This report is part of the collaboration 'NBC News and Noticias Telemundo reportan', which shows the work of correspondents from both networks in English and Spanish. [Read in English]
By Didi Martinez, Christine Romo, Gabe Gutierrez and Nicole Suárez
SAN LUIS, Arizona.- Jimena and Leslie Aguilar know that you reap what you sow, because practically every day the teenage sisters do farm work.
So they both know that to get what they want they need to keep studying.
Jimena, 17, says she wants to be a surgeon;
Leslie, 15, dreams of being a pediatrician.
But staying in school is not easy for the sisters, who have become the main
providers for their entire family since their parents were deported
to the Mexican side of the border with Arizona two years ago.
"It is a huge responsibility.
You have to take care of the children, "Jimena told a team from NBC News and Noticias Telemundo about her siblings," and cook for them, clean, all that.
In addition to paying rent and various other expenses;
all in the middle of a pandemic.
To pay for it, during the week, both teenagers, American citizens
, have lined up at 4 in the morning
in a parking lot of a bank in the border town of San Luis, waiting to be chosen for a day of arduous work in the fields of Arizona.
On a recent morning in September, Leslie was left alone in the parking lot as she watched Jimena board one of the buses that takes day laborers to a farm.
It was the first time the sisters hadn't traveled together, and Leslie was worried.
[Crossing the border into Mexico is the hope of many in the United States for medical care]
“I don't know where it's going to end.
I don't know who she stays with, where they are taking her or anything like that, ”he said.
"I don't like it, because we usually go together," but added that it is necessary because at least one of the two needs to work to help the family.
Migrant workers and day laborers gathered in a bank parking lot, waiting for buses to take them to jobs in Arizona fields.Christine Romo for NBC News
The Aguilar girls had been in the parking lot since 10:00 the night before, approaching every bus that arrived, looking for a job, which was especially difficult that September day.
Arizona is transitioning between harvest seasons, so there are more day laborers looking for jobs.
That first day adult men and more experienced workers were hired.
“They know that we come every day looking for work,” Leslie said.
And they don't choose us.
They wish they could do it, but they don't because there are rules;
some only need males ”.
Over the past year, the sisters have worked in the fields eight hours a day and five days a week.
It's just two of
400,000 to 500,000 underage farmworkers who harvest the food Americans eat
, according to the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP).
[Distance education is a challenge for children with special needs or who learn a second language]
Current Department of Labor regulations allow children, sometimes as young as 12 years old, to do farm work.
Many are minors who do not live with their parents, according to data.
Experts say that, as a result of this situation, there is a whole
generation of girls and boys whose lives revolve around the countryside and who struggle to study.
Jimena (left) and Leslie Aguilar on the way to visit their parents in Sonora, Mexico.Christine Romo for NBC News
The Aguilar sisters, for example, study high school in addition to working 40 hours a week.
They try to finish their homework late at night and then take a nap, if they can -
many nights they don't even sleep.
The danger is that the educational system will bypass underage and migrant day laborers.
However, there are also organizations and individuals dedicated to preventing that from happening.
The tools to have
The Office of Migrant Education, part of the federal Department of Education, has several programs so
that day laborers and children of agricultural workers can finish elementary school, high school and even college.
The Migrant Education Program (MEP) provides support to those under the age of 21, while the Itinerant Workers College Assistance Program (CAMP) provides financial assistance to graduates.
The projects were established so that young people like the Aguilar can overcome the barriers that hold back their education.
"Imagine moving from one state to another without knowing absolutely anyone and not knowing where to go to help your children get resources," said Laura Alvarez, the director of MEP in the state of Arizona.
"That's where we come in, because it
's disturbing to think about what would happen if our program didn't exist."
[Undocumented workers who feed California risk their health to get money during the pandemic]
About 10,000 students can apply for MEP assistance in Arizona, where the agricultural industry makes up to $ 23 billion in profits, according to Department of Education data.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Alvarez's educational team would visit the fields to interview farm workers and to find youth who could benefit from the program's resources, including even glasses and hearing aids for those who needed them.
Altogether,
“any tool to help them be successful in school,
” Alvarez explained.
Nicole Suárez, a Telemundo correspondent, speaks with the foreman of a melon field in Arizona.Christine Romo for NBC News
Crane Great Beginnings Preschool, in Yuma, Arizona, is one of the schools participating in the state Migrant Education Program.Christine Romo for NBC News
Now with the coronavirus there is another challenge: how to ensure that underage day laborers, including migrants, have
access to computers and the internet
now that many Arizona schools are having virtual-only classes.
“We are definitely concerned that for migrant children and for our students in those [agricultural] communities accessing the internet is difficult,” said Kathy Hoffman, superintendent for public education in Arizona.
“Sometimes it's not so much if they have a laptop or not, but when they bring the laptop home they probably don't have Wi-Fi.
So it is not something very convenient for the educational experience ”, he indicated.
