A muddy irrigation ditch, a few solitary power lines and an occasional pole barn were all that interrupted the otherwise tedious repetition of flat cropland. This was fly-over country.

Today however Ms. Watson’s fifth grade class, with their shouts of excitement and disbelief from the open windows of the old school bus, ruptured the monotony. These city kids had traveled an hour and a half without benefit of car radio, padded seats or air-conditioning to learn about farming, and they were not disappointed. Barely fifty yards away rumbled a gargantuan harvester. It was an apparition, more monster than machine, a giant herbivore that ripped through and devoured the green fields, defecating masticated clumps of crop in its wake. Its powerful engines and myriad vibrating parts rattled the metal interior of the yellow International Loadstar bus; its hammering, clanking sounds echoed off the bus’s riveted ceiling and wall panels. In reply, the kids raised their voices even higher.

“That’s insane!” one boy shouted.

“It’s as big as a house!” a girl nearby exclaimed.

“Oh, way bigger,” announced a third student, his voice affecting an unmistakeable tone of wise solemnity, as if he had known since long ago such machines existed.

The red painted behemoth dug up piles of leaf, dirt, and root out from behind itself and onto a trailing, mechanized attachment; its clinking conveyor belt made of chain-link and metal planks chugged the freshly excavate crop steadily upward as unwanted soil and debris dropped through slots and back to raw ground below. Like gold sifted from a minor’s pan, large, brown-caked potatoes revealed themselves just before reaching the conveyer’s high precipice and plunging into the waiting maw of a giant, open-topped truck driven in tandem alongside it.

As her classmates continued to shout and holler exclamations, one ponytailed girl in glasses sat emotionally separate from the rest. “Wow,” she sighed in a whisper, her hands pressed over the half lowered windowpane as she watched intently. “That’s remarkable.”

“It certainly is,” said Ms. Watson, protectively standing nearby. “This is where our food comes from!”

From July through October of that year’s harvest, up one direction ten rows wide and down the next, the monster and its diesel-powered parasite tore up the land spreading out as far as fifth grader eyes could see. Today’s array of children was one of several dozen school groups that, thanks to a disproportionately generous USDA grant secured by a local congressman for the purpose of ‘agricultural education,’ cycled through Central Harvest Inc.’s farming operations each season. The elected official, serving his seventh term in the House of Representatives, happened to be first cousins with Central Harvest’s primary shareholder.

“That’s a very special harvester,” said the man standing up front beside the bus driver. In khaki pressed slacks and a white Oxford shirt with Central Harvest’s logo sewn tastefully onto the right breast pocket—as tastefully as one could make appear an outline of a potato on the horizon with sunbeams emanating from its surface, an image to the kids that just as readily evoked a turd baking in the sun as it did a nutritious tuber capable of feeding the masses—he spoke with equal parts authority and enthusiasm. “There are only two machines like it in our half of the state, and Central Harvest has one of them.”

This elicited several more excited responses, primarily from the boys in the manner of “Whoa!” “Cool!” and “No way!”

“So, who’s curious to see what happens to the potatoes when we process them?”

A lively, perceptive group, the kids rallied on cue. “Me!” “I do!”

“Okay then, I need everyone to take a seat,” he commanded in a friendly tone.

The kids scrambled back into their stiff backed, vinyl upholstered, bench seats and the long bus lurched and bucked as the driver shifted the Loadstar into gear and began down the dusty, gravel road running beside the fields. Off in the far distance stood two stadium-sized pole buildings that slowly came into view. The man in khakis, still standing and holding onto a metal bar beside the back of the driver’s head, said, “We’re going to see where the potatoes are cleaned, sorted and bagged for grocery stores. That’s over in Building 1. On the left is Building 2, and that’s where the largest potatoes get prepped and processed into frozen French fries for one of our most important customers, who happens to be a fast food restaurant famous throughout the world. In fact, I bet you may have eaten there recently!”

The captivated ten- and eleven-year-olds again expressed appropriate shock and awe.

