The Vacation: Fun New Book on Migrant Farmworkers in 1960s Michigan

It's not often that I walk into my small public library and see a book about Michigan's agricultural history--finding this on the new books shelf was a wonderful surprise!

“As Dad sips his coffee, he tells us we’re going on a vacation to Lake Leelanau, Michigan.” That’s how Robert “Carlos” Fuentes begins his new book, The Vacation: A Teenage Migrant Farmworker’s Experience Picking Cherries in Michigan (Self-published, 2025). “He tells us on our vacation, we will camp in a tent, go to the beach, have picnics and barbecues, and enjoy the great outdoors. However, he also tells us we’ll spend all day picking cherries.”

Thus begins the first book I’ve ever read documenting an important part of Michigan’s agricultural history—the Mexican-American migrant farmworkers who, for many years, handpicked sweet and tart cherries in the Traverse City area. Michigan still relies heavily on migrant labor to grow and harvest many fruit and vegetable crops, and it’s no surprise to hear that the same was true in the 1960s. But most accounts of the migrant farmworker experience are dominated by California. Fuentes’s account of his week-long “vacation” picking cherries in Michigan provides a fresh, different, and deeply personal perspective on this neglected history.

Bob Fuentes’s parents came to Michigan from Texas as migrant farmworkers, moving as the season progressed from one fruit or vegetable farm to another. Before Bob was born, they settled in Alma, where his father started a cleaning business. Told by the “experts” of the day that bilingual children would “suffer educationally,” the Fuentes family only taught their children English. Bob grew up “integrated reasonably well into mainstream American culture,” but he wanted to learn more about his Mexican heritage and wished he could speak Spanish.

The Fuentes family has deep ties to the cherry farms where they spend their “vacation,” and it’s like a family reunion when Bob’s family arrives at the end of July 1969. One of the highlights of the week is the Spanish-speaking Pentecostal church services that his grandfather—an Assemblies of God pastor—holds in a barn at the farm. They spend time with their relatives and enjoy delicious meals of freshly made tortillas and other Mexican food. The boys turn an old chicken coop into a clubhouse and spend the evenings making friends with activities like trading baseball cards, telling scary stories, and having a farting contest.

Of course, Bob spends most of the week picking cherries. This is definitely not an organic cherry farm. (As far as I'm aware, there weren't any organic cherry farms in Michigan in 1969, and there are only a handful today). He frequently mentions wiping pesticide residues off the cherries, stumbling across pesticide bags in the barn, and smelling pesticide as soon as he arrives on the farm. Intriguingly, because he enjoys that week of picking cherries with friends and family so much, he keeps sniffing his pesticide-contaminated clothes after he gets home to bring back the good memories.

After each day in the cherry orchard, Bob’s parents take the family to one of the beautiful parks in the area, where they have picnic dinners of hot dogs, potato chips, white bread, and Kool-Aid. They walk on the beach, swim in the lake, and then head back to their tent on the farm for the night.

This book is a vivid snapshot of life in Michigan in 1969, and Fuentes spent a lot of time and research making sure that every detail was correct. He skillfully weaves together the fun of being a teenager in the age of muscle cars and moon landings, his desire to learn more about his Mexican heritage, and the beauty of picking cherries just a few miles from the shore of Lake Michigan. It’s a wonderful and much-needed addition to the history of Michigan agriculture.