Latino Farmworker cutting tobacco, Upper Brush Creek, Madison County, NC 1993.
The growing season is winding down and the tobacco leaves are big and heavy with resin. It’s time to cut. Long days in the hot sun, cutting stalk after stalk, spudding them on sticks, and leaving them in the field to dry for a few days before moving them into the barn for curing.
I have a memory of this — working with friends and neighbors, where, at the end of the day, your hands were black and sticky with tar and your back aching from lifting the plants. For me, despite the grueling work, it was an almost joyful time. The sense of community, the sharing of stories, the understanding I was learning valuable lessons about this place. Perhaps most importantly, I was learning I was capable of doing, and becoming good at, this hard, dirty work that my body had no experience doing.
I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. It provided a lifetime bond with my immediate neighbors and the community as a whole. My willingness to work, to get dirty, to try something new, to be available when asked, built trust, which has proved to be the single most important element of my photography and writing. So, while tobacco continues to be one of the leading causes of death in our country, I realize it brought life to hundreds of rural communities in the mountain south. And provided this photographer the opportunity to become part of a place I now call home.
Cut Burley Tobacco, Upper Brush Creek, Madison County, NC 1993.