Jesus Talavera had just arrived to a small convenient store outside Linden, California when he learned he may have to turn around and go back to Fresno.
The 68-year-old has been a migrant farm worker for 40 years, traveling up and down the West Coast picking fruit and vegetables.
“If we don’t have an opportunities, we have to go back,” Talavera said in Spanish.
The May and June months are typically a more lucrative time for farm workers who pick cherries. One farmer said workers could make between $250 and $400 per day.
Last year, cherries were one of the top commodities in San Joaquin counties nearly $3 billion farming industry, earning farmers more than $220 million.
Director of the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau Federation, Bruce Blodgett, predicts this year’s cherry yield will be as much as a third less and farmers agree.
"Last year, this time, they picked already but this year late because the weather,” said Linda Cao, a convenient store owner who also runs a 15 acre cherry farm nearby.
This seasons average rain and a late frost has pushed the cherry harvest season back at-least two weeks. Still, some migrant workers are showing up for work where there is little to none for now.
Some of the migrants who work during the 10 to 15 day long cherry harvest season will stay in their cars or split a hotel room between other migrants.
“I think it is expensive,” Talavera said. “For what we make, it’s impossible to pay months rent.”
Cao allows migrants to camp in the convenient store parking lot and even opens up two exterior bathrooms with showers for the workers.
Stockton based immigrants’ rights advocate, Luis Magaña, says there should be established housing for these workers during the season.
This week, Magaña and others from the Justice Project for Migrant Agricultural Laborers presented the County Board of Supervisors with a proposal to support improving housing conditions for temporary day laborers for the cherry harvest.
"It's not too much to ask,” Luis Magaña said.
He described the proposed housing as a migrant stop, similar to a truck stop, where workers can use the restroom, bathe, sleep and camp.
However, Blodgett said growers in the county already offer housing for workers who live in the community most of the year.
"Most of the people are local residents,” Blodgett said.
He says for the migrant workers that do come just for cherry season, it’s a choice to live of their car instead of renting a hotel room. It would be cost prohibitive and unfair to farmers to expect that they build temporary housing for all migrant workers who come for the short cherry season, Blodgett said.
Magaña disagrees saying if his group feels they have not been heard by county leaders within the week, they are planning to protest.