In the pages that follow, you will read excerpts from accounts of college students who interned with SAF between 1995 and 2005. These excerpts come from documentary projects that interns completed with farmworkers about folklife traditions, and from weekly journals that interns wrote and turned in to the internship coordinator. I read all of this written work as part of a dissertation study I completed with SAF as a graduate student in UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Education.

I studied the students’ work in order to understand what they felt as they allied themselves with farmworkers who were trying to secure basic, yet amazingly tenuous, human rights: safe working conditions, livable homes, basic health care, and a meaningful education. I wanted to understand what pushed students to keep going when obstacles to justice loomed large. I wondered whether writing helped them persevere, providing them a forum to commemorate successes and comprehend failures.

I share students’ testimonies to help us as readers make greater sense of our own efforts to respond to injustice in our work and daily lives.

Tesis doctoral por Julie Wilson, ex-alumno de SAF 1993

En las siguientes páginas, leerás pasajes escritos por estudiantes universitarios que participaron en el programa de SAF entre 1995 y 2005. Estos pasajes fueron tomados de los proyectos documentales de los estudiantes sobre tradiciones populares de trabajadores agrícolas y de entradas semanales en sus diarios que entregaron al coordinador del programa. Leí todo este material para un proyecto que realicé con SAF que formó parte de mis estudios de doctorado en la Facultad de Educación en UNC-Chapel Hill.

Analicé el trabajo de los estudiantes para entender qué sintieron al aliarse con trabajadores agrícolas que tenían la gran tarea de luchar para obtener derechos humanos, condiciones seguras de trabajo, vivienda habitable, atención de salud básica y una educación valiosa. Quería entender qué motivaba a los estudiantes a seguir adelante cuando se encontraban con grandes obstáculos en su lucha por la justicia. Me preguntaba si escribir les ayudaba a perseverar, dándoles un foro para conmemorar sus éxitos y comprender sus fracasos.

Comparto los testimonios de los estudiantes para ayudarnos, como lectores, a entender nuestros propios esfuerzos para responder a la injusticia que vemos en nuestro trabajo y en la vida diaria.

by Laura Valencia, 2009 SAF alumni

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

Brown dirt, red juice. Permanent, blood-like splotches stain my hands, radiant against the green, fruited plains – a tell-tale sign that my summer days are spent in the fields. Though each piece of fruit means a strawberry pie, a strawberry smoothie, a strawberry short cake to someone else, to me each means a penny towards next year’s tuition, this week’s food, my sister’s wedding dress. As I pick each piece of fruit, the steady rhythm of agricultural work lulls me into a false sense of relaxation. I mentally plan out my evening and consider sneaking a Cheeto from my pocket. Lean back on my heels, pulling my long sleeves down over my wrists. My mother looks at me, her brow covered in sweat, asking from beneath her face mask, “Mari, estas bien?” I nod. She leans over again, knees in the dirt. Every day, she reminds us that she brought us here for a better life. Every moment she spends in the fields, she imagines better-fed versions of her children sitting firmly at a school desk, attentively scribbling notes with the enthusiasm of top-class students. You can be president, she says, you can be a doctor. You can be a lawyer. Down the row, a man lays on his back, eyes covered. His daughter leans against his knees, his son picking next to him. I turn back to my work, and stand up, bucket in hand (how many today?), to get my timecard punched. I wipe my stained hands on my pants.

Read Laura’s entire essay here.

Luis in Arkansas, Sweet Potato

“We don’t have anywhere else to go. You just have to make the best of a rough situation. It truly is the closest thing we can call home.”

Luis was living in the storage facility where his company would store the old sweet potatoes from last year’s harvest that were due to be cleaned out. His bed was about halfway down the one large “bedroom” where he slept with about 30 other workers. The grower’s crew leaders often got to use the old offices of the warehouse as their bedrooms located at the front of the storage facility. The rank smell of molding sweet potatoes lingered in the air as they rotted in their crates feet away from where Luis slept at night. He told us you just get used to the smell. What he never got used to were the occasional threats he might find lurking around his so called home. Many predators like snakes, scorpions, and spiders lived in the crates that were stored in the middle of the warehouse and they would often come out at night and make their way to where Luis and his coworkers slept. As of yet, Luis hadn’t been bitten or stung nor did he know anyone who was, but he was waiting for the day when someone would eventually get hurt.

Read the full piece here.

Farmworkers plant, till, pick, carry, harvest and pack the foods we eat everyday. What is the meaning of farm work for those who have left their countries, their homes, and their families in order to bring food to our tables? This summer, SAF interns went into the fields to photograph and interview farmworkers, collecting stories of work and working conditions, rituals of preparing for work, traditions of passing time at the end of the day, and jokes, jargon and narratives shared between workers.

Fifty years ago this November, Edward R. Murrow presented the documentary Harvest of Shame the day after Thanksgiving on CBS News, depicting depicted the plight of migrant farmworkers in the United States. On this landmark anniversary, SAF interns collaborated with farmworkers throughout the Southeast, using labor lore to document modern-day conditions of farm work through images and narratives, tying the past to the present through stories of the meaning of farm work, the conditions farmworkers face, and their hopes for change.  A collection of their stories are below.

Each spring and summer, fields across the US South bloom with abundance and fill with laborers to tend it– What do these workers think about as they hurry along the furrows and under blazing sun, or when they rest after the long workday? Most farmworkers left families and community behind to come and work in these distant fields; these people and places must often occupy their thoughts as the season wears on. If they are to be far from home for so much of the year, what do migrant workers think about their homes? How do they make a home here in the South, how does it compare to their distant communities of origin?

