Memorial Day for me now has become my strawberry picking day. Two years in a row makes a tradition. I drove to Sauvie Island, just north of Portland on the Columbia River. It has several U-pick farms. This year I picked my berries at Sauvie Island Farms.

Half of the people around me were speaking a language other than English. I heard Hindi, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese. Family fruit picking clearly is popular with Portland’s East and South Asian families. Strawberries signal the end of spring and beginning of summer, and they taste so darn good.

Looking at all the little kids being pulled by their well-off moms and dads made me think of all the kids who are not that much older working in the fields with their families in our land of plenty, for up to 10 hours a day. Sometimes, it is fate of birth that separates one world from another. I am glad I never had to and do not have to do this for a living. It is incredibly hard work bending over, sorting through fruit, gently picking it one by one. Something to think about as you pick out your fruit at your local store. Someone always had to pick it.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)