The Harvest / La Cosecha

As a white American growing up in the fertile soil that fills the landscapes in and around Lake Ontario, more specifically Marion New York, I remember the camps. I remember asking about them and seeing them on the bus ride to and from school. In the summer they would be a hive of activity; yet, calm and desolate in the midst of a harsh Northeastern winter. I remember seeing the rich black soil in the fields that lined the back country roads on my way to see my grandparents. I remember seeing the harvests' come in and the joys of a well grown and picked season. What I don't remember is doing anything like what's portrayed in The Harvest / La Cosecha. I have always been on the customer side of the line. I have always just enjoyed the food. And like anything else that you do not do, you never really give any thought to what's behind the items you take and consume. Whether it be electronics, automobiles, electricity or food, there are deeply ingrained systems of production in place to bring you your products. And not all of these systems solely rely on the labor from adults. The Harvest / La Cosecha takes us to the fields. More importantly, we are taken there through the eyes of children and their families. In recent years there's been the occasional news story exposing the fact that children as young as 7 or 8 are out there picking. As Americans we recoil in shock because the very notion of exploited child labor is something we believed to be a thing of the past. But in fact, to many Latin American families, this is as normal as growing up and graduating high school is for us. Truth is, it's a job that is all too familiar to the children of American migrant families. Born from a need to help earn more money for their families and to reduce labor on their elders, children are given a choice. To leave in the summer and fall, to miss school, to give up their dreams and go with their families on the seasonal migrations to the fields. Our produce departments are stocked because of them and it is because of them we are able to eat strawberries in January or onions any day of the week. What I use to see as a child, the tenement housing, the sounds of different languages spoken more frequently in the warmer months, the sight of people in the fields. What I remember is from the outside, The Harvent / La Cosecha takes me into a world only a documentary film can. From the outside, we journey in, into their reality. The reality of poverty and dreamlessness where the only thing one knows for sure is that with each season comes The Harvest. The next time you answer your iPhone or bite an apple, thank a child. For as unpopular as child labor is in our culture, it is not this way for other cultures. 

http://theharvestfilm.com/