A new short documentary about teen farmworkers

Debuting a film by the journalist Jessica De La Torre

Hello friends—today I want to do something a little different, and hand over this newsletter to an amazing young woman who I introduced you to in November, Jessica De La Torre. Since then, she finished her Masters degree at the Berkeley School of Journalism, and this week joined my team at José Andrés Media as an intern. She’s a journalist who both writes impactful stories—like the one she published in Teen Vogue in October—and makes documentary videos about the people she’s met through her work.

So here you are, Jessica’s beautiful short documentary Antes Del Sol, about teenagers working in the fields of central California, and some background about her life by Jessica herself. No one except her professors and classmates at Berkeley have seen this yet, so I hope you guys think it’s as incredible as I do.

Last summer, I had the opportunity through a fellowship awarded by José Andrés to Berkeley Journalism’s 11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship to produce a short documentary based on the lives of teen farmworkers in California's central coast. These teens, ranging from 12 to 17 years old, feed a country of millions. Yet their hard work often goes unnoticed due to a mix of systemic barriers including child labor laws that keep these workers in the shadows. I’ve realized that people who don’t live in agricultural communities fail to grasp the fact that middle to high school-aged teens spend their summers harvesting the nation’s produce, but where I grew up, it has been normalized for generations.

I’m from Salinas, California, a town known as the Salad Bowl of the World, neighboring the Monterey Peninsula and located a highway away from the affluent town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. However, the Salinas I know is a reality far from these surfaced associations. I grew up on the east side where my family, neighbors, classmates, basically everyone has ties to the production of packaging leafy greens or picking strawberries. I have memories of my grandparents' heavy boots covered in mud by the doorway, thermals in the sink that held their lunch burritos, and at times, our table filled with green plastic canisters brimming with bright red strawberries.

These memories are comforting but they’re also tainted with the truth of the overexploitation of farmworkers that has harshly affected my communities. My mother started working in the fields when she was young because my grandparents also worked in them when they immigrated to the U.S from Mexico. 
My grandparents wanted my mom to work in the fields so that she would understand the value of farming and the painstaking labor that goes into feeding America. Additionally, they wanted to demonstrate the unjust labor system that relies on immigrants and how she had the option to pursue something else for herself. Working in the fields can perpetuate a vicious cycle that demands tremendous physical exertion, offers limited opportunities for advancement, and keeps immigrant farmworkers in poverty.

This is something my mom recounted when I asked her to allow me to work on my aunt’s land when I was 17. I was graduating from high school and wanted to earn money the summer before I moved for college. She let me, and I saved some money for the deposit for my apartment. My aunt's land was a small plot, maybe only a few miles long, where that summer, she was harvesting zucchinis. It was extremely hard, and through working in the fields, I understood the lessons my grandparents tried to teach my mom when she was my age, and why my parents didn’t force me to start working. 

My experience working in the fields differed from some of my peers and I know that it came with some privileges. I remember being in 7th grade and already knowing a few classmates working in the strawberries. They had no other option. They had to contribute to their family’s income for basic life necessities, like food, rent and clothing. 

Last summer, I spent time following teen farmworkers to help tell our communities’ truth of underaged farmworkers. My community inspires a majority of the work I produce as a journalist and filmmaker, we are often underrepresented in the media but are full of impactful voices that should be heard.  In my short documentary, "Antes Del Sol," I focused on Eva’s story, one of 500,000 teens in the U.S who work in the fields. It provides a glimpse of what it means to be a teen farmworker today and the layers they hold. It was immensely fulfilling because it brings to life an overlooked and misunderstood reality of teens who go uncelebrated despite the enormous effort it takes to be in their shoes, harvesting for a nation that won’t address farm working conditions, offer livable wages, or even understand the kinds of barriers that they and their families face just to survive. I hope that viewers watch this short documentary and gain an understanding and appreciation of where our food comes from.