Trauma of growing up as poor

Thursday, August 15, 2013



RSS / Archive



The Daily Star  









Letters















Home

Newspaper

Frontpage

Backpage

City

Country

World



Letters

Science





















Published: Thursday, August 15, 2013







Letters to the Editor







Trauma of growing up as poor









Ted Rudow III, MA, Encina Ave, Palo Alto, CA

Broadcast on the night after thanksgiving in 1960, Edward R. Murrow’s “Harvest of Shame” exposed us to the callous exploitation of the migrant workers who pick our fruits and vegetables. This is an American story that begins in Florida and ends in New Jersey and New York State with the harvest. It is the story of men and women and children who work 136 days of the year and earn average nine hundred dollars a year.

Believe it or not, more than fifty years later, the life of a migrant labourer is still an ordeal. And not just for adults. Perhaps as many as half a million children, some as young as seven years old, are out in the fields and orchards working nine to ten hour days under brutal conditions. That was one of the most traumatic things growing up. Being poor and powerless to withstand the mistreatment, to watch my mom and dad be mistreated and is being fooled about the wages is traumatic. There was no way for us to complain. No way for us to appeal to anyone.





©2013 The Daily Star. All Rights Reserved.

STAR ARCHIVE