NOTE: Puente is writing about the lives of female farm workers for National Farmworker Awareness Week. This is the second of two stories. Lina Martinez learned about America from the front door of a t-shirt shop in Fishermen’s Wharf. The 22-year-old crossed the border on foot, alone, in 1991 with the help of a coyote. A week later, she was in San Francisco, hawking t-shirts to tourists. Her job was to get people to come into the store, to sell merchandise, and to make change. But she didn’t know a word of English. And she didn’t understand U.S. currency. “They told me: people unfold the shirts, you fold them. You’ve got to learn English. Learn the colors. You have to learn to say, ‘Three shirts for $9.99!’” recounts Martinez, laughing. It was uncomfortable, to be sure. But Lina Martinez isn’t known for backing down. “I called my boyfriend and said, ‘I need to learn numbers.’ I only knew 1 to 10 in English. Little by little I learned… and after a while, I could do anything!” she grins. Martinez’s first American job at the t-shirt shop netted her $20 a day in under-the-table wages, plus $5 for lunch. She slept on a couch in the house of the man who owned the store. Needless to say, the job didn’t last … Continue reading A farm worker’s story: Lina Martinez