"Every state in the U.S. has American youth working on farms, many of whom are under the age of 12. These kids sometimes work 14-hour days, others five to six hours per day, seven days a week. The youngest do not have Social Security cards but are allowed to work legally with the permission of their parents, some as young as 6 years. Many of these migrant families are barely surviving, so every able-bodied member of the family is on the job. The irony is that many migrant families can’t even afford to buy the vegetables and fruits they picked.
The law requires migrant children to attend school. Many work on weekends, or before and after school. These groups of youth are at the highest risk of becoming dropouts. Countless numbers of these students are held back, because they haven’t finished the required hours, or their transcripts have been lost in the mail as they are constantly transient.
During the Depression, laws were passed to create incentives for helping farmers remain on the land. The 1938 labor laws excluded children working in agriculture from the same humane labor protections required by other industries hiring children in the workforce. Nothing much has changed. As a result, migrant American children are still being exploited by these draconian laws."
~ Burt Baldwin
https://www.durangotelegraph.com/opinion/end-of-the-line/children-of-the-field/
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