“But I’m going to keep that customer a secret until the very end of our tour,” said the guide, his tone becoming mischievous, “because that’s when you all get to take home a bag of some of those hot, fresh French fries.”

This caused the kids to erupt into screaming hysterics, as if they’d each been promised a free pony and trip to Disneyland rather than a fifty-cent serving of fries. Ms. Watson, a chubby, pink-faced, young woman who had donned denim overalls in keeping with the theme of today’s fieldtrip, half stood as she reached up from her front bench seat to grab the small, gray intercom from the guide’s grip and said into it, “Everyone needs to quiet down and stay in your seats, or you won’t be getting any French fries.” Then, as if questioning her own authority, she added, “Okay?” before handing back the device and repositioning herself.

The kids settled down, though a few groans rumbled up the aisle.

Once inside the building the motley group was handed off to the facility plant manager, their first “tour guide” needing to return to his office and finish up some account billing. Central Harvest’s facility plant manager, a giant of a man, led the gaggle of jumpy, fidgety kids past Maria Analise Zamora Del Toro and halted their progress a short distance away.

From where she stood at her sorting station, Maria looked briefly to the group and, despite her sciatica having returned with a menacing, snake-like grip, she gave the children she noticed watching her a big encouraging smile and wave with her gloved hand. The shooting nerve pain reached from the top of her hip down to the back of her knee. To relieve the pressure in her lower back she repeatedly shifted her weight by alternating her stance. She dropped her right foot back to the cement floor and placed her left onto the low stool jutting out from beneath the conveyor belt where she stood. The floor assistant had allowed Maria to bring the small, plastic footstool to her quality inspection station for the remainder of her pregnancy, though personal effects were normally forbidden out on the plant production floor for safety reasons. Over the last month the stool’s white top had muddied to a dull brown from the field dirt that found its way onto every surface and crevice, in spite of the constant efforts of a small, roving band of employees whose soul mission was to diligently wipe down equipment and sweep floors.

Maria worked as a sorter in Building 1 in the mornings. Most afternoons and weekends she worked as a bag changer in Building 2. At this point on the line in Building 1 the potatoes had already been scrubbed of eyes and roots, soaked and pressure rinsed and gone through the cold-air vent dryer. She studied the tubers moving past her on the conveyor, looking for any vestiges of life spent underground, along with green spots and other signs of rot. These she tossed into a large, wooden crate placed between herself and another inspector. Lesser specimens would still be eaten, but not as bagged potatoes for sale in supermarkets, whose consumers were unaccustomed to the look of actual produce; instead, these spuds, with their soft spots and suspicious knobs, were destined for a potato flake factory the next state over. Having grown up on a small, communal farm in El Salvador, Maria knew just about anything, once sufficiently cooked, could be made edible. These potatoes were perfectly fine, but she did her job as instructed.

Beyond her spot on the line the passable potatoes were conveyed to the size sorter. Here they would move through an automated, three-tiered sifting apparatus that worked on the same principle of baby rattles. The largest potatoes were trapped on the top shelf as smaller ones slid through the holes and landed onto the second shelf, with the smallest in size falling all the way to the bottom. From there, like a three-headed hydra the tracks split off in separate directions for automated bagging.

Maria had heard the facility plant manager’s presentation so often she could recite it by heart. Barry Brewster, whom the employees called Jefe B.B., wore the same long lab coat as did Maria and the dozens of other workers minding the machines throughout the facility, though his never became wet and soiled from the conveyors. “Our state has over 164,000 acres of land devoted to growing just potatoes, all kinds of potatoes. Who can tell me the names of some potatoes?”

Kids raised their hands eagerly. “I know!” “I do!” “I can!”

The kids shouted out familiar names such as, “Yukon Gold,” “Sweet Potatoes,” “Russets!” “Yams.”

“Yams aren’t potatoes, dummy!”

And so forth as the children chimed in and clamored to be heard and noticed over one another.

