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Viewfinder: Grateful in a field of green
Video
Tribune photographer Michael J. Gallegos spends an October morning with workers in green chile fields near Socorro, N.M. Watch »
Photo by Michael J. Gallegost
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As the green chile season winds down, the working conditions are a little better for farm worker Jesus Martinez, 32, of Lemitar. The October mornings are too cold to start before 7:30 a.m and the days are a little shorter. In summer, work starts at 5:30 a.m and lasts till sundown. "We work for four hours and get a break," Martinez said.
Video
It's fall in New Mexico, and the smell of green chile is in the air. Watch as people crowd around the roasters. Watch »
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As the green chile season winds down, the working conditions are a little better for farm worker Jesus Martinez, 32, of Lemitar.
The October mornings are too cold to start before 7:30 a.m and the days are a little shorter.
In summer, work starts at 5:30 a.m and lasts till sundown.
"We work for four hours and get a break," Martinez said.
"In August, it was 110 (degrees) for five days straight," he said. "We stopped at 1 Õcause it was too hot to work."
On those days, workers came back at 5 p.m. to pick until sundown.
I say a prayer to myself before each meal, something I started doing about 15 years ago after doing a story on chile farming in Hatch.
Seeing the farm workers sweating in the fields all day as they moved from bush to bush, I came away with a new appreciation for the food we eat. Our food doesn't come from the grocery store, it comes from the heart and soul of hardworking people.
They work their butts off making an honest living, sweating to make life work for themselves and their families.
"Some people think we can sit on the ground and pick," said Martinez, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, and father of five who has worked on this farm for 11 years. "You have to stand and keep moving or you'll hurt your back more getting up all the time."
And so I thank God for the food at my table, and I thank the people in the fields who work so diligently at a job most of us don't want.
