March Your Turn Winner: Working with what you've got

By Gao Vang, of Washburn High School

I have worked every summer since I can remember growing vegetables, tending to them and selling them.

I am Hmong. My parents came from Laos during the Vietnam War and traveled to the United States. Before the war my father had been wealthy: he was a colonel and our family had a beautiful home.

When my family arrived in the U.S. we had close to nothing. With help, my parents were able to buy a plot of land and work it, and sold produce at the Minneapolis Farmers Market.

I dreaded summer. It was supposed to be a break from school, a time to run around and have fun, but for me and my older siblings it meant waking up at 6 a.m. and laboring in the heat.

Raising vegetables is time- and labor-intensive: from buying seeds to planting, weeding, spraying pesticides, and more. When crops were finally grown, we would have to pick them, wash them, and prepare them for sale.

Market days meant getting up at 4 a.m. and hoping we would be able to get a spot. We set up our wares in beautifully arranged displays to sell our produce. We’d have to attract customers, be quick with numbers and change and bag up the vegetables for them — for customers who were at times irksome. They often didn’t think about the work we put into our produce and tried to cheat us out of our money when they were already getting a deal.

We grew eggplants, spinach, tomatoes, greens, daikon, kohlrabi, zucchini, beans, onions, peppers, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, radish, broccoli, and much more.

I remember picking beans planted in ten or more rows that seemed to stretch on endlessly. They were the first thing we picked because they took so much time. I would work on one row, my siblings each had their own, and my mother would take two rows. I swear I felt l was going crazy at times. An hour would pass and I would’ve only progressed a few feet, and everyone else would be ahead of me.

I would sit on my bucket and pick the ripe green beans, pestered by insects. If I was lucky I would get to do some other chore instead, like helping my brother pick zucchini.

We would start at the end of the long rows and work our way back to the beginning. He would cut them from their stems and give them to me to place in the bushel. If it had rained the day before, I would have the task of wiping them off with a cloth and gently placing them in the bushel so as not to bruise or scrape their tender skins.

I despised green onions because we would have to peel bushels of them. My eyes would tear up and a hill of peelings would pile up. I was never able to get the smell of herbs and vegetables off of me.

Every summer my hands would get rough, dry, calloused, and my fingernails would get dirty, no matter how many times I tried to clean them. I expect my mother will never be able to hide the signs of the rough work her hands have done no matter how many lotions and remedies she tries.

The weather conditions could be unbearably hot. I would cover up my body because I didn’t want to my skin to get dark. I’d spray my face with cold water from the hose and try to cool off with a drink from old, and often times dirty, bottles of water we had to refill the night before and put in a cooler.

When it was fall, we would still be working our land and it could get so cold that the water in which we washed our vegetables would make my hands and arms numb.

Rain meant mud and made it more difficult to carry heavy bushels of vegetables. Rain meant extra washing for the vegetables, and cold sprays of mist that would soak our clothes. Bending over to pick vegetables was very trying on our backs. We were in a constant state of dirtiness. We would drive home tired, and we still had work to do when we got there.

My mother was the hardest worker of us all. She would wake up the earliest, prepare some sort of makeshift lunch and take on the biggest workload throughout the day — easing our burden. A perfectionist, she would rewash vegetables if our work didn’t suit her.

My father worked hard, but not as hard as our mother. He was tough, and at times mean and unrelenting, but that was who he was. He was no stranger to work, but the shift from what he once had been to what he now was has always affected him.

We usually got hungry working at the farm and we would bring snacks or make meals there, but sometimes we would have to go someplace — a gas station, a store, a fast-food place — and get food.

I hated going inside because we were so dirty and poorly dressed. My parents don’t speak English well so my siblings and I would have to translate. It was very embarrassing. I realize feeling that way was foolish now, but at the time I felt it strongly.

One time, my dad stopped at Burger King and made us go eat inside. My sister was so angry that she refused to eat. My mother was hesitant as well and told my dad to calm himself. I was made to order and we all sat in the booth. My mom and I grudgingly ate small bites. My father shoveled down his food.

I remember it so vividly — the onslaught of emotions, my heated face and flushed cheeks. I tried to hide by lowering myself into the seat. I tried to be as small as possible to make up for my dad’s public display and our outward appearances.

We always stopped at the gas station and I would tell my mom or dad to buy a snack for me, but I usually never went in. One time my dad stopped at a gas station and he asked me what I wanted. I told him some type of candy. As he finished filling up the tank, he asked me how to use some of the buttons. I had no idea, and as I went inside the gas station with him to ask, I could sense his anger and confusion.

He started yelling at the workers and his broken English and curse words sounded so hideous and embarrassing to me. As he paid for the gas, he told me to get what I wanted. I was so stricken with embarrassment and anger I told him I didn’t want anything anymore. I think that made him angrier. We drove home in silence, each fuming.

I had a lot of good times at the farm too. I love my siblings a lot and we tried to make it fun when we could. We would go exploring, pick berries, play with old vegetables that weren’t good enough for market, play with the mud, and dance in the rain.

During the late summer there would be clouds of monarch butterflies behind our shack — a wondrous sight. Sometimes we would make delicious food with our own vegetables. The end of summer was flavored by sweet corn and melons.

While picking cucumbers, we would cut a few and eat them. We’d sprinkle salt on tomatoes and eat them with rice and water. We’d dare each other to eat spicy peppers, to collect bugs, to catch a toad. We’d have water fights with the hose, or make rain by pointing the nozzle up and let the light mist and rush of air that comes with it fall on our faces.

We made our own games: laughter is indeed the best medicine.

I truly hated and resented it sometimes, but after a long winter I longed to see the land again. I miss the family memories and the sense of kinship and camaraderie in our shared burden.

We quit farming just a few years ago and though I don’t think about it much, when I do, the memories come flooding back.

At times I was bitter about working the farm, and it gave me a hardened view of the world, but in the long run I benefited. I appreciate my family more, and the strength it took to rebuild and start fresh in a new country.

I can understand and tolerate my parents more. All the hard work we did has truly made me a stronger person — more mature, and smarter. I learned that I am capable and I can persevere through tough times.

Frederick Douglass got it right when he said people might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

Honest, hard work is necessary for success. To me, success means being able to provide for your family, live a good and decent life, and teach your children to work hard for what they want.

My sweat and blood ran into that soil, but it taught me this lesson and I don’t think anything else could have.