99% of them are honest, hardworking, God fearing people....
During the 1960s and 70s my dad owned a cotton farm (irrigated) in the desert of far southwestern New Mexico, near Columbus, three miles north of the Mexican border. During summer months and Christmas breaks between semesters at OSU, my brother and I worked on the farm with a crew of Mexicans, chopping cotton in summer, plowing up stalks in the winter. The ranch foreman and Border Patrol agents called us “Mex 1” and “Mex 2”.
Once a month or so Border Patrol would “raid” the farm in search of illegals. In those days it was a little different than it is now, to say the least...Between raids, the workers, as many as 12 of them, lived in a one-room adobe casa with a butane stove and indoor plumbing. They had a sixth sense about the Border Patrol. Somehow they seemed to know when they were coming and would head for the tumbleweeds or lie down in the irrigation ditches to keep from being rounded up and returned to Mexico.
One morning after they scattered Mex 2 and I were the only ones still hoeing cuckleburrs.. Pretty soon a Border Patrol officer wheeled up and rolled down his window: “Tell your Mexicans I just added some water,” he said, “they were burning their beans!”