Experimental assists; strenuous hours
In places like the PPEP TEC High secondary schools,
charter
schools
focused on educating vulnerable populations such as homeless minors or migrants, computers and mobile connection points were distributed to households in need.
In very rare circumstances, PPEP TEC also allowed some students, like the Aguilar sisters, to have experimental mechanisms for classes;
They send them
homework packets instead of having courses every day.
[How is a working day in a tomato field]
The Aguilars comment that it is difficult to stay in school while they work, but that they want to prioritize their education to become "great people."
Currently they only take classes on Fridays, and even then they hardly have any free time.
When there is agricultural work, the young women wait for buses in various parking lots from 4:30 in the morning;
buses take them to fields an hour and a half away.
Although some farm workers immigrate to work in fields across the United States, many cross the border daily to work as day laborers.Christine Romo for NBC News
There they usually work eight hours clearing weeds from the land where melons are harvested.
Then they take the buses back and, on the way home, they
try to do homework or take naps.
They arrive home around 4:00 pm, when they try to get some sleep.
By 10:00 at night they are awake again, to finish their missing homework and to study until 3 in the morning, when they leave on their way to the parking lot again.
"It's difficult, but at the same time it's good, because that's how we continue in school," said Jimena Aguilar.
"And so we don't miss a single day of work either."
Jimena is the oldest of five siblings, so they weigh more responsibilities on her back to take care of others.
In addition,
with their income, the sisters help their parents
, who recently lost their job in Mexico, where they were deported, due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Jimena and Leslie earn
around $ 500 a week each
.
They live with friends of their family to whom they pay rent;
With what is left over, they buy food and pay for the services used by them and their three brothers.
Whatever they have left, they send it to Mexico.
Every day buses like these transport day laborers to fields in Arizona and California.Christine Romo for NBC News
Workers in a melon field prepare land for cultivation.Christine Romo for NBC News
[Millions of students in Mexico drop out of school due to lack of resources due to the pandemic]
The sisters acknowledge that the situation has made them behave more like adults than they would like at their age, but they emphasize that their parents were emphatic and told them: “'Girls, always, every time, think first about what the whole house needs and then on what you need ”.
Success stories, with a little help from friends
The Aguilar's experiences are similar to those of many adolescents and young adults who work in the fields of the United States and with their salary they help parents and other relatives who live on the other side of the border.
Erick Delamantes is currently studying at Arizona Western College.
A few days ago he was stationed against a white truck facing the fields where he worked as a high school.
He still has
long hours in
mind
, especially long when he would have preferred to spend time with his family without losing his job.
Her relatives are in Mexico;
her job and her studies are in Arizona.
"I was alone here in the United States," Delamantes told NBC News and Noticias Telemundo.
On weekends "I woke up at 2 in the morning" and lined up to cross from the Mexican side in search of work, while "it was very, very cold because it was also work during the winter season," he added.
Now with the help of the CAMP program, Erick no longer has to work in the fields.
He would like to pursue a career as an educator.
Erick Delamantes is now a full-time student thanks to the support of state programs so that young people who work in the fields can continue in class.Christine Romo for NBC News
A fellow at Arizona Western College, Luis Vargas, is also a CAMP recipient.
He started
doing farm work as a child and still works in the fields to help his parents.
"It is a lot of responsibility, because they cannot enter the United States," Vargas said.
"They have a salary in Mexican pesos and I have to work here to get money that my brothers and the whole house can also support themselves with."
Vargas stressed that despite the barriers and the feeling of remoteness "we have to move on" to fulfill the dreams and goals that young people like him have.
There is little data on how many underage day laborers live without their parents, explained Kendra Moesle of the Campaign for Children in the Field of AFOP, the farmworkers association.
Although data from a survey by the Department of Labor indicate that only 10% of the young farmers surveyed lived with their parents between 2004 and 2009.
["We Feel on the Brink of Death": The Lives of Visa Immigrant Farm Workers in the United States]
"Very few of the farm workers" are from impoverished white families as they used to be in the early 1800s, Moesle said.
“Currently some are young blacks, others are Caribbean, but almost all share some link with another country
.
The pattern is almost always that if they were not born abroad themselves then their parents are from another country
”.
The fact that their parents are on the other side of the border is one of the reasons that motivates them to work hard both in school and in the field, although the Aguilar sisters say that being separated from their parents is emotionally difficult.
"I miss that we are together, when we always wake up in the morning and we get hugs," said Jimena Aguilar.
Although there is a well-deserved rest on Sundays: the teenagers cross from Yuma County to San Luis Río Colorado, in Sonora, to see their mom and dad.
It helps that the girls live about 25 miles from two different border bridges.
On the occasion that the NBC News and Noticias Telemundo team accompanied the young women on their journey, Jimena and Leslie prepared to cross carrying only
the basics: bottles of water, their purse and, what could not be missing, their homework.
Jimena Aguilar along with other farm workers in a melon field in Arizona.Christine Romo for NBC News