“The Early Season Potato”

At 5:00 in the morning, I sat in the back of our truck, my back against the hard metal, my head slumped over as I tried to sleep for a few more minutes. 

“It’s almost time,” Papá called as he tapped the truck window behind him. 

My brothers tried to wake up, but their heads bobbed like corks in water. We finally spilled off the truck. I rubbed the sleepiness from my eyes as I walked toward the other migrant workers to wait a few more minutes. 

Soon, I like everyone else, prepared their stack of gunny sacks. I grabbed as many sacks as my arms could hold, got on my knees in front of the headlights, and counted my fifty sacks, stacking them into a smooth pile. Unlike the fall season potatoes, I would be lucky to fill that many bags since these early summer potatoes would no longer be dug out once the sun rose because the sun’s heat would spoil them. What also limited the number of sacks I would fill was the swarm of people who also wanted to fill as many sacks as they could before the farmer shut the tractor’s engine. 

UNDERWRITTEN BY

Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.

While we waited in the dark for the farmer to drive his tractor to dig up the row of spuds, I helped pick a pile of potato vines to make a fire to keep warm. I stood around the fire with my family and the other migrants from the labor camp. 

The potato vines hissed and sputtered under the dewy dawn. My father’s tired face was even more apparent. His face glowed in the dark, revealing his frailty. His skin appeared aged beyond his years. He rubbed his rough hands in haste, loosening them in preparation for the hard work ahead, work he’d done countless seasons in his life with less pain. His stiff hands would pick the spuds, like a blind man in darkness, searching, feeling, to distinguish the elusive potatoes from the rock-hard clods. 

The blinding lights came on as soon as the tractor engine started, a rude awakening for my sleepy eyes. 

“Es hora.” It’s time, one of the silhouettes announced.

I grabbed my potato belt, a contraption fit for a mule, and wrapped it around my waist with belt buckle-like fasteners. I took my sacks and grabbed the large hook tied to a rope attached to the back of the belt. I drove that hook through every single sack so that when I filled them, I could quickly grab another sack that I dragged behind me. There was no time to lose. In case I could fill more, I quickly added a few more to the two side hooks attached to the belt.

Our vehicle’s headlights revealed the potatoes as the tractor scooped them up and ran them through a bouncing chain, shaking the dirt off as they channeled downward, landing on the sifted soil. The potato belt strapped to my waist whined as the board attached with fasteners in the front also complained and squealed like an unoiled hinge that must haul a heavy load in arduous labor. I began with gloves, which felt soft and warm. Their thickness protected my fingertips from the rough surface of the hard, cold spuds. The dampness of the field soaked my gloves, making them expand and slip off. With no time to keep putting them back on, I continued with bare hands. 

“Ramas y Raices: The Best of CALMA”

>> READ AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Where to find it:

SunLit present new excerpts from some of the best Colorado authors that not only spin engaging narratives but also illuminate who we are as a community. Read more.

The race against the sun was on. With my back bent, I followed the tractor unearthing the spuds ahead of me. I furiously scooped the spuds alternating arms, my hands throwing potatoes into the mouth of the sack, at the same time taking labored steps forward toward the unpicked spuds. On either side, I heard other belts squeal and complain, yet no one spoke. My back cried in silence. 

I wondered and worried about my parents. If my back as a teenager was stiff with pain, I could only imagine their agony. I tried to beat those next to me as I dug like a dog unearthing a bone, picking and tossing the spuds into the sack weighing heavier between my legs with each step, my thighs contracting to carry it. The vehicle headlights behind me cast a shadow in front of me, blocking the light as I continued to grab as many potatoes as possible. My sense of touch took over. Sometimes a clod, solid like a spud, was thrown in the sack. I couldn’t feel the difference in the dark. No time to care. 

At that moment, like a mind reader, my cousin Beto Franco, who liked to make people laugh like his brother Luis, shouted over the belt squeals, “Papas, solo papas, gente,” Spuds only spuds, people. “Terrones y piedras no, porque los corren.” No clods or stones, or you’ll get fired, people. 

“Callate y deja trabajar.” Be quiet, and let people work, yelled Mandito, recognizing Beto’s voice. 

I was sure others smiled for a second as dust flew. With both hands, I pulled the sack up when I felt the potatoes on the sack’s lip. My muscular thighs pulled and dragged the heavy sack. Once full, I pulled the sack out, raised and bounced the sack to settle the spuds enough for it to stand on the row. The dust settled on my face and found its way down my throat. I coughed to clear my throat and spit. 

“¿Estás bien?” asked Papá as he worked behind me.

“Sí Apá,” I responded as he, too, cleared his throat.

