A Harvest of Confrontation and Suffering

My back is killing me and my arms ache as once more I bend over the clump of weeds around the calendulas. With the stubby hoe bought at a garage sale, I yank at the long tendrils about to overtake the hill that is my backyard. As I pause to straighten my sore back, I think of my uncles (now dead) who in the 1940s left Mexico to work as braceros and were forced by growers to use el cortito--as they called the short hoe--and how they too must have hurt.

The history of the short hoe is rife with confrontations, between California growers and Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, who fought to have use of this tool outlawed. In 1975 after medical doctors testified of physical effects--arthritic backs--the use of this hoe was banned. But loopholes in the law made it difficult to enforce; growers could still require hand-weeding--and no one could stop them. Worse yet was the question of enforcement. Who would monitor growers?

In 1995, after reported violations of the ban by growers (including some in Ventura County), state Sen. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte) authored Senate Bill 587, which would have prohibited hand-weeding in California fields. The measure did not pass. Growers argued that hand-weeding was necessary for certain crops, such as strawberries. In 1998, when reintroduced by Solis, the bill was once more defeated.

Recently the mural “The History of La Colonia” was installed in that predominantly Mexican American community in Oxnard. It depicts a fieldworker with el cortito. Reading about the mural brought back memories of my college days at Cal State Northridge.

Three days each week I dropped my three kids at school, then dashed to class, anxious to learn more of Mexican American history. My history. To fulfill a class requirement (10-page paper with footnotes), I researched el cortito.

I was ambivalent about the topic. What was so important about un azadon (a hoe)! I went at the job with missionary zeal. As I learned more of el cortito, I came to respect if not the hoe, what it symbolized: the exploitation of farm workers.

From CSUN Professor Rodolfo Acuna I learned that in the ‘60s, U.S. Sen. George Murphy (R-Calif.)--friend to rich growers--argued that Mexican workers should not complain about using the short hoe because they were built closer to the ground! In Delano, where my mother-in-law, a farm worker, lived, it was not uncommon to see old men with bent backs shuffle down Main Street while in the verdant fields that dot Highway 99, a new generation of trabajadores--workers--repeated their experience.

In California, where agribusiness means big bucks, powerful growers still call the shots, as Chavez and Latino legislators discovered. There is no law against stoop labor; rich growers cloud the issue by forcing workers to now weed by hand. And no one can stop them.

It’s now 1999 and the short hoe / stoop labor debate still rages. And although Solis continues the fight, the issue appears moot. Just recently, at a CSUN Latina conference where the personable senator was keynote speaker, I met her and inquired about her legislation. Solis sadly admitted the bill has yet to pass. Deja vu?

Stoop labor is common in Africa, China, Mexico and Russia. In Peru women and children use crude tools (similar to the short hoe) to harvest potatoes, a staple of their diet. In California--the land of plenty--farm workers are still today forced to hand weed specific crops. If California is indeed a progressive state, then should not stoop labor be abolished?