d the farm to pay off debts, loaded all their possessions into the car, and became migrant workers themselves. Cesar was ten. Pay was as low as $5.00 a day for the whole family. One grower failed to pay them even after they had all worked an entire week. The chemicals used on the plants caused them to choke as they worked.
Cesar Chavez was resourceful, even as a boy. He collected foil from gum wrappers and sold it to a junk dealer for money for sneakers and a sweat shirt. By the time he was thirteen he had worked all of the great valleys of California--San Joaquin, Imperial Valley, Coachella Valley, and San Bernardino. Chavez often did not attend school, as was often the case with young migrant boys, as they were needed in the fields (Terzian 19).
Sometimes conditions were harsh. On the worst jobs they had to pay their employers for drinking water. Shelter was primitive, food was scarce, and there were not even separate toilet facilities for men and women. Bathing facilities were often a faucet and bucket.
The Migrant Ministry, in the business of harvesting people instead of grapes, provided food, clothing, medical supplies, and educational classes for children. Chavez seems to have been greatly impressed by these humanitarian religious workers who did a wide range of helpful services from language translation to getting errant workers out of jail. Chavez saw first hand how poverty and despair lead people to crime--gambling, theft, and drinking. Migrant wages increased during the second World W
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