Deep in the heart of Washington County’s blueberry barrens, the hills are alive with the sound of Latino music pumping from boomboxes, 12 hours a day.

Perched on trunks of cars, the music machines provide upbeat rhythms that help the hours pass faster for the many minority workers in the fields. Not just for Mexicans, the music moves along the thousands of migrants who arrive Down East each August for the harvesting by hand of wild blueberries.

“We don’t mind if it’s not our music,” a member of the Micmac tribe in New Brunswick said last week, standing up to pause in the midday sun. “Whoever puts the music on first, we all listen.”

At night, the sounds change for the international community that brings an influx of cash and culture to coastal Maine for three or four weeks each summer.

Families are together again at day’s end, at the dozen camps that dot the county’s barrens and provide temporary housing for the 8,000 migrant workers who come each summer. Maine Department of Labor surveys show that about 65 percent of those are Hispanic, and the majority of the rest are American Indian, mostly a mix from the Passamaquoddy and Micmac tribes.

Workers chatter in their native languages as parents prepare meals in the shared kitchen. Outside in the central area that is bare of grass, teenage boys form a circle around a soccer ball. Teenage girls play with their iPods. Some men sit in their cars, tuning radios to music of their own choice.

That has been a typical evening scene since late July at Centerville Camp, one of the bases for those hired by the Northeastern Blueberry Co. of Columbia Falls. Northeastern is the processing company owned by the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and the tribal fields amount to 1,800 acres in blueberry production.

Last Wednesday evening at Centerville, however, was different. The work was done for the season, for good.

Tania Smith and Andrew Syliboy, the leaseholders and field bosses for the Centerville camp and for 151 acres of Northeastern land, put the last box of berries on the truck last week – then sent for 20 pizzas, macaroni salad, soda and beers for their 75 workers.

“Eat up, everyone, this is on us!” Syliboy called out in the kitchen as the pizza boxes were opened. “We really appreciate all the hard work you did for us this year.

“By all means, come back next year – everyone’s got a job!”

Smith and Syliboy’s crew started raking on July 26 and finished on Aug. 9.

Not the average job

Taking a job in the fields each summer isn’t just about the money; it’s about tradition.

Hubert Francis, who is 53, has been coming to Maine to rake berries for the last 50 summers.

For many years, he came with his father, who drove his car regularly between the barrens and the Micmac reservation in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick, 41/2 hours away for rakers who didn’t have transportation.

“It feels like it’s in the blood,” Francis said. “After you leave here, you think about it until next year.”

“It’s like it draws you,” added Florence, Hubert’s wife.

The general goal is to rake enough to pay for school clothes for the children, bought locally – and then leave for home with extra left in the pockets. Over three days last week, for example, Hubert and Florence together brought in $1,300.

The standard pay is $2.50 a box, slightly less if it comes in with weeds and leaves.

Workers 14 and older leave the camp as early as 4:30 or 5 a.m. for the fields. Not minding the back-breaking routine, they rake until 5 p.m., quitting time – six days a week.

Fun comes on the weekends, when migrants scatter and head for yard sales, Bingo games, shopping or the Laundromat.

For Francis and his family, including two daughters and two grandchildren, the real fun will be the Blue Hill Fair.

“There are certain things you do here, like raking, and certain things you see here, like the Blue Hill Fair,” he said. “Raking is the sacrifice we do to be here. It’s like a vacation.”

Years ago when Francis worked in the Sedgwick and Penobscot areas of Hancock County, his bosses at the end of August would make sure the rakers got to the fair.

Micmacs from reservations in both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have been coming to hand-rake Maine’s harvest for decades. Hispanic workers migrated here for the season more recently, starting about 15 years ago.

Just last year, when Smith and Syliboy became leaseholders for the Centerville camp, Hispanic workers started staying there, after years of the cabins being filled largely with American Indians.

The mix of cultures has worked out well, Syliboy said.

Everyone within hearing distance concurred. Passamaquoddys who live as close as the Pleasant Point reservation move to camp for the couple weeks to live among the Micmacs from Canada, Mexicans and Hondurans.

Families or couples share the sparse, plywood cabins on a first-come, first-served basis. Workers know to bring their own luxuries such as microwave ovens, televisions and DVD movies.

Syliboy has only three rules in camp: Quiet at 10 p.m.; clean up after yourself; and no open bottles. If you have a beer in your hand outdoors, put it in a foam cup – for the sake of the kids.

“I tell them that we all have to get along, that we are all a long ways from home,” said Syliboy, a Micmac who has been living at Pleasant Point for 12 years and coming to the camps for 35 summers.

“We might not speak the same language, but we all get along.”

The Northeastern fields are finished for the season, so the Centerville camp has been emptying out as rakers leave to work for other companies.

This year’s crop in Maine is bountiful, predicted to top out at 80 million pounds of berries. Last year’s harvest yielded 59 million pounds, something closer to the average.

“The season started early and it will finish late,” said Juan Perez-Febles of the Maine Department of Labor, who has assisted migrants in the Washington County fields the last 14 summers.

“There is so much fruit. The workers are happy and it’s good money. They are working long days. It has been an exceptional season.”