“Yes. There’s one a couple of miles outside of town. It’s mostly men, but there are a few families. We save the leftover food from the week—especially fruits and vegetables because they’re too poor to afford them—and deliver it.” She shrugged. “If they have other needs, we see what we can do.”
I knew about the camp outside of town because some of the men and women my mama had worked with at Sawyer Farm so many years before had lived there, though I’d never driven by it personally. My mama had lived in one similar when she’d first settled in California—a camp that was now closed.
It had actually been a small matter of pride that my mama and I had been able to rent the outbuilding on the property next to the Sawyers’, rather than having to live in the migrant camp off the highway, even though the outbuilding had been an underequipped shack. I had hated it, but it was ours, and we didn’t have to share it with five other strangers. I tilted my head. “You do?”
“Yeah, Alejandro and Raul both drive so there’s space in Alejandro’s truck or Raul’s car if you want to join us. It’s an eye-opener. And it really does bring a sense of satisfaction to help in such a personal way.”
I wasn’t sure I needed my eyes opened to poverty greater than what I’d experienced myself, but then again, maybe I did. And I knew I could use something to bring some personal satisfaction. “Sure . . . I’d like to go.”
“Great,” she said, stepping away from the computer and heading out to the restaurant floor. “Meet us up front in half an hour.”
I did my side work as quickly as possible and cashed out for the night and then pulled on my light jacket, heading toward the front. Rosa was coming out of her office. “Oh, Lia, María said you’re coming with us.”
“Hi, Rosa. Yes, if that’s okay.”
“It’s wonderful. The more hands the better.”
I helped them load up Alejandro’s pickup truck at the back door to the kitchen with boxes of food and then climbed into Raul’s car with him and María and we were off.
We turned off the highway onto a bumpy dirt road and drove past a sign that read, “Milkweed Labor Camp.” The camp was at the dead end of the road and we parked next to a truck so old and beat up it looked as if it had been ready for the impound yard long before I was born. I knew it was at least one of the trucks the people who lived here drove to the farms, because I’d seen ones just like it over the years with men and women packed into the back wearing baseball caps draped with bandanas on their way to work where they’d spend the day picking fruits and vegetables under the unforgiving Californian sun. Men and women who worked longer and harder and with deep pride, so grateful to have the work.
My aunt had described the living conditions in many parts of Mexico—the poverty, the despair, the children and disabled begging in the streets. In so many places, she’d told me, there were no jobs, little food or medicine, and even more meager hope.
Aunt Florencia had described the homes made from used tires and cardboard, no running water, no heat. Who wouldn’t risk everything to give their children a better life than that?
I hopped out with Raul and María just as Alejandro and Rosa were pulling up next to Raul’s car. We all took a box from the back of Alejandro’s truck, and I followed them to one of the run-down buildings where we deposited the boxes of food onto tables in the middle of the room.
Alejandro talked to a woman who seemed to be running the place in some capacity, and she went with us to the truck as we carried in the last of the boxes. “She’s the camp manager,” Rosa said as she set the final box down next to the one I’d carried in. “Her name is Becca Jones. She’s a wonderful advocate for the people who live here. So many are unemployed right now because of the drought and the crops farmers weren’t able to plant last year. And even some who have work have trouble feeding their families on what they make.”
I nodded, looking over my shoulder to see a line forming at the door and watching as Becca started unpacking the boxes. She gestured to the first people at the door to come forward and they did, taking what she offered to them.
Yes, I knew about the trouble these people faced firsthand. And looking at the line, some had more than one or two mouths to feed.
There was a man near the back with his hand on the shoulder of a woman holding what looked like a newborn baby in a fabric carrier on her chest. The small lump let out a tiny squall and the woman reached down and adjusted her shirt in a way that let me know she was nursing the baby hidden by the material of the sling. She smiled softly and crooned to the baby who quieted again.
Sadness and a feeling of loss slid through me, and I looked away. I had been so overwhelmed and lonely during the time I had tried nursing Hudson those first several months. They’d faded into a fog of depression and self-condemnation and I’d never get them back. And then I’d left and missed the second half of his first year.
My throat felt tight and I busied my hands by unpacking boxes and organizing food with the others, who were putting the vegetables in one location, the fruit in another, and the dry goods in yet another. I would not sink into self-pity when so many right in front of me were in greater need.
I glanced over at Rosa, and she was looking at me thoughtfully. I blushed, feeling ashamed as if she could read my thoughts, as if she knew I was feeling sorry for myself rather than focusing my mind on the work I’d come to share in.
The line grew outside and the busyness of the job took my mind away from my own melancholy. A man holding a little girl, who appeared to be about three or four, moved up to the table and took the bag I gave him with a head nod and a shy thank you. I handed a shiny, red apple to the little girl in his arms and her eyes grew round with delight as she brought the fruit to her mouth and bit into it. I laughed. “?Dulce?” Sweet? She nodded happily and they moved along.
An hour later all the food had been doled out and the people had gone back to their homes—small wooden structures in three rows of a dozen or so. The camp almost looked like a very run-down, very small town, which effectively it was.
Outside, the few children I’d seen in line kicked a ball together. The women sat on benches nearby, including the woman with the tiny baby still strapped to her chest. I watched her, noticing how the other women fawned over the baby, leaning in to peer into the opening the carrier provided. The young mother laughed and patted the baby’s bottom.