Honorable Profession

Humility is a feeling that people experience when they can no longer feel pride in themselves. After
people experience a humbling moment in their lives, feelings that they took for granted such as pride and self-esteem seem to be distant and out of reach. One may find humility in many different scenarios, ranging from finding out that one is not as popular as one thought he or she was, or having one’s credit card rejected while trying to purchase many items in front of a big crowd. A humbling moment that lies fresh in my mind occurred when I was fourteen, during the summer of my sophomore year. Having decided that an extra income was needed to sustain the household, my parents decided that I needed a job. Being only fourteen, I found it impossible to find a job. However, my parents had already taken the liberty to find one for me. Having a Hispanic background and living in the Central Valley of California, I did what most Hispanic people in the valley do, I worked in the fields.

Having seen movies such as A Walk in the Clouds and the idealized image of the Sun Maid Raisin box, my very first assumption about field work was that it was an easy and effortless profession. The day before I started working in the fields my mother told me to get a good night’s sleep because it was going to be hard day of work. I thought to myself and said, “How hard can it be? If my mom and dad can do it, so can I.” I disregarded my mother’s advice and stayed up to watch television.

I can still remember the morning of my first day of field labor. Waking up at four in the morning was not an easy task. I felt the pain that people get when they get up at the crack of dawn – my eyes felt like if they were full of sand and an overwhelming feeling of disorientation overtook me. We were on the road to work at four- thirty in the morning. I tried dozing in the car, but the busy sound of the freeway and the hot café con leche I drank kept me up all the way there. When we arrived, I can remember the fresh smell of the morning all around me. The mixture of fresh soil, grape vine leaves, and fresh air made a rather pleasant aroma. The songs of various birds made the morning something to remember. The field was lined up with cars, and there were people all around talking about what anyone generally talks about after a weekend – what they did, where they went and how the kids had done in school.

Then it came time to work, the crew leader (my father) called us all into a big circle. He told us how the rancher wanted the work to be done. There was a major emphasis on speed – the rancher wanted to maximize his profits by having us work at a fast steady pace, as if we were in a giant factory. The work seemed simple. Now I thought I knew why they called it “unskilled” labor. All we had to do was tie a small grape vine, about one foot in height, to a thin bamboo stick without breaking it – all this as quickly as possible. I thought the task at hand would be easy. As I set to work, I can still remember the sunrise on the eastern mountains of the central valley, the orange hue mixed with the clear blue sky, unforgettable.

As I began to work through the day, I felt the heat on my back get hotter and hotter. The day no longer had the nice aroma, and as the heat began to rise from the dirt beneath me, the birds were no longer singing. I began to get more and more tired as the day progressed – my lower back ached from bending over, and the pain grew as the day dragged on. Having only one fifteen minute break throughout the day did not make it any easier. I can remember how the end of the day seemed an eternity away, as if time had stood still. I continued to work, and then I turned to my right where my mother was working. She did not seem to be bothered by the heat as much as I was. I felt a sense of pride in the job my parents did when I looked into my mother’s eyes. At that moment I realized how hard my parents have had to work in order to give me and my siblings what we have. I remembered the story of how my father migrated to the United States from Mexico and how at the age of fourteen with no money in his pockets and no relatives, he found a way to survive. Suddenly, my pain was insignificant.

Towards the end of the day, the heat reached its peak and water could no longer quench the thirst that overwhelmed me. My skin felt like it was burning, and my feet smoldered inside of the large work shoes. I found myself constantly asking my mother for the time – the last hour was the worst. Finally the day was over. The feeling of accomplishment overcame me, and we were on the way home.

Trying to escape the hot interior of the car, I rolled down the window expecting a breeze of fresh air, only to receive hot dry air in my face, all humidity sucked out of it. My father decided to stop for a soda on the way home. I was glad to have finished a hard day of work. I was overrun with satisfaction after finishing the strenuous job that my parents do every day. Then, something unexpected, as I walked into the store I felt the gaze of people’s eyes, a feeling of inferiority began to overwhelm me. As I approached the cash register, I smiled and said “Hello ma’am” to the cashier. I can still remember the look in her eyes, the blank stare that made me feel inferior. I could sense the tension. In her eyes, I was just another Mexican high school dropout, or worse, an illegal immigrant who was now living on the hard earned tax dollars of people like her. I wanted to tell the clerk that I was in honors and college preparatory classes, but all she saw was another worthless unskilled laborer who would contribute to the high cost of welfare.

I left that store stripped of my pride, but I still knew that the job I did was honorable and important. The rest of the summer went much like the first day. The days continued to be long and arduous – the sun continued to burn the back of my neck as if branding a reminder of my summer profession. The experiences that I had that summer were very humbling. I learned at the young age of fourteen that material possessions had a very high price. I understood the value of hard work and the pride in one’s job. I learned to value the hard work my parents toil in every day. Most importantly, through their work, I realized how much they loved me.