Cherry Tomatoes
Abuelita’s advice
Teresita lay in her bed and listened to the sounds coming from the cocina. She heard abuelita moving around and soon started to smell the aroma of tortillas cooking on the comal. She got up in a hurry and went into the kitchen.
“Como amenesiste mija” abuelita said. “Bien wuelita”. Abuelita told Teresita to go wash up and get ready because today was the day when we would finally go to Don Roberto’s land and help pick cherry tomatoes.
Teresita and her younger brother Alejos were finally going to go on an adventure with abuelita. She knew that her primos always went to the “pisca”. They were migrant workers and lived in Poteet. Teresita and Alejos lived in San Antonio and were spending the summer with abuelita. Teresita felt that she and Alejos should be allowed to go also. She went and woke up Alejos and told him it’s time to get up. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes and said, “but it’s still dark outside, how are we going to see the tomatoes when its dark outside?” Teresita told him to hurry and get dressed and not ask so many questions.
Teresita put on her tennis shoes and a long sleeve shirt like abuelita told her to do. It was going to be a hot day but abuelita insisted that long sleeves and long pants would have to be worn for the work in the fields. Alejos followed her into the cocina. They went to the table and watched as abuelita continued to roll out the tortillas. She poured them a glass of milk and handed them a warm tortilla filled with butter.
Abuelita then peeled potatoes and started to fry them. She added eggs to the potatoes and made tacos. She wrapped each taco in foil and put all of them in a brown paper bag.
Abuelita told Teresita and Alejos to go sit on the front porch and wait because the truck would soon arrive that was going to take them to Don Roberto’s land.
Within minutes an old pickup truck drove up to the front of the casita and abuelita hurried out to meet the truck. “Buenos Dias Tomas, gracias por venir por nosotros”. Teresita and Alejos hurried out to the truck and climbed into the bed and Abuelita sat in the front seat.
The adventure was beginning! Teresita and Alejos had been asking abuelita over and over to be allowed to go work in the fields like their primos; Carlos and Ramon. They had begged abuelita to be allowed to go and help pick cherry tomatoes and the day had finally come. Abuelita told her grandchildren that the pisca was hard work and that once they arrived at Don Roberto’s land they would not be able to come back until the days picking was done. Teresita and Alejos nodded their heads and solemnly promised that they would not complain. Carlos and Ramon were the same age as Teresita and Alejos and if they could do it so could they!
Teresita and Alejos had never ridden in the bed of a pickup truck before and both looked at each other with happy smiles on their faces. The adventure had started.
The truck slowly moved thru the quiet streets of Poteet. The driver stopped at two other houses and picked up more passengers. Soon the bed of the pickup truck was filled with workers headed to the cherry tomato fields of Don Roberto. Teresita and Alejos grinned at each other and felt grown up and important. The truck headed toward Pleasanton and the land that belonged to Don Roberto.
The truck soon arrived at the land and everyone got out of the pickup truck. Abuelita took her grandchildrens hands and told them to listen carefully to Fermin, who was the foreman for Don Roberto. Fermin pointed to a section that contained rows and rows of cherry tomatoes and told the assembled workers that was the section that needed to be worked on that day. Fermin told the workers that for each filled basket they would be paid 25 cents. By the edge of the land was a flatbed truck with dozens of empty baskets waiting to be filled.
By the truck was a huge oak tree, abuelita told Alejos to take the lunch bag and water and set it under the shade of the tree. Alejos ran to the tree and left the brown paper bag. He ran back towards the truck filled with empty baskets.
Abuelita took two baskets. She then proceeded to a row and turned to Teresita and Alejos and patiently showed them which tomatoes were ready to be picked. She showed them both how to carefully pick the tomatoes without damaging the plant. She took one basket and gave the other to Teresita and her brother. The plants had morning dew on them and the sun was peeking behind the clouds. The work day had started! Carefully Teresita and Alejos started picking the cherry tomatoes. A few rows down, Teresita heard the sounds of a Spanish radio station playing on a transistor radio. One of the workers had brought the radio with him. She hummed along to a song ‘Cielo azul, cielo nevado’…………..she felt so grown up and happy.
Abuelita started on one row and Teresita and Alejos started on the row next to her. Abuelita worked fast and Teresita and Alejos struggled to try and keep up. Abuelita moved over to the middle of both rows and helped her “nietos” on their rows also. Abuelita soon finished the first basket. She had piled the cherry tomatoes above the top of the basket in a small cone shape. Alejos looked at her basket and asked her “Abuelita, Fermin said he is paying 25 cents a basket, why are you over filling the basket?” You can just fill it level and it will still be 25 cents. Abuelita looked at Teresita and Alejos and told them “Mijos, I fill the basket this way to show Fermin, that we appreciate the work and are willing to work hard and put a little extra in each basket” Que nos cuesta? We are here working and we always need to do extra if we can. Teresita and Alejos looked at abuelita and promptly did the same thing with each basket that they filled. When a basket was filled Teresita and Alejos would carefully walk down the row with it to the flatbed truck. Fermin would notate the number of baskets brought under abuelita’s name.
The sun started to get hot and soon they got hungry. Abuelita sent Alejos to the tree by the truck to get the brown bag that contained the tacos. He raced back with the bag of tacos and a small jug of water. Abuelita sat right down in the row and took the tacos from the bag. She rolled down the foil on each taco so they could hold it without touching the tortilla. There were no sinks to wash your hands at the pisca. Abuelita handed Teresita and Alejos a taco each and gave them sips of water. Abuelita told Teresita and Alejos that she was proud of them for doing such a good job.
In between bites of his delicious taco, Alejos told abuelita, ‘this is hard work’. Abuelita smiled and said ‘si, es mucho trabajo’, but when you have no schooling this is the kind of work that is done. She then looked at Teresita and Alejos and told them, do you want to do this kind of work when you grow up? Teresita and Alejos looked at each other and promptly said NO. Abuelita started laughing and told them, education is important. She told them when she was little; girls were unable to go to school and she never got a chance to go. She told Teresita and Alejos that school was important and that we were lucky to have the chance to go. ‘Estudien’! Study hard and get educated. She said picking tomatoes was honest work and nothing to be ashamed of. But an uneducated person had limited jobs available. An education would bring them many choices. Teresita and Alejos soon finished their tacos and it was time to go back to work. There were still many rows left filled with cherry tomato plants that needed picking. Teresita and Alejos hurriedly went to their rows to continue to work and help their abuelita.
After a long day of picking cherry tomatoes in the hot sun, it was time to go home. Teresita and Alejos climbed tiredly back into the truck for the ride back home. They both looked at each other and smiled because they knew they would never forget the day they helped abuelita pick cherry tomatoes and the day they knew they would never have to do that again……….
