It was a placid Saturday in June 2005 when I arrived to interview Jesús Peña, a farm executive at Agrícola San Simón, one of the largest producers of tomatoes for export to the United States located in Baja California’s San Quintín Valley. Situated atop a hill in a rural colonia, or squatter settlement, in the northern part of the valley, the company’s building has an elegant round shape of Mediterranean design with white walls, dark windows, and a large central dome. Surrounded by a well-manicured lawn irrigated by a sprinkler system, this structure contrasts sharply with the shacks and modest homes of the farmworkers who live in the nearby colonias, which lack basic services and are served by dusty, unpaved roads. As I walked into the office and sat in a comfortable air-conditioned waiting area, some farmworkers came to the front desk. One of them, a man in his forties, asked for a “medical pass” to see the company’s doctor, but a young secretary behind the counter told him, “The doctor only sees patients on Mondays”; he would have to wait until then. A few minutes later two other field laborers came to pick up their paychecks from the previous week, explaining to the young woman that they could not come the previous Saturday. She replied that they needed to come back on a weekday because Saturday is payday only for the current week