His grandchildren are leaving the fields. His great-grandchildren are bound for American universities. The Silva family is the Mexican immigrant story run its course. They are the work force. Washington growers say they have an adequate labor supply for the time-sensitive and physically exhausting harvests only because much of that labor is illegal.
Mechanization offers no short-term solution.
Of Washington's major fruit crops, only grapes are harvested by machine. All berries, hops and fruit trees rely extensively on hand labor, from planting through harvest. It is hard work, stooping to divide hop roots and cut asparagus by single spears. Tedious work, training thousands of hop vines one at a time on their trellises, or twisting blossoms off fruit trees to thin the crop. Dangerous work, pruning fruit trees, the cause of more eye injuries than any other job in Washington east of the Cascades.