Delano: Where Filipino farmers relive their simple lives - A Voicefrom America

_{Many years ago, when I was still in the Philippines, whenever I heard the name California or the United States, images of big cities that are globally known like Los Angeles or San Francisco or New York, Las Vegas or Chicago, Washington, DC, and other popular places that are either seen in movies or read in books and newspapers reappear in my mind's "screen". Little did I realize that America is not only New York or Los Angeles, but there exists a vast land between these two megacities of the East and West Coast. Just in the state of California, where over 30 million people reside in a land area 10 times bigger than the entire Philippines, there are huge farm counties in Central California that produce most of the agricultural crops like grapes, wheat, cotton, corn and many other fruits like plums, nectarines and oranges -- contributing an estimated $11 billion annual revenues to the state -- that are consumed in the United States as well as exported to other countries. Some of these farm communities where thousands of Filipino workers, affectionately called the Manongs of Delano, and their families live and work are Delano, Stockton and Salinas. Talking to them, one can get a glimpse of their stories that are mixed with sadness, joy, and melodramatic experiences. I still vividly remember an elderly man, from Ilocos Sur, by the name of Norberto Duminquin who told me that he had never met a professional guy from the Philippines until he met me. I learned a valuable lesson in human behavior from this unschooled farmer. He said that it is a lesser pain for him to have a total disconnection from his families than having regular communication but not living up to the unrealistic expectations of his relatives who assumed that dollars were being picked from apple trees. He died an unhappy and broken man in a nursing home about 10 years ago. Very sad ending but his story is often repeated in the lives of the old-timers, the Manongs of Delano.}

_{To this day, a lot of aging Filipino farm laborers still toil in the fields. Many of them already in their sixties and seventies still work in the farm especially in the grape fields of Fresno County, located somewhere in the middle of San Francisco and Los Angeles along the famous 99 Freeway. Los Angeles to San Francisco is about 500 miles or about eight hours' drive on Interstate 5 or Highway 101 along the coast. When unskilled or non-professional Filipino immigrants or TNTs can not land a job in megacities like Los Angeles or San Diego, they can go to Delano or Stockton as a last recourse where there is always work for those who really wanted to work. It is a common knowledge that the white people do not want farm work, which leaves many Asians and Hispanics and other people of color, excluding the Blacks, the only hands that do the menial jobs of moving farm crops from the fields to the groceries.}

_{In Delano, a city boy like me is treated with that traditional Filipino hospitality reminiscent of the years when as a CPA auditor I was assigned to audit provincial branches of a big corporation in Manila. This businessman-writer enjoys his occasional business trips to Delano, Visalia or Fresno because his pace slows down a bit while nostalgically reliving his own growing-up years in a farm town of Manaoag, Pangasinan in the Central Plain of Luzon.}

_{The typical life of Filipino farm workers in Delano is somewhat parallel}

_{to the life of the sacadas or farm tenants of Central Luzon. The farm laborers in California are paid for their labor either by the hour or by piece-contract by the farm growers through a middleman called a labor contractor. The farm grower, like Sunkist Corporation, a business giant in California, in order not to deal directly with the laborers hires a labor contractor who in turn hires farm laborers, many of them migrant Mexican or Hispanic laborers, many of them illegal aliens or without green cards (the politically correct term nowadays is "undocumented aliens") The labor contractor pays the workers between $6.50 to $11.00 per hour on a weekly basis, and in turn bills the farm grower at a higher rate for his profit and bonus pursuant to his contract with the farm grower. Many of these migrant workers work 40 to 60 hours a week and often are transported from one field to another by the labor contractor. As they live in distant and different places, as a convenience they are often provided decent living quarters in the farm, for which they pay a nominal amount for their board and lodging. These farm houses which are inspected by the State Labor Department are much better than many houses in the Philippines.}

