IINNI: MIGRANT LABORERS

MIGRANT LABORERS

THEY WORK FARMS DAWN TO DUSK

THEN PLAY JUKE BOX AT CAMP

From Florida they come, after the orange harvest, to harvest the tomatoes, snap

beans, and cucumber crops on the Eastern Shore of the Delmarva Peninsula.

3000 or so, migrants, come in there own transportation, usually old rusty pick ups

and worn out school buses, looking almost like they would never make the trip.

One of the first items to be unloaded and plugged in, a jukebox. Only after that is

the rest of the camp set up.

At day break they head for the field to pick the crop ready for harvest, like, tomatoes,

cucumbers, beans, whatever there lies. Early to go and late to leave, so that they can earn

as much as possible each day. They are paid 'piece work' by the basket, pound or ton.

The older women and girls with young just born babies stay at camp to wash clothes

and cook meals. The farmers like to have the same migrants families return year after year.

Most workers bring a lnch prepared at camp but some youngens go to the closest

store and fill up on soft drinks and 'moon' pies, cheese or peanut butter crackers and sweet

cookies.

One we well know, Booker T. Rouse, has been coming to the Shore many years,

and the last 14 he does not live at camp but in a small house near Hurlock. He has also earned

and saved enough to have a retirement home in Florida.

Another, 13 year old Tommy Maner, and his 3 year old sister come with their parents.

Tommy wants to get and education and become an art teacher. So the stories spin, some are

dreams, others, successful events.

Abstract: Baltimore Evening Sun Wednesday August 14, 1968, by: Harrison H.

IINNI