Field work is honest labor
To the Editor,
This letter is two months too late. Many farmers in the Pajaro Valley were and are short of pickers this year because the border is sealed, and there is a shortage of housing so migrant workers who regularly come for the season are skipping Watsonville.
Why won’t vacationing, able-bodied high school students apply for these jobs? Apparently for them field work has a stigma. Working vacation days in the fields is not a career commitment. It is hard, healthy, temporary, honorable work. One can earn more money than working at a fast food chain and far better than just hanging out at the mall or twittering on a smartphone all day. It will enhance a college application by showing that one is not adverse to hard and honest work.
Field work is hard, healthy and competitive. The harder you work, the more you earn. Of course, there is some skill involved as one cannot be sloppy.
There is never a stigma to honest labor.
I worked cutting apricots, cutting peaches in the sheds and picking grapes on my school vacations. It earned me pretty good money and gave me better health than most women my age. I am 89 years old.
Amelia Koenig
Watsonville
•••
Watsonville, the City of Murals
To the Editor,
I would like to commend all members of the Watsonville city planning committee who have done such a beautiful job of beautifying downtown Watsonville. The tile murals on the sidewalks, the wonderful new plantings and crosswalks, and now moveable murals! Kudos.
I think Watsonville should be known as the City of Murals. We have such outstanding murals on buildings reflecting the agricultural history of our town. Thank you.
Laura Powers
Watsonville