_{These farm laborers, including Filipinos, toil every day for about 10 months in a year, have back-aching and boring jobs but seem very happy and contented. They apparently do not have the stress that professionals or businessmen like me often experience. They know how to entertain themselves and live a simple life. On weekends, they often socialize for any reason like a birthday party and they butcher a pig, goat or chicken and play mahjong or pusoy to break the monotony of their boring farm life.}

_{In some of my visits to these farm towns I have also seen cockfights which I have not witnessed since the early 1970s in the Philippines. Although, it is illegal to have cockfights in California, they still do it in the middle of the huge fields, where the arm of the law surprisingly cannot reach, simply because even a crowd of 300 or more people can easily disperse an hour before any law enforcement officers arrive in their makeshift sabungans. Like in the Philippines, some of these cockfighters go out of the county or even to neighboring states (or even to Mexico where it is legal) to have their winning cocks compete and duel other cocks. Of course, cold cash are waged and money change hands very easily. I also have met Filipinos who regularly go to Mexico for this cockfighting adventures as well as dog races that are banned in California.}

_{When a "city boy" visits a town like Delano, it is likened to visiting Isabela or Cagayan in the Philippines. Life slows down as there is no haste in finishing one's work. There are no traffic lights on the farm roads and you feel living in a different world in the same planet. I have met dozens of Filipino families whose lifestyles practically did not change when they moved abroad. They still raise their chicken, goats, go fishing in the coastal towns of Santa Maria along the Pacific Coast and live simple lives. Some parents live with their married children who sometimes have already their own children. Sometimes two or even three generations live in the same house.}

_{As many of these Filipino families are not college educated, their ambitions are different from those of us who have college education. About three years ago, during a business trip to Delano, I had a client whose son, also a farm laborer, went back to the Philippines for the primary purpose of "picking a wife" (like picking apples?) . Simply because he is a US citizen (his number one asset as he could pick and choose the "best catch" among single girls in his parents' hometown), he was able to marry a beautiful talented nurse, Michaela (not her real name), almost 15 years younger his junior. When the bride eventually joined the husband in Delano, the husband was so insecure and jealous that the beautiful R.N. wife would see and meet other men that he forbade her to even learn how to drive and visit big cities like Los Angeles!}

_{As this big family eventually became my clients in my financial services business, the beautiful, ambitious talented wife became curious and interested in big city life.}

_{Deliberately, during one visit I left her a thick Sunday issue of the Los Angeles Times that contained thousands of job opportunities including hospital ads for their nursing staff. Deep inside of me, I empathized with this lady and silently prayed that she would find a place to grow and become happy, too. I pitied the young wife especially after I learned that her poor family was also "relying" upon her to help her other sister and brothers to go to college, I think I might have subliminally encouraged her to leave and try her luck in the big city. Bored and tired just working in the grape fields with her husband and his friends, as her intellectual life and social life been curtailed like that of a prisoner for over two years, she surprised me with a phone call one day thanking and informing that she escaped from Delano and left her husband to venture and re-start her life in Los Angeles. Now, she is a full-fledged registered nurse and is now considering filing a divorce from her laborer husband, who made it possible for her to come to America, to be able to marry her current boyfriend whom she met in the hospital. The last time I talked to her, she said that her younger sister is about to finish her nursing course in Manila with her financial help, and that she has petitioned for her lucky parents to immigrate to the United States, after six years in America!}

_{In America, every immigrant, like Michaela, has a colorful story that chronicles the adventures, struggles and resiliency of the human spirit. Mysteriously, there seems to be an invisible instrument that links the past and the future, called present (that is probably why it is called a "present," a gift from somebody above. "Does the end justify the means?" As a writer, I do not have the answer. But, I read somewhere that in the dictionary of God, there are no accidents. Everything happens at His will and in His time.}

_{So, to our readers, do not ever lose hope as hope is the only lasting virtue in our unending human quest for the true meaning and purpose of our lives here on this earth. May you all have a Happy and Prosperous New Millenium!}

_{Readers can reach the writer at ernie@progressive times.com and visit his website at: http://www. progressivetimes.com.}