Farm owner: Without immigrants 'this town would die'

[pazzyanne]

21. I worked in Luverne, MN for a number of years.

Luverne is 30 miles from Worthington. I worked in Luverne from 1965 until 1984. Undocumented workers were being used at that time. Raids were common place back then, but were looked upon as horrible events by the locals. In my state, undocumented, seasonal workers have been around as long as I have (75 years). They work in sugar beet fields, corn fields, orchards, dairy barns, pork production, turkey production, and the list goes on. My brothers and their friends, when they were in high school, worked summer farming jobs. It is hard, sunrise to sunset work. Most of their friends did not last the first summer. They did not have to hunt for summer work as the local farmers knew they were reliable, and they had more work offers than they could do. High school kids today are not interested in those type of outdoor jobs now. I hired a 14 year old neighbor kid to help me with yard work that I can no longer do because of mobility issues. He lasted 4 days where he worked for an hour a day. He chose to sweep the driveway because he couldn't tolerate ants, hated to get his hands dirty, got too tired carrying hand equipment from the garage to where it was needed to do work, couldn't help prune bushes because it was causing blisters on his hands, etc. He took 3 hours to sweep my driveway, which isn't that long. He was given a water break after 30 minutes of work, and spent a lot of time standing and watching me work. This illustrates the reason migrant workers are needed more today than ever before.