Jefe B.B. raised an arm to settle the kids down. “Okay, okay. Well, those are all good examples, but in our fields we grow primarily Ranger Russet and Russet Norkotah,” he said. These technical terms elicited little excitement from the kids except for one girl who piped up in an arrogant manner to a classmate, “Told you so!”

“Shelia,” said Ms. Watson, a mild warning in her voice, “be nice.”

“And with nearly 60,000 pounds of potato produced per acre, how much do you think that totals? Any guesses?”

The fifth graders giggled and looked to each as if one or the other classmate might actually know the answer. Then they turned toward their teacher, who, lacking a pocket calculator and mind for mental math, said, “I don’t know, y’all! Mr. Brewster, how much does that total?” Wide eyed and speaking with a singsong voice, Ms. Watson had the mannerisms of someone better suited for kindergarteners than clowning kids on the cusp of adolescent sarcasm. It would be several unhappy years before she realized this herself and quit teaching older kids.

Like a pack of attentive prairie dogs hearing the same noise at once, the children pivoted in unison back to the big man in the white lab coat with the clipboard.

“That’s nine billion, seven-hundred and fifty-eight million pounds of potatoes,” he said with pride, as though he himself had birthed those pounds of potatoes. “If you took all those potatoes we grow each year in just this state alone and put them in one of those there fifty-pound capacity crates,” he said, pointing to half dozen, empty, wooden crates stacked near the back metal, sliding, warehouse doors, “and laid those crates side to side like boxcars on a train, they would wrap around the earth twice!”

The schoolkids always went nuts at this part, and Maria readied herself for the volley of voices.

“No way!” “Holy moly.” “Are you sure?!”

“That’s a lot of French fries, isn’t it?” said the plant manager jovially.

“Oh my God!” one kid yelled, prompting Ms. Watson to warn, “Bradley, we don’t talk like that.”

A muffled “Sorry” returned from a towheaded boy with a cowlick in his hair and laughs from the boys on either side of him.

“Which of you is interested in seeing those potatoes get put into bags and loaded onto a delivery truck?” asked the facility plant manager.

When Jefe B.B.’s suggestion didn’t garner sufficient excitement from the kids, he raised the stakes. “Which of you wants to see your teacher drive a forklift?”

This had the desired effect; the kids went wild, jumping up and down and hollering, “Yeah,” “Me,” “I do!” “Me too.”

The group moved on, and Maria shifted her weight, now placing her right foot up on the low footstool. She looked at her wrist watch. It was nearly noon. She could take another dose of ibuprofen in an hour, though the nurse practitioner at the Central Valley Farmworkers’ clinic had frowned upon a mid-day dose, insisting that Maria hold off until nighttime unless she absolutely felt the need for pain relief. At this point in her shift Maria absolutely felt that need.

It was dark by the time Maria left through the heavy side door of Building 2. She had just finished another ten-hour day and was beginning her walk back to camp when the familiar, 1980 blue Toyota pickup pulled up alongside her. Its owner and driver, Jorge, and two other men she knew from camp sat up front; several other men, including her husband Carlos, sat perched on the side panels of the open back. Carlos reached over and released the tailgate, which fell flat with the sound of rusty hinges. He was about to help pull up his wife when one of the men from the cab got out, ran to the back and jumped in. “Mamas always ride in front,” the young man insisted, waving her away. Grateful for this chivalrous gesture, Maria smiled and acquiesced. She smiled and winked at Carlos before ducking into the cab.

The camp was over a mile up the road, and because she often walked home after work, she cradled a large flashlight as well as her footstool on her lap, both of which now further crowded the limited cabin space of the small truck’s interior. Maria hunched in her shoulders as tightly as possible as she sat pressed between Arturo and the metal, passenger doorframe. The truck bounced along slowly over the rutted gravel.

As they drove toward the lights of camp, Jorge, who was one of the few permanent employees on the farm, repeated to her and Arturo what he’d already told several others. There would be a meeting tonight; a lawyer from Central Valley Farmworkers Association wanted to talk to them; the entire camp was encouraged to be there. Though Jorge’s English was perfect, he spoke in Spanish to Maria and Arturo, as was customary between the farmworkers.

