Intro, Dolores Dante & Roberto, Acuna, farm worker

Intro:
This book is prominently about violence, but it also explains how work shows who people are and what attributes they have. Many people work because they want to have pride in something they do. Other times people really hate their work and want to leave it. People are suited to work at different things, and people work at different speeds and levels. Sometimes, people just keep working and lose the purpose and meaning of it. Overall, work gives people a secure place in life because they always know that it is there for them.

Dolores Dante:

Dolores became a waitress because she needed the money. Many people take jobs for money, but others take jobs because it is there passion. She was divorced and had 3 children to take care of which is a lot of work. Throughout the years, Dante loved her job even more. Whenever she asks her customers what they want to eat she always rephrases it so it is more interesting for her. She does not care about how much of a tip a customer gives her, she just wants them to be satisfied and happy. Dolores said, “Life doesn’t frighten me anymore.” She said that it used to frighten her a lot, but now she has overcome it. She feels loyal to wait the customers who she knows because she always wants to please them. She said the hard part about being a waiter is that she has to trust the cooks to cook a good meal because she is just ordering it. If the customers don’t like the meal, she feels responsible even though it is not her job. She says that her work is her life and if she does not go to work, she feels out of place.

Roberto, Acuna, farm worker:

When Roberto was a kid, he would work in the fields picking crops all day long at harvest time. Sometimes he would see his mom crying, but he never understood why. When she went to her evening job at a restaurant she would receive mean remarks from customers. White kids would laugh at Roberto when he brought to school a different type of lunch that showed his culture. This started fights at school which ended in 8^th grade because that’s when he quit school. He was abused at school because the kids did not understand why he worked in the fields all day. When he would work in the fields, he would day dream about becoming rich and people having respect for his mom. When he was older, he became a company man because he wanted his mom to be proud of him. He was paid $1.10 an hour which is barely anything. This was because he was a minority so he quit his work and joined the Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps he was supposed to whip people in prison camps, but he was not able to harm people. Because of his experiences, he realized that everything is favored towards the wealthy. For example, during wars, there were drafts but people who were wealthy were able to get out of it in many ways because of their money. People who did not have enough money were less fortunate. Roberto said, “When growers can have an intricate watering system to irrigate their crops but they can’t have running water inside the houses of workers.” He is upset by how the money is distributed in the farms. He thought that the workers were treated less fairly than the animals on the farms. Pesticides were being to become more popular, but they were not healthy for the farmers and the animals. There were many harmful affects when spraying the chemicals. Because of all of these harmful conditions, people were going on strike. It helped Roberto feel a sense of belonging because they were his own people who wanted the same changes in working conditions as he did.