Champagne Problems

I intended to write about Bekah today. She amazes me most days. She is a kind, caring, compassionate little girl. She blew me away yesterday when she started using the French terms (chassé, releveé, piqué) for what she's doing in ballet class.

I shouldn't have been surprised. The girl's mind is like a bear trap. She was never easy to distract as a toddler; once she knew what she wanted, you could not trick her into wanting something else. We call her our family's recorder of deeds. She remembered for Jeremy (months after the fact) that he didn't have a Pillow Pet anymore because he had destroyed it.

She remembers that a boy in her Sunday School class pinched her face with a pair of toy pliers. This happened when she was about 2. She is now 3 1/2 and will still remind us about it.

She is also smart as a whip and stubborn as a mule. Brian and I often joke that if she ever comes home from a party drunk, she will not be able to tell us someone *made* her drink. It simply doesn't happen. If she has made up her mind about something, she will beg, borrow and steal to get it (all with a smile on her sweet little face).

She was so proud of herself yesterday. It was her turn to bring home a reading friend from preschool. She wanted to carry it out to the car, even though the container was about as big as she. As soon as she showed her friend to Jeremy, he told her that she needed to share. She has been very attentive to Honey's needs since yesterday. It's fun to watch her care so deeply for a stuffed animal.

After Brian headed upstairs with the kids, I headed to my parent's house with some dirty dishes. We have a clog in our kitchen sink. I called the plumber today but discovered that he is no longer in business. I am searching for a new plumber, but meanwhile the dishes are piling up! I loaded my dishes in their dishwasher and then plopped down on the couch to enjoy some time with my parents. They were finishing up another documentary and we were talking about the strike in Chicago being over.

My dad's next documentary choice was The Harvest/La Cosecha. It's a first-hand account of Zulema, Perla and Victor, American children who pick crops as migrant workers. As the filmmakers point out in the beginning of the movie, for migrant workers there is no minimum wage, no laws against child labor, no 8-hour workdays and no protection.

The more I watched, the more I wanted to punch someone. These kids, who are US citizens (the one girl talks about hearing people tell her to go back to Mexico-she says, why would I do that?), miss school regularly to work in the fields in a variety of states. The small amount of schooling they receive is fragmented at best. Perla, who is asked to return to a country that's not hers, says that sometimes, her records from a previous school don't make it to her new school. That means she starts again at zero. She has already been held back one year.

These families are living in poverty. There is running water in their homes, plumbing, but not much else. They have no access to health insurance. They have no access to dental insurance. If they don't work, there is no money coming into the home. They don't have sick days. Perla travelled with her family to Mississippi. While there, her mother was hospitalized. She had been having stomach cramps for some time (but didn't say anything because she didn't want to be a burden). Perla cries when she talks about the incident. She and her dad, when they realized her mom was recovering, tried to find work. There was none to be had.

The filmmakers follow Victor, a 16-year-old boy, through a day of work. He picks tomatoes. He is paid $1 for one bucket of tomatoes (that weighs 25 pounds). In the course of the day, he schleps 1,500 pounds of tomatoes. That nets him $60. Zulema picks strawberries with her family in Michigan (they arrive at a run-down shack that they live in while working there--it reminded me of the slave cabins I saw on a plantation in South Carolina). She works under someone else's name just so she can collect a paycheck. As she points out, though, she is too young to cash her own check.

I love my kids fiercely. My husband and I make sacrifices every day for them. I don't consider that a burden, but a privilege. I am willing to make sacrifices for them so that they have a better future. I lament that I can't pay $300 to sign Jeremy up for soccer, but watching this documentary I realize how fortunate I really am to be able to make those sacrifices. The parents of these children, they don't want this life for their children. I wouldn't, either. They don't have the luxury of making sacrifices. They work for cash, they don't have any savings, they are really living hand-to-mouth. There is no safety net for these parents; they will not be able to collect Social Security or Medicare. It becomes clear that although they don't want their children to become life-long migrant workers, they are enmeshed in a system that doesn't allow them to break free.

I can't decide what makes me angrier; that our country has such a loathing for those with brown skin or that it is 2012 and our economy is being propped up by child labor. My blood boils when I hear the deep-seated prejudices still alive and well in our country.

Each generation has a scapegoat, to be sure. The brown-skinned folk is our generation's. I can assure you, the children and families depicted in this movie are neither stealing American jobs or freeloaders. There is not more than a handful of Caucasian people working in the fields. It is back-breaking work they're performing. They are not being well-compensated but they keep working because otherwise they will not eat.

Unfortunately, the kids have dreams they know will probably not be realized. They aren't dreaming about iPods or XBoxes; they dream about graduating from high school, getting good jobs. Their shoulders are sloped with the burden of knowing that those dreams will probably not be realized. I think about Bekah, who already knows some French; graduating from high school is not a pipe dream for her.

It becomes a generational career, a vicious cycle. They can't be at school because they need to work to help support the family. If they aren't at school, they can't get the education to rise above working in the fields. If they can't get an education...well, you see where I'm going.

Condoleeza Rice spoke at the RNC. My Facebook feed was crowded with praise for Secretary Rice. They praised her for "rising above growing up in the Jim Crow South." I responded, saying I don't begrudge her success but I wonder about the thousands of other Black women who haven't fared so well. Their response? "Well, Secretary Rice had drive and worked hard, that's what those other women are lacking."

The implication is that Zulema, Perla and Victor are stuck in the morass of poverty because they are lazy and lack drive. Yeah. Cause hauling 1500 pounds of tomatoes for $60 a day is certainly slacking off. Being torn between attending school and helping to feed your family shows a lack of drive. I know that Bekah would choose to work because she would want to do everything she could to help. I am grateful that she doesn't need to make that choice. I am sad that these teenagers are having such adult decisions thrust upon them.

I tell ya what, I was never so grateful to be able to take a box of dishes to my parent's house and run them through the dishwasher. We may be floundering financially, but I know that Bekah will not have to work in these fields. I am sick that we still rely on child labor to get work done in our country. I am grateful for the opportunities I've had that allow us to live in a house in the suburbs, where crime is low, schools are well-funded and hope runs high for children. I am sickened when I think of the people who are less fortunate; who live in poor areas with high crime rates, schools that are underfunded and crumbling and who have to work to help make sure there is food on the family table. That makes me ashamed to be an American. It makes my insides squirm that, as a country, we are allowing this to happen.

That's why, if I am asked to pay more taxes so that Perla, Zulema and Victor have a chance at a better future, I will do it. I am grateful for the Obamacare that so many lament, because it means that these kids who make it possible for me to have veggies on my plate will have better access to healthcare. I believe you can tell a lot about someone by how they treat the least among them. I appreciate the freedoms of living in the United States, but what is the point of living in a free country if the price of that freedom costs so much?