“A lawyer, why?” Arturo asked.

“Not sure,” lied Jorge. “We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.”

“Have there been raids?” asked Arturo, concerned.

“No, nothing like that,” said Jorge. He wanted to share the information about tonight’s meeting without it appearing as though he were its source. He’d told the lawyer a few days prior that she would have to hold her meeting outdoors, at the camp picnic shelter. Jorge had the key and maintained access to “the barn,” a small metal pole building with private showers and which functioned as a sort of ‘great hall’ where workers held their meetings and celebrations and could congregate when weather was too inclement for outdoors, but it wouldn’t be made available tonight. He’d also refused to distribute any of the fliers she’d offered him, though normally he gladly passed around information at the camp regarding free immunization clinics, changing hours at the Food Bank, winter coat giveaways, sport leagues’ signups for kids, and whatnot.

As they bumped along over the road Maria felt too tired to muster any curiosity regarding this new intrigue. She just wanted to go home, cook dinner, and get to sleep. She could already envision how nice it would be to stretch out and lay on her side with a pillow tucked between her knees. Never in her life had work been so physically taxing. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to stand without lower back and throbbing leg pain. And the baby, she was so excited to finally hold her little boy, whom she and Carlos had already named Ephran, after her father back home.

Once inside the fifth-wheel trailer they rented with another couple, Carlos talked with his wife about what they had both heard.

“What I think is perhaps there will be some changes,” he said, though without any real concern in his voice. “But what those are, I guess we’re going to find out.”

“Why is this so secretive?” she asked, cracking eggs for the omelets that would be their dinner.

“How do you mean?” asked Carlos.

“I mean, how come only now, right beforehand, we’re hearing of this meeting? Arturo mentioned raids.”

“There haven’t been any,” said Carlos dismissively.

“And so this lawyer is just coming to, what, say ‘Hello’ then?”

“You make it seem sinister, Maria.”

“No, I make it seem like what it is, which is either strange or suspicious. Mostly suspicious.”

Lately his wife puzzled him. They’d known each other back home. She was valiente. Maria was, or used to be, forward looking by nature, indefatigable, brave. Carlos believed his wife to be unique in this regard. She had come north at age thirteen, barely still a child, to be here with him. Carlos believed he knew his wife as well as he knew himself. “Maria, have something to eat, then go to bed, get some rest, and I’ll tell you everything in the morning. I think this pregnancy makes you nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” she snapped. And she wasn’t. “I’m suspicious.” And tired. Should she admit to that? She didn’t appreciate his patronizing tone. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman, not a child. She lowered the heat on the propane stovetop to prevent the oil from spattering. The smell of frying eggs filled the small space of the travel trailer. “What I think mostly is that it has been a very long day, and tomorrow will be just as long. And asking everyone to gather this late in the evening is,’ she thought of the word, and came back to it, “suspicious!”

Carlos patted her expanding belly and laughed. “New mamas are so, so careful.”

She rolled her eyes in reply and mumbled sarcastically, “Yeah, something like that.”

The next morning, before the sun rose, prior to the camp roosters beginning their throat clearing cacophony, Maria and Carlos lay beside one another whispering. As promised, he’d woken her early so they could talk in private before she left for Building 1. Carlos would be in the fields that day, clearing roots, and now would be his only spare time to speak with his wife before tonight. He was what Central Harvest called a ‘floater,’ working wherever he was needed most, and where that might be he usually didn’t know until the evening beforehand, when Jorge handed out the next day’s assignments. Carlos’ skills were nearly limitless. Some days he’d drive the open-topped truck alongside the harvester, and on others he might be called in to repair its engine. He did anything and everything. Usually he worked outdoors, however, due to his relative youth and stamina, clearing irrigation ditches, patching farm roads, or scouring for spots the harvester somehow missed. No one favored these latter tasks; the heat of the valley in summertime normally hit above a hundred in the open fields, and without benefit of tree shade heatstroke was a common risk.

