I picked your onions every season and hardly made for a meal for one day,
While you made a million dollars every day.
I harvested your greens but for me it was just a day
when you treated me like a slave.
Once I used to pray but that got me nowhere,
just back under the hot sun
every day picking for you to make a week’s pay.
And praying again for a better day.
I have made you rich with all my sweat but only to not
even hear you say,
“Hey, I appreciate your hard labor for the day.”
I am here to say,
“I want what is mine should I just take it and run
away or stand here until I get my way.”
Working under the hot sun from sunup to sundown to
harvest what you say is not mine, I am but your worker with no sunshine.
And I wonder, “Will I get a dime for my sweat under the
sun?”
All we get is for us not to die, because who will make you to be able to wine and dine?
We are working under the hot sun in the fields that we
plant every season even with rain or sunshine.
Suddenly we hear the airplane up in the sky spraying
dust over us with no concern that we are working
in the field,
We feel the spray on our clothes and skin,
and they know we are there,
yet they keep spraying as if we are no one.
The airplane flies away, while we feel sick
but see no one to whom we can complain and
soon we start to die.
They are spraying to make them rich while we may
die.
They call it cancer but who do we blame it on?
It was just all in a day’s work.
We finally filed a complaint to those in charge of
regulating those inhumane acts.
The guilty only get a slap on the hand and if a
financial fine is imposed on them, They fight it as if they never knew we were there.
If we suffer an injury, and we tell the patron or contratista,
they answer, “We don’t have insurance.”
Today, I come to claim what is mine from those who
took my hard-earned dime.
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