The State - News from March 4, 1987
A 15-year-old Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, Mex., was housed in a small, windowless, dirt-floored shed in a lettuce field while working 10 hours a day, seven days a week for about 10 cents an hour from January to November last year, according to a lawsuit filed in Monterey County Superior Court by California Rural Legal Assistance attorneys. The suit charges that lettuce and broccoli grower Jose Lopez paid Manuel Cortez, now 16, a total of $350 for 10 months of field work. Lopez denies the allegations, maintaining that he allowed the youngster to stay in the shed because he had no other place to live and that he paid Cortez $350 for a month’s work.
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