“Look,” he said in a hushed voice, holding up Maria’s two most recent paystubs. They were lying on their backs on their bunk in the ‘granny attic’ of the trailer, the small overhead ceiling light illuminating the paper. A heavy, woolen blanket hung toward the foot of their bed as a makeshift wall to afford privacy and dampen noise from the couple at the other end of the trailer. “See here, this one says Central Harvest LLC, and this one,” gesturing to the paystub in his left hand, “is Central Harvest Inc. Don’t you get it? One is ‘LLC’ and the other is ‘Inc.’ It’s the same company, but they pretend it’s not the same company. This is how Central Harvest avoids paying us our overtime.”

Maria pointed to the respective names in the upper left corner of each check he held. “Central Harvest here, and Central Harvest there. So what?”

Carlos shook his head and began again, flummoxed that he had failed to convey his point. Maybe he was missing something important in the retelling of what the lady lawyer had explained last night, although to him it seemed perfectly clear. He sat up on the mattress, repositioned himself, and started over, choosing his words carefully. “Maria, there are labor laws. If you work more than forty hours in one week, then the boss has to pay you overtime, which is your hourly wage plus an additional half more of that wage for each hour you work that goes over forty hours.” He stared at her and waited for Maria to nod her head or give him some signal she was following his logic.

“Yes,” she said finally.

Carlos wasn’t sure whether he heard annoyance in her voice.

“Okay, so on this paystub,” he said, gesturing with the paper in his right hand, “Central Harvest LLC says you worked thirty hours.”

“Yes,” she said, “and they paid me for thirty hours. See?” Maria pointed to the gross amount on the check. “$4.25 an hour times thirty hours equals $127.50, and that’s what they paid me.”

“Okay. So now on this paystub,” Carlos said, “Central Harvest Inc. also says you worked thirty hours. Yes?”

“Yes. And they paid me for that as well.”

“Right. But just listen carefully. Your first thirty hours and your second thirty hours are from the same week. That means you worked sixty hours that week! But you were never paid your time-and-half pay, your overtime pay. Instead of $4.25 for sixty hours, by law they have to you $4.25 for the first forty hours and then $6.38 for the remaining twenty hours. The woman showed us last night.” He turned the checks over to their backsides where he had performed longhand multiplication in pencil at the lawyer’s urging. “Before taxes taken out you earned $255 last week, total with both checks. But you should have been paid $297.60!”

Maria studied Carlos’ numeric scratch marks carefully on the back of the paystubs.

“Central Harvest Inc. and Central Harvest LLC are really the same company!” he reiterated. Carlos seemed almost giddy, speaking with the eagerness of someone who had just discovered a long lost item or solved the clue to a riddle.

Maria shushed him.

“Maria, you didn’t work thirty hours for two separate companies; you worked sixty hours for the same company!”

She continued to look over the math on the back of her paystubs, nodded her head and said calmly, “I see.”

“You do?” he asked, smiling.

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, aren’t you angry?”

“Maybe. Yes,” she said, her voice trailing off. She shook her head faintly. “But still.”

“But still nothing, Maria. The company steals over forty dollars every week from you! And from me. From all of us,” Carlos said.

“Yes, I understand,” she said, her demeanor of stoic detachment unchanged. She had complicated feelings, and she wished her husband wouldn’t make such a big deal out of this just now. It was too early in the morning, and she had a whole day of work in front of her.

But when his wife didn’t seem sufficiently upset or scandalized about this unlawful pay practice, he added more forcefully, angrily, “Thank about it, Maria; a man works fifty-two weeks a year, that’s over $2,200 stolen from him every twelve months. For us, together, that’s $4,400!” He slapped the paystubs down on the blanket and crossed his arms. “What could we do with that kind of money, huh? Send for family, maybe save up and buy our own house, who knows? It was our money, we earned it, but they kept it. That is stealing! And they aren’t the only farm doing it. The lawyer, she said other big growers do the same thing, pretending to be two companies instead of one.”

