There are nearly 20,000 small towns across the United States, home to roughly 46 million people. I grew up in one of them.
Sunnyside, Wash., was a farming town of about 11,000 people when my family arrived from Wilmington, Calif., in the early 1990s, chasing seasonal agriculture work.
My mother, two sisters, two brothers and I followed the harvest wherever it led. We cut asparagus and picked cherries, apples, pears, grapes and tomatoes.
Jose Montoya
Like many first-generation families, we never were afraid of hard work. We simply wanted the opportunity to build a better life. But opportunity is different from access. We were learning a new community, navigating unfamiliar systems and stretching every dollar without the safety net of wealth, connections or experience to guide us.
The U.S. Senate recently introduced the 2026 Farm Bill with a Senate vote expected this month. While the bill includes important investments in rural infrastructure, broadband expansion, conservation and programs that strengthen local economies, the real question before Congress is much bigger than agriculture.
The future depends not only on what grows in rural fields but on the opportunities available to the people who grow up there.
I know this firsthand. Some of my earliest memories begin before sunrise, when the fields already were coming alive. The morning air was cold, the birds had just begun to chirp, and my family climbed into our red Plymouth while the rest of town was still asleep.
Sometimes the drive to the fields took an hour, so we would leave at 5 a.m., which gave us five kids one more chance to sleep before the workday started. By afternoon, everything felt different.
The sun baked the fields, and the heat seemed to rise straight from the ground. I was 8 years old and many times wore oversized Pendelton flannel and my clothes stuck to me. My hands ached. Every now and then, when the heat was too much, the farmers sent everyone home, but that did not happen often.
“Poverty is not something you fully understand as a child. You mostly feel it.”
Asparagus season would start mid-April and run to late June. Sometimes we would change in the car and get to school late and get made fun of by other kids. On weekends, we would stay until the rows were finished. Some of us worked hourly wages sorting the harvest. During those long days, I started asking myself a question no young person should have to ask: Is this all life is supposed to be?
Poverty is not something you fully understand as a child. You mostly feel it. You feel different.
I remember watching my mother worry over every dollar and cent. I remember wondering if there would be enough money for food, let alone school activities. I attended Chief Kamiakin Elementary third grade, where I remember the humility Mrs. Feather taught us.
I remember book fair days when the teacher in charge would have a few of us sit off to the side because we could not afford a book. Mrs. Feather noticed and handed us $5 each to purchase a book.
I was not angry. I was embarrassed. Children remember moments like that. Maybe not all at once, but over time they pile up and make you feel like the world already has decided where you belong.
Like many families in small towns in the U.S., we found strength in faith. My mother joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It gave us community, even though it was not always easy.
As I got older, around 14, I watched friends battle with many of the same questions.
Some found purpose through sports or faith. Others found it in gangs. I do not think most of them were looking for trouble. I think they were looking for a place to belong, community.
“What changed my life was that people opened doors for me.”
What changed my life was not that I worked harder than everyone else. It was that people opened doors for me. Teachers and coaches, including my middle school’s wrestling coach and history teacher, Monty Johnson, challenged me and made me curious about history.
I think of today and how the current administration is looking to eliminate the rural education achievement program, which will create resource deficits in small-town school districts along with financial strain. Rural schools make up 28% of U.S. schools and serve more than 9 million students
Mentors like Gregorio Herrera pushed me to see more for myself. In high school, the TRIO Upward Bound program stressed the importance of college. I was a junior in high school when I first attended an after-school presentation about the program.
Upward Bound gave me the tools to succeed in college. Those opportunities led me to Eastern Washington University, where I studied political science with Keith Quincy and eventually became a McNair Scholar researching wealth and its effects on representative democracy. Studying the history of wealth of Athens, the world’s first democracy, and in the U.S. revealed parallels worth examining today.
I built a career in banking in Sacramento, Calif. in 2006 helping families and small businesses make some of the most important financial decisions of their lives. During the 2008 recession, I watched people lose homes, businesses and jobs. I learned that hardship does not care how you vote or where you come from. It can happen to anyone.
“Hardship does not care how you vote or where you come from. It can happen to anyone.”
My favorite part of banking was helping people understand their options and align their decisions with their goals. Every time I sat down with someone who felt overwhelmed, I thought about my own mother and the stress she carried trying to provide for our family.
As a senior banker and Spanish speaker, I learned one of the most valuable things you can give someone is confidence in their options. Over time, I did not need to sell products. People referred friends and family, and some still thank me for helping them through difficult moments when I see them in community events.
Eventually, I joined the bank’s community engagement program through an enterprise leadership group, focusing on corporate social responsibility and connecting communities with resources and capacity-building opportunities.
I now work in public health as a senior director for the California Health Collaborative where my focus is on building partnerships with potential funders to help communities that may not have the necessary resources to succeed in current health deficits due to budget constraints.
Most people do not want someone to rescue them. Most folk want a fair chance to build a better future. They want good schools, safe neighborhoods, steady jobs, and communities that believe in them. That is not a political value. It is a humane one.
When you look at a farm worker, a struggling family or a child growing up in poverty, you need not see a statistic or a micro trend. You must see potential. U.S. policymakers, leaders, administrators and advocates need to see their roles in optimizing that potential for everyone’s benefit.
I know because I was that child. Someone believed in me before I believed in myself. Someone took the time to invest in me. Every child deserves that same chance.
Jose Montoya is a senior director for the California Health Collaborative and a Blue Shield of California Foundation Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project.