Word: apolinar
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...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...