Maria urged Carlos to keep his voice low; the other couple at the far end of the trailer was still asleep. “Okay, so what can we do?” she asked, trying to remain patient and placate her husband. She felt guilty somehow for discussing this, and she didn’t want anyone to hear them.

“Central Valley Farmworkers Association wants us to join a class action law suit.”

“A lawsuit? You mean take Central Harvest to court and sue them?”

“Yes, all of us. We’d all together be the plaintiffs. There is another farm already being sued for this same thing.”

She looked out the small window at the head of their mattress. The sky had lost its purple hue and was awash with the blood orange of sunrise; the fog-like mist that rose over the crops as the dewy topsoil gave up the last of its stored heat had already burned off. She could tell it would be a searing hot day. Then she turned to her husband. “Carlos, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Carlos did a double take, stared at his wife, and shook his head in dismay. “Why not? We talked it over last night; even Jorge thinks we should go along with it too.”

Why not? Was her husband always this foolish and she was only now noticing? Why not. Maria shook her head. Because they were using social security numbers they’d purchased in Arizona years ago. Because Jorge was born in El Paso, and it’s easy for people like him and lawyers in nice suits to talk about how the world should be, but that didn’t change the way things actually were. Because they were about to have a baby, and their families were far away. Because unlike so many of her married girlfriends, Maria had waited a long time after marring to have a child because more than anything in the world she craved security. She could think of many reasons for “why not,” but she chose her answer carefully. “We almost have enough saved to purchase our own trailer,” she said. “Our own place with actual privacy and space for a baby.”

“Yes, but I think you’re missing the point, Maria. This won’t cost us any money.”

“Are you missing mine?” How she wished he’d stop acting so excited about all of this. The condescension in her voice barely hidden, she said to her husband, “When Jefe B.B. finds out everyone is suing the company, do you think he’ll keep us working here?”

“The lawyer said they can’t fire us for joining the lawsuit. It’s against federal labor laws,” said Carlos triumphantly. He had written down the term “retaliatory discharge” next to the lawyer’s name and the 1-800 number for Central Valley Farmworkers Association on the back of one of his wife’s paystub. “B.B. is a good guy anyway. His mom’s from Mexico!”

“Against federal laws? Carlos.” Maria almost laughed at the irony but didn’t; her husband offended too easily at times. But was he really so naïve? “Just think. I listen to the news. We both know how things works. In big lawsuits the lawyers get all the money. Say we win. Okay, maybe we get our pay owed us. Maybe they start paying more like they should. I don’t know, and neither do you. But in the meantime we won’t be here to know because B.B. may not be the one who calls in immigration enforcement, but someone will. That’s what they do when people get pushy. There are legal ways, federal laws, to punish someone for biting the hand that feeds you.”

Carlos looked at Maria. He was about to argue back and then decided it would be unwise; the pregnancy, it made his wife irritable and short tempered. He’d bring up what the lawyer said later, talk it over instead with some of the other men. Besides which, if he wanted to get the hardest and dirtiest work done and over with before the afternoon heat kicked in, he needed to get started. He grabbed his Levi’s from the foot of the bed, pushed aside the blanket, and climbed down the bunk ladder.

As it had turned out Central Harvest had done everything right, on paper at least. Pretrial discovery showed Central Harvest Inc. leased half its land along with Building 2 and necessary equipment to Central Harvest LLC, which paid a monthly, albeit ridiculously modest, rent in return. The invoices and reimbursements submitted as evidence proved there had been proper accounting and documentation.

Upon the respondents’ pretrial motion to dismiss the case, the judge, an aged man with watery eyes but a surprisingly full head of thick, white hair, carefully considered the farmworkers’ arguments against their employers. The production facilities of both entities stood side by side, connected by a covered walkway, in fact. The employees were essentially interchangeable, appearing uniformly on both payrolls. Also, the migrant camp was managed by both companies acting as one. And finally, most tellingly, the same family members were the shareholders of both Central Harvest Inc. and Central Harvest LLC. There really was no reason for the law not to treat them as one in the same. This business arrangement was clearly an attempt to skirt regulations regarding mandatory overtime pay. Indeed, by not allowing any of their employees to work over thirty hours a week at either production facility, Central Harvest had managed to avoid a host of regulations designed to protect fulltime employees.