We heard others do the same. Papá, like a stuck hinge, halfway stood while he held his back. He was bent.

“Rest a little Apá,” I told my father as his stiff body refused to rise any higher.

I kept going; nobody else stopped, everyone wanting to fill the most sacks. I must pick fast and make as many sacks as possible before the farmer quits digging the potato rows. In my mind, I want to make up the sacks my father could not fill. In the darkness, I continued to hear belts twisting and screeching, my thighs continually aching as I pulled to drag the heavy fifty-pound sack between my legs. The familiar sound of wire baskets used by those who could not handle the belt bounced off the ground, telling me another sack was filled and eight more cents had been added to the morning earnings. 

When the sun peeked its head over the horizon, the tractor’s grinding roar came to a halt, and, for a second, there was silence. My hands then doubled the pace as I picked up speed, racing against the person who had started picking from the opposite end. The mighty eye of God peeked and revealed the last of the potatoes between the other worker and me. With one final push, I was running out of breath. It was done. As if a swarm of grasshoppers had descended, the spuds were devoured. Between dawn and early light, the field had been transformed from entombed potatoes to scattered spuds disappearing into countless rows of sacks lining the field and now standing like tired soldiers in rags after a battle. 

Slowly, I stood straight, my body stiff with pain. I held my back and stretched to regain my posture as the sun gave light to the darkness, to me. 

“Vayanse.” Go, I told my parents. “Go to the truck; I will count your sacks.” 

Both bent bodies supported each other as they limped toward the end of the rows to get into the truck. 

I dragged a couple of sacks away from the other workers’ sacks to distinguish which section was my family’s sacks and which belonged to the other worker. The crew leader soon came around, counting and taking notes in a notebook for payment on Saturday. I counted our sacks, which Mamá later noted to make sure we’d get credit for all of our sacks. 

As I counted, I could finally see who was working next to me. It was a cute boy I had not seen before. I wiped the grit from my face with my head bandana. While I wiped my face, the boy smiled and waved, I smiled and waved back as I headed toward the truck. I looked into the door mirror and saw the dirt specks in my eye ducts. 

“How embarrassing,” I thought. To make it worse, I bared my teeth only to find out they were muddy from the dust. 

“Ay no,” I said. 

“¿Qué, que ‘mija?” asked Mamá as she poured coffee into the thermos cup for Papá and her to share. 

“Mira, mira,” I said as I grinned at them. 

They laughed. I also laughed, because they also looked like they had missing teeth. 

I looked around, hoping I would never come across that boy again. 

“¿Cuántos?” How many? asked Papá.

“Yo 40, you and Mamá 50,” I responded.

“Ninety times eight cents is $7.20, not too bad. We’ll see how many your brothers filled,” said Papá, hoping that once totaled all our sacks would add up to a few more dollars for the day. We paid a heavy price for a few pennies. 

Before the sun got hotter, los cargadores, the men who loaded the sacks onto the truck, took off their potato belts and fastened thicker belts like the weightlifter’s wear, to protect them from injury. Two men positioned themselves on the driver’s side of the truck, one on the ground and the other on the flatbed. Another pair did the same on the passenger’s side. Their strong arms hoisted the heavy sacks four feet to the flatbed of the truck while the man that stood on top grabbed the sacks and laid them flat, stacking them, alternating their direction, like laying bricks for them to lock and not spill. 

The cargadores were paid four cents for each sack they loaded. Within a few hours, the field was left barren with no sign of what was once growing underneath the long tomb-like rows that had vibrated with live potato vines, the lifeline for the nourishment that would feed America. 

Once loaded, the sacked potatoes were taken to the underground storage cellar, la zapa or bodega as it was called in Spanish. This pit was dug at an angle. At the entrance level, the pit angled down into the earth like a burrow as it got deeper. This kept the spuds in a dark, cool place to keep them from spoiling until they would be shipped out, and transported to the businesses that demanded them. 

Like weeding beets and onions and picking the early season potato, we worked fewer hours working these in-between jobs. This day, there were no other fields to work, so we headed to the labor camp. The break gave us time to do laundry and rest a little to prepare before the harder, arduous work ahead, topping onions. 

Maria Ramirez is an educator, poet, and activist who has dedicated 31 years to teaching in Colorado. She has earned accolades that include Colorado Bilingual Teacher of the Year, National Bilingual Teacher of the Year, and Boulder County’s Multicultural Educator of the Year. She has served as an assistant principal, district coordinator and English language development teacher. Two chapters from her memoir and one of her poems are now included in the Colorado Alliance for Latino Mentors and Authors debut anthology, “Ramas y Raíces: The Best of CALMA.”