Fire, Pandemic and the Fields
Vegetable harvest fire haze -- Photo courtesy of Marcos Cabrera
For an essential farmworker and high school senior, a crisis-marred 2020 raises the stakes in the Salinas Valley, the nation’s vital “salad bowl”
By Marcos Cabrera
Throughout the vast Salinas Valley, in California’s Monterey County, agriculture has always dominated the job market.
It is common for young people in the valley to land a first summer job on a vegetable farm or in a grape vineyard.
So when Christopher Camarena found it necessary to help his family, he went to work alongside his father in a farm workshop on the edge of Salinas, near the tiny town of Chualar.
As a first job, it seemed quite normal for a Latino teenager to harvest crops or work in a farm shed in what is easily the nation’s most productive region for fresh vegetables. Plenty of his friends at Soledad High School do the same: Wake up each summer morning, prepare a spartan lunch and then trek out to arrive on the work site just ahead of sunrise.
“I did anything, from setting up the beds where they would grow the produce,” explained the 17-year-old Camarena. “For example, they would grow their berries and then cut it and send it to (a larger ag company). Or we’d set up seeds. We’d lay it out on the railings outside for them to grow (for) up to like a month. Once they’re ready, the next step is to load them up into these crates that are sent out to the field so the field-workers can plant them.”
But in 2020, Camarena’s normal “summer job” had him facing a list of new challenges that made working on a farm even more difficult.
It wasn’t just the fires still raging throughout California and the West Coast.
“Yeah, there was a lot more to worry about this year,” Camarena said.
His matter-of-fact observation belies the stress felt by field-workers up and down the West Coast. In this most unusual year, summer has become fall and the harvest season is intensifying amid a stubborn pandemic, and fire and smoke seemingly everywhere.
The agriculture industry in the Salinas Valley was unprepared for the impact of COVID-19. In Monterey County, the number of infections continues to rise, with high concentrations of positive results among farmworkers and residents of south Monterey County, where the Latino population is dominant.
When annual sales are tabulated, agriculture and its 57,503 employees account for revenue of $4.41 billion, according to the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner.
Out of 8,698 positive cases reported in Monterey County on Sept. 8, at least 1,960 were agriculture industry workers. The total was 2,404 in the southern part of the Salinas Valley -- what’s called John Steinbeck Country, from the Santa Lucia Mountains above the Pacific Coast and east to the Gabilan Mountains.
Christopher Camarena at work
Fear and loathing online
Camarena’s summer of COVID-19 began in June with the final bell of his junior year, a virtual ringing this year since his school was already in the throes of distance learning. After adjusting to Zoom classrooms and sharing Wi-Fi bandwidth with three siblings in their home just off of Soledad’s’ Main Street, Camarena entered the 2020 summer workforce with trepidation.
“There was some fear. I was scared at first because I didn’t want to get sick. COVID is not a joke. It’s not something to play with and I didn’t want to get my family sick,” he said.
On the job, the foreman hosted constant meetings reminding workers of the importance of social distancing, of wearing a mask, of washing hands before and after restroom breaks. To Camarena’s relief, crews complied, with the exception being their lunch break when the masks would come off for a quick bite.
“After I was working, I saw it was the same people and everybody was worried about their family, so everybody was taking all of these precautions so nobody would get sick.”
It wasn’t without its challenges. Loading and unloading crops and plants in five-person teams for delivery to nearby nurseries meant close contact. It was unavoidable.
“But everyone had respect for each other and respected that everyone wanted to stay safe and healthy,” he said, “so everyone kept their mask on and did their best to limit the contact.”
The threat of COVID-19 further disrupted Camarena’s world as his summer job wound down. Because Soledad High School committed to online classes for the fall, his plans to be more involved for senior year evaporated. Instead of campaigning for homecoming king or signing up for more clubs as he had promised himself, he was preparing for the new challenge of converting his small bedroom into his classroom.
“When the school year started, it was something brand new,” he said. “I’m still getting used to it right now. Just having to wake up and you just have to set yourself in the environment where you can do your schoolwork. If you’re just laying in bed, you’re not going to want to do anything. So to have the mentality to get up and get yourself ready for your school is definitely a bit of a struggle. But once you do it, you’ll feel way better for school and more prepared.”
Harvest haze -- Photo courtesy of Marcos Cabrera
Finding Wi-Fi
Camarena said he is fortunate that his home has high-speed internet access, even if there’s the occasional lag due to numerous devices connected at once.
“I’m in my room doing my Zoom classes and someone will be in the kitchen doing their Zoom classes and someone in the other room, so we just try not to interrupt each other and respect each other during class time to make it as less stressful as possible.”
Such a seemingly basic challenge can’t be overlooked in the Salinas Valley.
A photo of two Salinas students sitting in a Taco Bell parking lot to piggyback onto the Wi-Fi and log into their classes set off a national conversation on internet access. The viral image sparked outrage on social media. International news outlets, celebrities, activists and politicians seized on the moment to cast blame and engulf the girls’ family in unwanted controversy.
Camarena’s last day of work was Aug. 11. Five days later, on Aug. 16, a fire broke out at Pine Canyon and River Road, east of Salinas. The River Fire, as it was later named, would burn over 48,000 acres, fueled by an unprecedented combination of high temperatures and low humidity that dried out steep mountainous ground -- terrain that’s made it difficult for firefighters.
Photo courtesy of Brendon Shave/Voice of Monterey
By August 18, the air quality index in the Salinas Valley had become unhealthy because of multiple fires in the area. This strawberry harvesting crew was seen working near Salinas. Photo courtesy of Claudia Meléndez Salinas
Raining ash, not money
The fire dropped thick sheets of ash over south Monterey County for several days.
“It was just raining ash the whole day for a couple of days here,” Camarena said. “The sky was very gloomy, very dark. The oxygen was horrible. It wasn’t a safe environment to work in.” Because of the poor air quality and continuing fire threat, his father was sent home, adding to the family’s worries this summer over school, work and the pandemic.
“He was a bit stressed because it was going to show on his paycheck that he didn’t work a full shift,” Camarena said. “But if it was for his own good and everybody else’s safety, I guess he was OK with it.”
As Camarena navigates a virtual senior year, and the mountains burn around him, he maintains a positive attitude. He credits his father, who was born in Mexico’s Jalisco state and came to California as a teenager to work in the fields, for instilling a strong work ethic in him. Camarena contributes to the home budget. He often buys his younger siblings their necessities when monthly bills soak up his parents’ money. He doesn’t complain though; it is not in his nature.
Despite the stressful time, Camarena remains optimistic, a trait he said he learned quickly in two years of arduous farmwork.
“I definitely have more opportunities because I was born here and raised here,” Camarena said. “I definitely have more opportunities than those who weren’t born in this country and didn’t have their papers or anything … . That’s why I try to work harder.”
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Marcos Cabrera is a writer born and raised in Salinas, California. He has written for the San Jose Mercury News, the Village Voice, Zocalo Public Square and the Associated Press.