a hobo from '37 to '39. He talked about a friend of his who had lost his legs beneath a freight train and died. He told me he knew something about farm labor contractors. "Killers," he called them. And said it again, "Killers.”
― Tracy Kidder, The Road to Yuba City: A Journey into the Juan Corona Murders

“The prayer sank deep in her luggage, and
for years she had longed for a robin’s song
unpacked – none the time to utter.
Madam, yani, her soul got stuck between
your teeth; piece by piece a treat or a banquet;
wrapped in a raw whole foods diet.”
― Lila Marquez, Line Breaker: A Collection of Poems

“We were migrants and Mexicans and all that
we carried in our pockets were dreams.”
― Gil Arzola, The Death of a Migrant Worker

“Please tell Ma & Pa this knowledge I still held
about their sojourn years passed, blueprinting
edges of the Arab soil with suitcases and work
permits for your first lessons in Globalisation.”
― Lila Marquez, Line Breaker: A Collection of Poems

“notice: how they bend in the fires no one sees
notice: their ecstatic colors & their knotted shirts
notice: where they cash
their tiny & wrinkled checks & pay stubs:
stand in that small-town desert sundries store
then walk out they do & stall for a moment they do
underneath this colossal tree with its condor-wings
shedding solace for a second or two notice:
how they touch the earth — for you”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal