Picking through history

Danette Goulet

With beads of sweat dripping from their small foreheads, the students

looked for water after only an hour of picking string beans in Irvine

early Wednesday.

Just a taste of the labors and conditions endured by migrant workers

in the fields each day was enough for students from Newport Coast

Elementary School to gain a healthy respect for what they do.

“It would get really tiring for a whole day,” said Jess Peterson, 10.

“And I don’t think [migrant workers] could afford sunscreen every day.”

After less than an hour of gleaning the crops for the Second Harvest

Food Bank, Peterson knew he wouldn’t want the job even for a day.

The fourth-grade students were out in Orange County farmer A.G.

Kawamura’s bean fields in Irvine as part of a service learning project

created by the Volunteer Center of Orange County.

Funded by a state grant, the program allowed the center to bring 1,000

fourth-grade students from all over Orange County to the fields this

year.

The program focuses on Cesar Chavez’s life, his values and his

movement, said Shaun Hirschl, director of the youth connection for the

volunteer center.

Chavez, who died in 1993, was the longtime leader of the United Farm

Workers of America, which helped change numerous California laws and

raise wages for the workers.

Hirschl sends a package out to teachers before the day in the fields

with a biography of Chavez’s life and activities for the class to do.

“We learned about Cesar Chavez, a person who helped the workers to get

their rights,” said Mao Takada, 10.

But their work in the fields Wednesday meant more to students than

simply understanding migrant workers’ plight.

“It’s interesting because you get to pick the food to feed people,”

Mao said.

Sam Caruthers, from Second Harvest, was there picking alongside

students, and he explained that the field had already been harvested and

picked over at least twice by farm workers.

Second Harvest gleans off of Kawamura’s harvested crops for its food.

All the crops they gather are cleaned and distributed to the hungry.

“And 4,000 people still go hungry in Orange County every year,”

Caruthers said. Students “are helping. They’re doing some good. All this

would have been plowed.”

The 55 Newport Coast students, along with about 150 others, picked

about 700 pounds of beans, which Caruthers said would feed about 3,000

people.

After they picked for an hour and 15 minutes, a group of high school

students from Santa Ana’s Cesar Chavez High School reflected on the work

in the fields, what life was like for migrant workers and what Chavez did

to help them.

Today, migrant workers are scheduled to make a visit to the children’s

classrooms to share their own experiences.