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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika Since our car rally started at 8 a.m. and took place 100 miles south of San Francisco, we stayed overnight in the Californian city of Salinas. If you're a fan of the American author John Steinbeck, you might have heard of Salinas. The author was born there in 1902, and many of his works, such as "The Grapes of Wrath," deal with Salinas and the migrant workers who still work in the fields in and around Salinas today. Salinas has only about 150,000 residents but is also called "the salad bowl of the world" because of its agriculture. There are also relatively many illegal immigrants living in Salinas, although there are no exact numbers because illegal immigrants are not exactly keen on making their immigration status public. However, everyone in California knows that people without papers work in the fields. The lettuce would probably be much more expensive if that weren't the case, or it would simply rot in the fields if the illegal labor were to disappear as Trump and his associates wish.
We stayed at a rural motel in Salinas, the kind you find all over America, because there were hardly any accommodations left. Apparently, everyone and their dog was traveling that weekend. We had already read on "Yelp" that workers who labor in the surrounding fields were also housed at the motel. This didn't bother us, of course. When the employee at the reception asked us if we wanted a room on the second floor and in the building that was further away from the street, we naturally said yes, because there's nothing worse in American motels than having a neighbor stomping around above you, as the buildings are almost always built with extremely thin walls. While unloading our luggage, we noticed that the doors to some rooms were open, and when we naturally peeked inside out of curiosity, we saw bunk beds, which are extremely unusual in motels. In front of the rooms, there was a neat row of work shoes lined up. Our room, of course, didn't have bunk beds, but we had our suspicions.
When we later returned from a short walk, we were somewhat startled because suddenly a bunch of young men stormed out of their rooms as if bitten by a tarantula. We suspected there was a fire alert. However, it turned out that the men were all lining up in a single file in the parking lot, patiently waiting in front of a white pick-up truck for the distribution of dinner. Some people maliciously claim that this is modern slavery.
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