Word: apolinar
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...Apolinar Cabrera wants is his final paycheck. And he and some 200 of his former colleagues at the shut-down Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago are going to sit in the cold production-line floor until they get the money they've earned. "I know the economy is bad, for everyone," he said yesterday afternoon, standing in the plant's lobby, "but all I want to do is give my kids a nice Christmas. I'm going to stay until I get all the money we deserve." The father of two - ages nine and six - is expecting...
...books," adds Mark A. Apolinar '93 helpfully. "For books," repeats Pazmino. He shakes his head sadly...
...Apolinar Castillo is slight for his eleven years. But size is an advantage for Apolinar, who has been a farm laborer since he was five. He can reach down to the squat chili bushes with ease; his nimble little hands are perfect for plucking ripe chili peppers. "He can pick faster than any of us," beams his father Luis, who works alongside...
...Apolinar's stature confers another benefit: when state labor inspectors make their infrequent visits, he can crawl into a nearby irrigation ditch and hide. Last week, however, a sharp-eyed inspector caught Apolinar. If he had ordered him to leave the fields, the Castillo family would have to go without the $2.70 that his average 48 lbs. of peppers a day contributes to their earnings -and one of his five brothers and sisters might have gone hungry...
...Apolinar's plight is not uncommon among farm children in the U.S. As many as 300,000 agricultural workers under 17 spend more time in the fields than in school. In California, about 95% of these laboring children are Chicanes and Mexicans. Many receive hardly any education at all as they follow their parents from one harvest to the next. They are in the fields by sunup seven days a week, often in 100°-plus heat, frequently near dangerous farm machinery and toxic pesticides...