Jose has come a long way from his birthplace in San Antonio and childhood in the migrant fields of labor. Years have passed--a lifetime.

Scenes of the days he spent beneath many summer suns as well as the scenes which include many others who also endured the castigation of an uncaring society simply because they were of Mexican descent; scenes of those who labored with him under most heinous conditions while seeking but a piece of liberty in the land of the free only to find resentment, discrimination, and a ceiling of impenetrable steel; scenes such as these now haunt his memory, like a firebrand of passion, a passion that found its vent in the form of this poetic narrative, Bitter Fields of Dust.