Gabriela Vivar was just 15 when she started working on farms in Santa Maria. A job, she says is not only physically demanding but has long been underpaid.
“It’s getting hard to pay with this,” Vivar said. “[The] economy’s getting hard to pay everything.”
She explains that farmworkers can experience rain, cold, heat and other tough conditions.
“There’s times where there’s only three women packing and you get a shortage of employees,” Vivar said. “So it’s pretty hard because you struggle more, do the double work, and you’re only getting paid the minimum wage.”
With farmworkers in California making an average of $16.50, according to the organization CAUSE , which promotes justice for working-class and immigrant communities, Vivar says covering rent and other basics is a constant struggle.
“I had to rent the garage from my aunt’s house because we weren’t getting through the economy,” Vivar said.
Celina Zamora with CAUSE says Vivar’s situation is far from unique.
“We know one worker who sleeps in someone else’s bathtub. How many more people are out there that we don’t know that are living the same way?” Zamora said.