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Research Paper On Apples In America

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Apples in America Apples have been a popular food for thousands of years across many cultures in history, including the Greeks, Romans, and Celts. However, apples are not native to America. The Native Americans only had crabapples before European settlers brought apples as we know them today to America. The Native Americans quickly spread and cultivated the “new” apples throughout America (Association 2017). In today’s industrialized world, apple production has become a billion dollar industry. Most people do not think about where their food comes from. They just go to the grocery store and buy what they want with little to no thought if a fruit or vegetable is in season or where it came from before the grocery store. For the purpose of this …show more content…

In it, Martinez talks about his life as a migrant farm worker who travels to Pennsylvania each year with his wife and five children to work on an apple orchard and the difficulties that he and his family face from not having a stable home or income. His five children must change schools each time they travel to a new location. His three year old daughter also has leukemia and requires medical care. His job is risky and he says that he wants to save up to settle down. They truly live a modern nomadic lifestyle. The article also says that nationwide, an estimated 70,000 workers pick apples every fall. Many are single men who live in "camps" right on the farms. Those rooms are basic, and cramped. Martinez and his family rent a small apartment (Charles 2015). It is a very difficult transient lifestyle that is hard for someone who has never lived that way to comprehend. My first husband was a migrant farm worker (mostly on dairy farms) and we moved with our three children more times than I can count. To this day I still have issues with security and it continues to affect my three oldest children as well even though they are now adults. My youngest daughter from my second marriage is fourteen and has only lived in three places her entire life because of my adversity to moving, my need for security, and simply wanting her to have a better life than my older children had. I digress, my point is that these workers, the apple pickers, live an extremely hard life and the effects trickle down to every member of their

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