In early July 2021, I was riding with my brother Bob in a truck on North Dakota Route 168, about forty miles from the Minnesota state line. There were only a few small towns that had shrunk from a population of 3,000 to only twenty or thirty houses. Bob explained that this downfall began in the eighties with the drop in demand for sugar beets, and had been exacerbated by the poor growing conditions in more recent years, and now by the pandemic.
It was the last hours of twilight, both of us were very tired after getting up early and already having driven 400 miles that day. We seemed to be the only vehicle on the road, except for huge semis that, going much faster than the 70 mph limit, left our truck quaking. I saw bright white at the edge of the road reflecting from our headlights. It was a hitchhiker, standing, beard unshaven, wearing wrinkled clothes, shirt sleeves ragged at the wrist, and a small rucksack slung over his shoulders.
I’d been sleepy, trying to stay alert to watch for deer that might bound out in front of us. But now, the thought of this man who seemingly no one cared about, spending the night on the side of the road tore at me, and I became wide awake.
“Bob, I hate to say this, but do you think we’d dare pick him up?”
“I would’ve turned around and done just that, but there’s no place in this truck for him to sit. Not even in the front. No place to put the stuff jammed between us either.”
“How far is it to the next town?”
“Oh, probably twenty miles,” he said.
I couldn’t see any houses, or buildings of any kind.
“What will that man do tonight? Where will he sleep? Where will he get water and food?”
“He probably won't eat. Unless he finds a few dropped kernels of corn that the birds haven't gotten. He may find a spring. I hope he's wise enough not to drink run-off water. That's all been tainted by the chemicals used to keep the weeds in check."
I stayed silent, tormented by what this man's night would be.
"He’ll have to look for a dry place, and hope that he doesn’t get set upon.”
“Who would do that!”
“I assume he’s a migrant worker who’s been abandoned by the boss who brought him across the southern border. When crops are poor–and I’ve never seen them so bad as this year–the big guys, knowing there won’t be any profit, just pull out, letting the workers fend for themselves.”
"He's probably looking for work on a dairy farm near here,” Bob continued.
The lack of government regulation of migrant workers means that they toil long hours in adverse conditions for little pay. They often live in unsafe accommodations that are overcrowded and unsanitary. They accept this because they have no other choice.
During the summers that I was a college student decades ago, I worked at the Big Stone Canning Company, located on the South Dakota-Minnesota state line. Each growing season, the firm employed seasonal migrant laborers from Mexico to pick the crops. When the early vegetable season had ended, they moved on to the sugar-beet fields of North Dakota, returning to the canning company after that to pick sweet corn.
I saw the minimal housing conditions, and witnessed the men, women, and children working long hours in the hot fields. On Sundays the families attended Mass at Saint Charles Borromeo Church in Big Stone City, joining the congregation just as my family did. They sat on folding chairs in the back of the choir loft. Bob remembers that, although their clothes were worn and patched, they were clean, and he says the matriarchs made sure that the children were respectful. Bob adds, with a wry tone in his voice, that they were better behaved than the parish’s children–including him!
If I were to make a gallery of photos that I was unable to take in 2021, at the top of the list would be the man standing by the side of that North Dakota road.