But none of which was unlawful, countered the attorneys for Central Harvest Inc. and LLC. Despite their next door proximity, the production facilities paid separate utility bills; the employees’ hours were broken down for work performed at each plant and respective pay drawn from separate bank accounts. As for the camp, like most migrant setups it was historically managed and maintained by the workers each season; the growers merely arranged for garbage removal and made sure the water and sewer were operational. Regarding shareholders, was there some prohibition against that, as long as all formalities required under state law were followed?

The federal magistrate liked to consider himself a wise and thoughtful jurist, having faithfully fulfilled his office for nearly thirty years, which didn’t include the fifteen years he worked as a federal deputy prosecutor before that, a man who had seen every manner of financial scheme and shell game, both legal and illegal, during his tenure. He seemed genuinely pained as he handed down a ruling in favor of the respondents, Central Harvest LLC and its parent company, Central Harvest Inc.

“Short of at least a prima facie showing that the class of employees had been systematically coerced into working overtime by one or the other of respondents, I find no basis to support a claim.” He looked up from his notes and frowned at the table of attorneys representing Central Harvest. Then, as if sounding a dog whistle, the judge spoke directly to the young man and woman who comprised the entirety of Central Valley Farmworkers Association’s legal department, only one of whom was actually an attorney, the other an intern learning the ropes of public interest law. “This dismissal is without prejudice.”

Diane Havers, the lawyer at the plaintiff’s table smiled and nodded. Understanding that the judge’s ruling left the plaintiffs free to refile the case after they gathered the necessary evidence of coercion, she said, “Understood, Your Honor.”

The judge hit his gavel and rose. The court clerk quickly stood and shouted, “All rise,” as the hunched figure wearing the black robe of justice went through a side door and disappeared.

Ms. Havers looked over to the other table where five men, all middle-aged attorneys in tailored pinstripe and worsted wool suits, were assembled. In as firm and even a tone as she could muster following the embarrassing but presumably temporary setback, said to them, “We’ll be back, gentlemen.”

“Sure you will, Sweetheart,” said one of the lawyers as he gathered up his papers. Then, turning to his colleagues, “Who wants a celebratory drink?”

But Central Valley Farmworkers Association didn’t come back to court that year, nor the next. By time the judge’s ruling had been handed down, the potato harvest was over. Most of those same workers had moved north to the apple orchards along the foothills to find work as pickers. The farmworker’s Association sent a third-year law student along with an interpreter to find them and gather statements to show how Central Harvest had in fact demanded workers accept the ad hoc overtime arrangement or be refused work for the season. But word had spread, and no one any longer wished to cooperate with the lawsuit; if someone like Jorge could lose his job, no one’s was safe, they figured. And there was near universal consensus that most would be returning to Central Harvest in the summer; it was a reliable employer, the facilities were safe, the checks never bounced, and for the most part management was fair. All in all, it was a good place to work.

By mid-June of the following year Carlos and Maria’s 1978 Winnebago Chieftain was already parked alongside the endless rows of white, flowering potato plants. Each day several more families arrived at the camp. The Winnebago wasn’t much, but it was theirs, all theirs and only theirs. And the money they could now save on rent would go toward purchasing land someday in their son’s name since he was a U.S. citizen. Carlos had begun removing the motorhome’s pressed particleboard cabinetry to make room for his own handcrafted woodwork. Maria, meanwhile, was busily forming what she hoped would become a reliable co-op comprised of other women with infants and preschoolers in order that they could alternate childcare among one another. Ephran, sporting chubby cheeks and fat rolls, was seven months old, with his sibling due to be born in as many months. This was the life she had imagined for herself so many years ago, and now it was coming to fruition. These were warm, bright days in the valley. And they were very happy.

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