Migrant laborers from Mexico have been working on Jerry Barber’s farm in Lynnville, Ky, for a decade. Four of the current ten scrape paint off a barn before repainting it. To save money, Jerry, far right, uses recycled tin for the building. “It is a never ending process out here, always something to be done,” says Barber’s son, Chad.

The smell of fresh paint permeates in the air on the roof of a barn that stores tobacco waiting to be dark-fired. Two men, Cortes, right, and Angel Rodriguez Castillo, 34, balance themselves on the recycled tin surface to spray the roof as they continue the de-rusting process. On slow days only a select few of the migrants on Barber’s farm have the opportunity to work.

After stringing together a used Gatorade bottle, fishing line, hook and grasshoppers caught on his way to the pond, Martinez went fishing. He used a hose to clean a bass he caught, while fellow worker Nestor Pelipe Monrroy watches. The fish was dinner for the next day. Among fishing, soccer and poker are also common activities when the men find downtime in their 12 hour work days.

Guadalupe watches out the window while Latin soap operas play during the chaos of morning in the migrant house. Guadalupe was the newest worker on Barber farm. He was working on paying off loans for the travel expenses here before he will begin saving for his second year of college.

Castillo and Guadalupe use their new chess board given to them by Chad Barber, to replace their smaller one before starting work in the potato fields. Barber occasionaly plays with the men. “He my teacher,” said Gaudalupe about Rodriguez.

Many of the men express that the distance from Kentucky to Mexico mirrors the emptiness in their hearts. Castillo is one of the men at the farm who missed his home. After six months of being away from his family, he lies on top of his twin mattress away from the other workers on his birthday to look at pictures of his son Maximo, 1.

During a slow day several of the men pass the time with the soccer ball. Martinez, curls up on the ground outside of their home after being accidentally kicked in the groin. In an effort to cheer him up Gomora, jumps on top of him instigating the rest of the men to follow suit.

Cortes and Mortinez pull potatoes off of the picker and sort them by class while Jerry Barber goes to check on the other workers, whose relationship with the workers is less personal than his son’s. Guadalupe refers to Jerry as distant. He respects their space and doesn’t come around much. Jerry explained that he does not feel it necessary to stay with the men in the fields.

Guadalupe, the rookie of the farm, finished scraping rust off the barn and waits for the other men to be done so they can take a lunch break.