Maria Martha Acevedo Cardenas from Sunnyside, WA
During Thanksgiving dinner, Martha would like everyone to think about where the pumpkin pie they’re dolloping with whip cream came from. This year, she worked for two weeks at a ranch where she packaged pumpkins. Martha and her coworkers looked for the best pumpkins to be packed and sent to super markets. Martha also works at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery. Where she too makes sure the ripest of grapes are picked to make the best wine. In 1985, Martha came to the U.S. from Mexico in search of a better life for herself and her small son. As she created a life in the U.S., she had 11 more children. She has worked in several different crops like pumpkin, apples, tomatoes, cherries, asparagus, green beans, onions, grapes and pears. On an average workday, Martha wakes up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. to be ready for work by 6 a.m. or 7 a.m.
Eustalia (Toy) A. Acevedo from Seattle, WA
Although Eustalia, 25, currently works at Zoopa Organic Restaurant, she’s no stranger to farm work. Since she was 10 or 11 years, she has been helping her 11 brothers and sisters and mother Maria Martha work in the fields. She would be up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. to go to work before school. She worked in crops like green beans, asparagus, apples, cherries, blueberries and onions. Last year she worked in the apples. She worked 8 or 9 hours a day, climbing up and down a ladder. She did this all while wearing a bag to fill with picked apples to later be dumped into bins. Each filled bag weighed a least 40 pounds and Eustalia was able to filled her bag at least seven times a day. "When the average American eats that apple pie or a dish with apples on Thanksgiving, they need to think about what farm workers are going through on a daily bases at work. They need to realize without farm workers picking their fruits or vegetables there wouldn’t be a Thanksgiving meal."
Maria G. Lozano Ramirez from Benton City, WA
Maria has worked at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery for the last six years. She works in colder temperatures to prune the grapevines, to clean the vines of bad blossoms, tying of the vines and grape picking. "Wine is important to Thanksgiving dinner, but people drink it without thinking about how much work it takes to make that one bottle of wine. How many undocumented farm workers it took to make it taste so good? We work long hours, but without much acknowledgement." Maria came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1979 to help her family financially. She has worked in agriculture for 16 years while being a wife to her husband Leoadoro and her five children.
Areli Arteaga, 21, from Parma, ID
Areli is a third year student at the University of Idaho, as double major in political science and business with a Spanish minor. She’s a daughter of undocumented parents and her mother, Maria is a farm worker. During her summer vacations, she has worked in the corn, onions, potatoes and alfalfa fields. This summer for about six weeks, she weeded corn and ‘plugged corn castles,’ to make sure each ear of corn grew healthy and properly. Areli began her workday at 7 a.m., dressed in a rain suit and rain boots. She worked cautiously in very wet and muddy conditions. Not to mention the scorching temperatures trapped within the rows upon rows of corn. Often times, Areli would work more than 8 hours a day and returned home at 8 p.m. "I want people, who don’t believe we need immigration reform, to think about something before they bite into their corn on the cob…Some people unlike them, can’t be sitting at the table enjoying a Thanksgiving meal with their family because they can’t travel out of the country to see them or because their family has been deported."
Maria Arteaga from Parma, ID
Maria remembers reading a book while learning to speak English that potatoes were a staple in a Thanksgiving meal. Maria, a farm worker, works in the potatoes most of the year said she works in the planting and harvesting of potatoes. The planting process is a long one because she has to make sure only the best ‘eyes of potatoes’ are used. She has to cut the potatoes carefully yet swiftly with a knife without cutting herself. Maria has been in the U.S. for 23 years. She’s an undocumented farm worker and has had trouble applying for her papers because of current immigration laws. She and her husband have been deported after being stopped for ‘looking suspicious’ during a road trip to L.A. At the time her small children, including her daughter Areli, then 5, had stayed home with a relative while they took the road trip. "Once I was deported, all I could think about was my children. I had to get back to them. I did what any mother would have done. I made the sacrifice and returned to the U.S. illegally."
Inocencio Bernal Pedroza from Madera, CA
Farm worker, Inocencio has worked picking celery, which is used in stuffing at Thanksgiving. Inocencio boasts that the celery, grapes and peaches he has picked are used to make the most delicious of dishes at Thanksgiving. For years Inocenio has always been a firm supporter of the UFW and its late leader Cesar E. Chavez. He knows more work needs to be done to improve the working conditions for farm workers. Since his arrival in the U.S. in 1991, he has worked in the fields. He has picked peaches, grapes, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, chili peppers, grapes, celery, and cauliflower.
Alberto Bermejo, 44, from Sanger, CA
This year alone Alberto Bermejo harvested peaches for six months. He said peaches are most often used to make peach pie or cobbler on Thanksgiving. This gives him a great sense of pride that his hard work will feed Americans this Thanksgiving. Yet, he would like a little gratitude for the farm workers, who made this meal possible. According to him, one way of showing them is by fixing our broken immigration system. On an average workday, Alberto climbs up and down a ladder to pick peaches for at least 8 hours. He picks peaches from at least 80 trees a day. While many of us are still sleeping, Alberto begins his workday at 5:30 a.m. Alberto came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1986. Other crops he has worked in are nectarines, olives and oranges.