At breakfast this morning my husband went on and on about seeing Eva Longoria on Piers Morgan’s show talking about immigration and child labour issues in the US. He seemed surprised the beautiful woman might have a purpose outside of acting.
That didn’t surprise me much.
But something else he learned from the interview surprised me, as well. Eva Longora has co-produced a documentary about child labour in agriculture in the US. It’s called the Harvest and it is directed by Roberto Romero.
In many cases, young US citizens used as a kind of slave labour, not going to school, to pick our food.
I knew that Mexican labour is used to pick fruits and vegetables and that our lowish prices are thanks to this.
And I also know Mexican crews come to Canada. When my son spent a summer picking cherries in the Okanagan, he said their were French crews (who made gourmet meals over campfires) and French Canadian crews and Native Crews and Mexican crews. The Native Crews saw my son’s tan and said, “You must be one of us.” Well, there’s Cree in my husband’s family.
Anyway, I wonder if the Mexican crews include children… that would be appalling. It’s still appalling as we Canadians eat a lot of US produce.
So I’ve been writing a book about child labour in the textile mills in 1910, equating it to the child labour in the textile industry (far away overseas)when there still is child labour right close to home.
Here’s my first draft of Threshold Girl. www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf where Flora Nicholson, 19, learns about child labour close to home but does nothing about it, just like all of us, today.
