It is commonly known that many laborers who pick crops for a living do not enjoy the best conditions. When it comes to food, people generally think of American-grown crops as being harvested by 20-something year old illegal immigrants, working 9 to 5 and making minimum wage. However, director U. Roberto Romano ofThe Harvest/La Cosecha (2011) paints a very different picture. He follows illegal immigrants and their families as they look for work, and labor in fields all across America. Here, crop-pickers like Zulema and Perla are underage and underpaid, working 14 hour days, 7 days a week, and barely clearing 65$ a week. They begin working the field as early as 7 years old, and frequently miss school due to their families’ reliance on the income and the migrant nature of crop picking.
The Harvest focuses on what little these families have and the never-ending cycle of poverty that they face. These families are living in limbo as illegal immigrants—at any moment, one small thing could go wrong and their entire world comes crumbling down. This is very well depicted in the documentary, especially with Perla, whose father gets sick and cannot work. Because of this, she loses any hope for stability in her life as well as for starting high school on time. In this aspect, the documentary is successful in evoking true empathy from the viewer. Romano does not overstate their predicaments; he tells it like it is. The struggles and life conditions that these families face are unheard of to most Americans, and the fact they are happening in our country is shocking.
The air of hopelessness is combatted by these young immigrants’ hopefulness. Despite the hardships they face, they all hope for a better life for themselves and their children. Although graduating high school and obtaining a stable job seems like a far cry from their current predicament, all of the young immigrants in the documentary remain optimistic. However, such goals are not impossible, especially in America. That being said, “The Harvest” highlights how awful these families’ previous living conditions must have been if they risked so much to get to America and live such an impoverished life.
One thing noticeably missing from this documentary was the perspective of the field owner’s. Aside from the fact that the employers are barely paying their employees minimum wage, many of them are obviously underage. I felt that it would have been interesting for the director to incorporate what the field owners think about essentially cheating people from a livelihood, or if they even think about that at all. Perhaps their indifference towards the hardships of their workers and families would serve to evoke more sympathy from the viewers. Maybe The Harvest would have even led to reform in the crop picking industry, or even just have raised more awareness of the plight of these families than it did with one perspective. I cannot help but notice how much stronger and more affecting the documentary would have been had the audience actually seen the forces of opposition that the fieldworkers face day in and day out.
U. Roberto Romano’s The Harvest easily relates to the major themes of immigration, identity and food that are central to The Peopling of NYC. For one, it forces us to raise questions about the origins of our food. One especially moving scene in the documentary showed a woman who picked crops for a living dismayed about the high price they were being sold for at a market—much more than she makes per pound or can afford. After seeing The Harvest it’s hard not to imagine to fruits or vegetables that we eat being picked by a poor immigrant. And, after seeing that particular scene, it becomes clear what a problem this poses to our society. It also serves as an implicit call for immigration reform, which would greatly help these struggling families. Their immigrant identity and illegal status does not give their employers the right to treat them in ways that are illegal. Additionally, the fact that this documentary was depicted through both the eyes of the adults and their kids shows what large an impact this has on the whole family. Sadly enough, some of these immigrant children may be barred from finding their own identity, not one of a fieldworker’s, because of the poor financial cycle they are stuck in. The Harvest is a movie that anyone can relate to, even New Yorkers who are typically so far removed from the Midwest and its food industry.
