The wheat field in the center goes on for miles. Beautiful flowers of gold and green stretching everywhere the eye could see. Off to the left are the cornfields; stalks of yellow and green protruding upwards from the ground. Far off to the right is the greenhouse, where inside some of the workers are experimenting with the cultivation of the cotton plant. And opposite the greenhouse are the rice fields where I am working today. You see, every day here is an adventure. We change jobs here: yesterday was the wheat, today the rice and tomorrow the corn. More to learn, never a day wasted, no one gets bored. If one person can’t pick up the slack, then another one will. Younger workers are more pliable in their eyes. Some can handle more than others. That is their fate.
We are migrant workers and we are paid as well. It’s not a fortune, but it serves the purpose of our small community. Well, come to think of it, it really isn’t so small. There are millions, maybe even billions of unwanted victims here. We are made up of minorities, the Jews, African Americans, Native Americans, gays and many, many more of us that didn’t fit in; that the conservative right does not deem us worthy.
I remember when we first arrived here in Camp Lincoln, the name of our little corner of the world. We came here by bus, trains, cabs and airplanes. All with no windows to see where we were headed. No cars are allowed to travel the roads here, except for authorized personnel meaning our guards.
We were herded into what looked like villages, named after past and current U.S. government officials. Each camp has a number. Ours is 2036 and we have to wear our badges proudly every single day so that everyone knows who we are and where we belong. We cannot go visiting other camps; not without permission or papers from the guards.
All of us are squeezed into tiny camp houses; the ones that were so popular after the turn of the 20th century. We are lucky just to have one family living with us although some of these tiny houses can have upwards of 3 to 5 families living there. We are treated well, especially if you do a great job. We are home schooled, mostly at night after dinner and after the chores are done. Then we are expected to rise early in the morning and put in a full day in the fields.
Every little village is divided up into separate groups. The Jews have their own, so do the African Americans and the gays and so on and so forth. Everyone here is from very different and distinctive backgrounds; people who come in different colors, shapes and sizes, not like the boring universe of the small minded conservative set who want everything the same way all the time.
If you’re wondering who the narrator is, well, my name is Adam and I just turned 16. My parents are both males; my father’s name is Jacob and he’s a Jew. I was raised that way, even though Brian is African American. At first, the guards were having a difficult time placing us, but seeing how many more mixed couples arrived at the camp, they decided to create our own little village.
We share the house with another mixed race couple named Karen and Sharon (no joke) and their two children. Eve is my age and Elsa is 4 years younger. If you are anywhere over 55 years old, you are sent away to what is known as “the offices”. These are two rather large buildings off in the distance and can be seen above the cornfields to the left. They say that you can live and work there, but you are not allowed to leave. My grandmother was one of the women who had been whisked away and just disappeared, swallowed up, never to be seen again. I hope and pray that she is still alive, for my mother’s sake. We cannot question the authorities either. We just have to take their word for and pray we will see her again. For now we do as we are told.
And we do what is asked of us, especially when it comes to our work. The guards expect nothing but perfection from each of us, even though we both know that it is impossible. We do our best every single day and never deviate from our mindset. We follow the same schedule every day, to stray from our set path is wrong and can result in disciplinary action. So we have to go where we are assigned.
After picking, we need to clean and glean whatever we’ve collected over the course of the day. There are wooden sheds that we call workhouses. These are basically little shacks with a counter. There are hundreds of these shacks and they are situated next to one another off the beaten path. This is where the cleaning and the separating happen. We are provided with the equipment and the tools to help us. It can hold up to 10 people on a good day.
After we clean, everything is packed into round containers and is taken to the storage facilities, which I’m told is right next door to the offices.
Eventually, these foodstuffs will find their way to the hungry mass of people who have literally separated us from their society, their way of life because they find us too offensive to live among them. It is strange, well, to my mind anyway, that they will take food that we have grown and cultivated, but will not allow us to walk amongst them as a free and proud people.
And so this is our story. Someday we will rise above the ashes and declare our freedom, but until that day comes, this is the way it must be for now. Who knows what may happen in the future.
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