The infection rate from the coronavirus is much higher in the rural counties of California than it is in the cities. In Tulare County, more than 40,000 people had contracted the virus as of mid-January, and more than 500 people had died.
Yet throughout last summer and fall, farmworkers went into Tulare’s orchards to harvest fruit. These workers are essential, since if they didn’t do this work, the grapes, pluots (a plum and apricot hybrid), and persimmons would rot on the trees. Supermarket shelves would be bare.
But being essential during the COVID-19 era also means that farmworkers are forced to put themselves at risk of infection in the orchards, if they want to pay rent or buy food.
Most farmworkers wear masks or bandanas, which can be hot and uncomfortable in the summer months as temperatures in the Tulare fields get up to 110 degrees.
Still, wearing protection and being uncomfortable—cold in November’s persimmon fields and hot in July’s pluots and August’s grapes—is not really a choice if you have a family to support.
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Teresita Mateo, a farmworker from the Ilocos Norte province of the Philippines, picks table grapes in a field in the San Joaquin Valley, near Poplar, California, on August 11, 2020.
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Victor Tabino, also from Ilocos Norte, takes the picked bunches of grapes and puts them into a plastic bag, ready for the supermarket.
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Maria Madrigal, a Mexican immigrant, picks persimmons with a crew in a field near Poplar, California, on November 21, 2020.
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Pedro Rodriguez, another member of the crew, cuts off each persimmon with a shear, placing them carefully in a box strapped to his shoulders.
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At the delivery truck, a loader stacks boxes of persimmons, which can’t be filled to the top, or the soft fruit would be crushed.
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Carmen, a pluot picker, fills her bag with fruit on July 13, 2020.
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Sara Toledo reaches through the branches and leaves for the pluots she intends to pick.
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A worker empties her bag of fruit into a delivery bin.