Competition Between the Pickers

On pages 88 and 89, we are given the description of the competition between the pickers. They constant fight each, struggling to pick more, eat more, and earn more money. The description Barrio gives of Manuel, one of the pickers, and his experience is “total immersion, the endless, ceaseless, total use of all his energies and spirit and mind and being” (88). They have little time for enjoyment, and do not even have spare time to eat their plates or clean the house. The pickers gulp down their food and use paper and plastic plates. The pickers bring their lunches with them in pails because they cannot afford to buy food, let alone the time to go and get it. Barrio describes how the competition is so fierce between them, that they are their own slave drivers. No foremen were needed, because the pickers kept their own pace, constantly pushing themselves, worried that they would be out of a job and not be able to support themselves and their families. “That was the cleverest part of the whole thing” (89). The bookkeepers paid the pickers very little, so they would work faster and continue the vicious cycle.