In an article posted by KCET, Ruben Solorzano comes from Jalisco, Mexico. He grew up in a family of farmers and in November of 1988 at just eighteen years-old, Solorzano followed his brother to California to work on the grape farms. Solorzano discusses some of the challenges of moving to California and working on the farms, including houses crowded with many migrant farmers, upwards of nine hour work days, low wages, constantly moving around to find work, and being an illegal immigrant after three years of legal work. His challenges are similar to those discussed by McMillan in The American Way of Eating. McMillan moved to multiple locations in search of work with grapes, selling food, and peaches. Solorzano says that his house had more than ten men living together at one time. Similarly, the dirty, cockroach infested house in which McMillan stayed, there were fourteen people (42). Nine hour workdays for these immigrants pull in the smallest of wages. In her story, McMillan states that she made $26 in nine hours of working, with only a half hour break for lunch (27). Solorzano did not state how much money he actually made, but he implies that wages were low. He also stated that, while many farm workers traveled to other states to find work, he remained in the Central Coast of California because he enjoyed working as a family alongside the other farmers with whom he formed friendships. Although McMillan said she had no rights and no days off during her time as a farmer, Solorzano stated that they had weekends off, and after an intense workweek, the workers would play sports together (27). In 1994, Solorzano became a legal worker in the United States. He says that there are more crops to harvest at the vineyard today, allowing for migrant workers to have more work and higher wages. Solorzano has been working legally at the same grape vineyard ever since, and has also become the most valuable worker. His story is slightly different from many migrant farmers in the United States. Because of his asset to the vineyard, its founder, Tom Stolpman, helped Solorzano attain his United States citizenship. This farmer-owner relationship is different from the way McMillan discusses it; a rarity. Stolpman named Solorzano a partner in his vineyard, studying wine and receiving the nickname "The Grape Whisperer". He loves to learn about grapes and wine, and has even started a program for migrant farmers from Mexico who come to the United States. The program, called La Cuadrilla, or "the crew," employs migrant farmers, but does not teach them the skill set of grape picking the first year. Instead, they allow the farmers to work and pick the grapes how they see fit, while making wine with the grapes they pick. After the first year, the farmers are allowed to try the wine they have essentially made. The farmers thought their wine tasted bitter in comparison to the vineyard's wine. In the following years, the farmers were taught the correct way to pick the grapes and had bottles of wine made with the new skills they possessed. These wines became sellable, and Solorzano gives the profit from the 2,000 plus bottles made from the grapes back to the farmers for an added source of income. Solorzano says he wants to help migrant families send their kids to college and give them better lives here in America. This is a wonderful example of an American company doing what is right. Although I am unsure what Rudy Solorzano or any of the migrant workers at Stolpman's Vineyard are making per hour, McMillan touches on the fact that "increasing farm wages by only 40 percent would only impact an American family's produce bill by sixteen dollars per year" (29). With such a small increase per year, it makes you wonder why we are not increasing the wages of these men and women who work so diligently on the farms. McMillan asked a farm worker if there was any difference between working on a regular farm versus an organic farm (33). The farmer could not understand why an organic farm would be better than a regular farm (33-34). After our class trip to the MSU Student Organic Farm and reading these two pieces, I wonder how the conditions and aesthetics of a farm, employed only by migrant workers, differ from a farm such as the Student Organic Farm.
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