We make 40 cents a bucket and each person picks about 240 buckets a day

September 5, 2016

“We are all from Mexico, three hours from the border. We pick in Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana. We pick potatoes, oranges and blueberries. We finish in December and everyone goes back to Mexico. There are 43 of us and we work six days a week, eight or nine hours a day. We pick by hand, put the potatoes in a bucket and load them up in the truck. We have picked over 3,000 potatoes from this field. There are about 70 acres. We make 40 cents a bucket and each person picks about 240 buckets a day. We drink a lot of water. Our backs hurt and we are tired at the end of the day. I have done this for three years. Sometimes it is worth it, sometimes it isn’t.”

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