Sometimes we followed the crops, doing migrant labor. We did several years of tenant farming in Western Oregon starting in the early '50s. Later, my stepdad managed gas stations in a small town near Portland.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I grew up in Southern Oregon. My father was a sawmill worker and a logger, and his job put food on the table.
When I first immigrated to the United States, there were not many jobs that stood out. So I worked at a gas station, cleaning.
I remember as a little girl going down to the beet fields in the Dakotas and in Nebraska and Wyoming as migrant workers when I was very, very small, like, I was, like, 5 years old, I believe. And I remember going out there, you know, traveling to these states and living in these little tarpaper shacks that they had in Wyoming.
From the time I was a small boy, I remember working in the fields with my grandfather and father. We weren't growing grapes, but we were farming crops, creating something good out of the earth.
As a society, we devalued farming as an occupation and encouraged the best students to leave the farm for 'better' jobs in the city. We emptied America's rural counties in order to supply workers to urban factories.
As I grew older, farms in Kentucky provided me with many jobs in hauling hay and in cutting tobacco. In addition to helping fund my college years, these jobs helped me to meet an array of very interesting and amazing men and women.
My parents owned a plants nursery. We all grew up growing things and planting things and selling things, and I also managed landscape crews.
But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees.
I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a transitional area that was surrounded by farmland that wasn't being cultivated.
When my mother was raising me, she moved us upstate to the Woodstock area. Our closest neighbor was a mile away. She planted all her own vegetables.