After World War II 1939 1945 most US citizens did not want jobs in agriculture Many people took factory jobs that paid better This created more jobs in agriculture In the 1950s the role of Mexican Americans in seasonal farmwork grew Many Mexican Americans were desperate for jobs They had little choice but to accept low wages and travel for work Many of these migrants worked with their families including their children Migrant children never had a shortage of work For example children pulled up sugar beets in Michigan picked tobacco in Kentucky and harvested cherries in Colorado However life in the fields wasn’t easy Many employers treated migrant families poorly Children often slept in barns or shacks with no toilets Sometimes they did not have enough food 6
In the migrant families earnings barely covered the cost of rent that farm owners charged In 1949 the US government passed new laws to help children in the fields Children younger than 16 could no longer work on farms during school hours But some towns did not provide education to migrant children And employers often got around the law by paying parents for their children’s work It wasn’t until the 1960s that the government launched programs to help children of migrant field workers But today some children still work with their parents in the fields 7
CHAPTER 2 WORKING FOR PENNIES Seven-year-old Cesar Chavez crouched near the fresh mound of soil on his family’s land near Yuma Arizona Cesar’s brother Richard knelt silently beside him The boys earned a penny for each gopher they caught Gophers were a problem in Arizona because they chewed through the pipes that carried water to crops Cesar was born in Arizona in 1927 His parents had moved from Mexico to the United States Many migrant families such as these children in 1935 lived in tents Other families lived in cars 9
