Mexicano people harvest apples, berries and cherries while in Colorado they pick beets, potatoes and peaches. In New Mexico it is pecans and chile that run through their fingers and hands for hours on end. They fill enormous bins with green and red chile and pack them onto trucks that traverse our country, now helplessly hooked on salsa and enchiladas. In Hawaii it is pineapples that they harvest and process, while in Alaska, it is a good part of the fishing industry that depends upon their infinite patience, hard work and consummate manual dexterity and mental acumen.
Being the non-pretentious, saltof-the-earth people that they are, they generally do not shirk from the difficult work of cleanup, maintenance or construction if it can earn them a living, like providing Americans with clean yards, tidy hotel rooms, care for the sick and elderly, and putting roofs over their heads. Going back to the issue of food, however, it should be noted that Mexicanos stock nearly every restaurant position in the country as prep cooks, sous chefs, waiters and dishwashers. This is sometimes true even at Chinese restaurants where this cooperative labor force, anxious to work, has learned to prepare bonafide Chinese food that meets the exacting standards of their Cantonese owners. Mexicanos’ own national cuisine, oftentimes requiring slow and laborious processes, such as is the case when making mole or pipian, a favored pre-Colombian dish, has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Treasure.
The once almost universal hegemony of the American hamburger, hot dog, hoagie and pizza not withstanding, Mexican food has managed to peacefully conquer, hands down, every last corner of our nation by way of belly and palette. But the Mexicano people bring so much more to this nation including a fondness for children, elders, flowers, handicrafts, mariachi, dance and fiesta as well as a penchant for face-to-face conversation in a society in which people have generally stopped talking to each other and have grown increasingly fearful of one another.
When I lived in Mexicali, Baja California just across the border from Calexico in the Central Valley of California, farm workers living on the Mexican side were“ up and at‘ em” making their way to California’ s lettuce and tomato fields by five in the morning thus avoiding the blistering heat of summer. In New Mexico where I now live, the same holds true. Mexicanos are early risers and hard workers because they know full well that this is a winning combination for anyone intent on providing for their family’ s well being in an honorable way. It should also be said that the Mexicano people possess a fierce loyalty to family and that they generally find it not a problem to incorporate grandparents and possibly a cherished aunt or uncle into the nucleus of their families. To be sure, they do this for reasons of survival but also because of their natural sense of compassion coupled with the joys of conviviality with others. They are generous to a fault.
I have observed that once in the fields, their( our, for I once did the same work) concentration is total and unwavering as if they had entered into a protracted state of working meditation. Good humored and prone to conversation, Mexicanos tend to forgo the pleasure of talk until the work is done. I can still remember that as a child, who was expected to perform various kinds of meaningful work on our family farm, my father insisting on my cutting out any form of distraction and focusing entirely on the task at hand. It was a good lesson to have learned especially in this age of video games, cellphones and myriad other forms of distraction.
I have also observed that the secret behind the high quality produce with which Mexicanos manage to fill the farmers’ markets of my state, is their concerted attention to each and every plant as if they were deeply alive beings— which of course they are but which industrial farming negates— so that the thriving plants, convinced that they are highly regarded, do not hesitate to produce fruits of exceptional beauty, health, and nutritional value. Whereas, dominant society is always looking to create a new gadget to perform some kind of magic in the world that ends up polluting the environment with needless piles of things, Mexicanos by and large, know that the magic resides in the power of their hands and with them, can do almost anything.
This attitude of real care and concern for living beings arises from a unique historical process common to this people. They tend to possess a much more visceral tie to the soil than the average American for two reasons. The first is that up until the 1960s Mexico was predominantly a na-
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