This summer, SAF Interns and farmworkers collaborated to document personal stories and the meaning of home for those workers, both here in the south and in their community of origin. Below is a collection of what they uncovered together: the beginnings of a larger and often untold story of an entire human community that remakes its home even as it migrates from place to place.

Un hogar Lejano / A Distant Home
Cada primavera y verano, los campos en el sur de los Estados Unidos florecen en abundancia y se llenan con trabajadores que los cuidarán. ¿Qué piensan los trabajadores al apresurarse por los surcos bajo el sol abrasador, o al descansar después de una larga jornada de trabajo? La mayoría de los campesinos dejaron sus familias y comunidades para venir y trabajar en estos campos lejanos; seguramente deben reflexionar mucho sobre esa gente y esos lugares durante el transcurso de la temporada. Si van a estar lejos de casa por gran parte del año, ¿qué piensan los trabajadores migrantes/itinerantes de sus hogares? ¿Qué hacen para sentirse a gusto en el sur? ¿Cómo se compara este lugar con sus comunidades de origen lejanas?

Este verano, los estudiantes de SAF y los trabajadores agrícolas colaboraron para documentar historias personales y lo que significa el “hogar” para esos trabajadores, tanto aquí en el sur como en sus comunidades de procedencia. A continuación presentamos una colección de lo que han descubierto juntos: el principio de una gran historia casi nunca contada de una comunidad humana entera que rehace su hogar aún cuando emigra de un lugar a otro.

Santiago Nuñez was born in Guatemala in 1961. At the age of 11 he began working in the fields cultivating corn, a crop that is essential to life in rural Guatemala, but he didn’t make a life out of farming.  Instead, he was apprenticed to a tailor and learned to make clothing. He made mainly women’s clothing, and enjoyed the challenge of keeping up with the latest trends and selling his product to retailers. His business grew, and he even hired a few employees to work for him. Unfortunately, his success did not last. The product didn’t sell anymore, and he ran up debt, forcing him to leave his business. In 2002 he came to the United States in search of work and for the last eight years he has lived in NC, working at a poultry processing plant.

Santiago Nuñez nació en Guatemala en 1961. A los 11 años de edad comenzó a trabajar en el campo sembrando maíz, un cultivo esencial en las zonas rurales de Guatemala, aunque no se dedicó a la agricultura. En vez, aprendió a confeccionar ropa como aprendiz de sastre. Principalmente hacía ropa de mujer para tiendas y le gustaba tratar de estar al tanto de la moda. Su negocio creció y hasta contrató a varios empleados. Desafortunadamente, no siguió teniendo éxito. El producto ya no se vendía y se endeudó, lo cual lo forzó a dejar su negocio. En 2002, vino a los Estados Unidos en búsqueda de trabajo y durante los últimos ocho años ha vivido en Carolina del Norte trabajando en una procesadora de aves.

by Charles Webster

Joaquín Vázquez González is a migrant farm worker in Newland, North Carolina. For nine months out of the year Joaquín works in the Christmas tree fields of Avery County. He is originally from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and he lives there the remaining three months of the year. He is a short man, with long black hair that is complimented by his black mustache and beard. His face and body at first glance look beleaguered; Joaquín’s body has weathered countless diseases, and injuries throughout the years. Despite, this Joaquín continues to work six days a week, at two jobs, sometimes more.

Joaquín Vázquez González es un trabajador agrícola migrante que vive en Newland, Carolina del Norte. Durante nueve meses del año, Joaquín trabaja en las plantaciones de árboles de Navidad en el condado de Avery. Es originario de San Luis Potosí, México, y vive allá durante los otros tres meses del año. Es de estatura baja con cabello negro largo y bigote y barba negra. A primera vista, su cara y cuerpo se ven agobiados; el cuerpo de Joaquín ha sido achacado por un sinfín de enfermedades y lesiones a lo largo de los años. A pesar de esto, Joaquín sigue teniendo dos trabajos y su semana laboral es de seis días, a veces más.

Click to view a video presentation of Misael's experience in the tobacco fields.

By Dida El-Sourady and Elizabeth Moore

Misael, Antonio, and Ismael work in Fuquay-Varina, NC on a tobacco farm.   Misael is outgoing and enjoys reading poetry and listening to music when he is not working in the fields. If he were able to chose his ideal job he would want to be a teacher or an archaeologist. Antonio is a bit more reserved, but he isn’t afraid of speaking about his love for the United States – the country that has offered him so many opportunities. Unlike many workers, Antonio would like to live in the United States permanently and he says that he has never encountered an unfriendly American.  Ismael, Misael’s cousin, has only been working in the fields for a year and says that this experience has allowed him to grow as an individual.  One of his main motivations is his mother; he explains that while he is working in the fields, she is always on his mind.  Although these three men work together, they each represent different hopes, dreams and inspirations of migrant farmworkers.

Misael, Antonio e Ismael trabajan en Fuquay-Varina, Carolina del Norte en una plantación de tabaco. Misael es sociable y le encanta leer poesía y escuchar música cuando no esta trabajando en el campo. Si el podría elegir su trabajo ideal le gustaría ser un maestro o un arqueólogo. Antonio es poco reservado, pero el no tiene miedo de hablar sobre su amor para los Estados unidos – el país que le ha ofrecido muchas oportunidades. Distinto a los otros trabajadores agrícolas, Antonio quisiera vivir en los Estado Unidos para siempre y dice que el nunca ha conocido a un estadounidense hostil. Ismael, el primo de Misael, solamente ha trabajado en el campo por un año y dice que esta experiencia le ha dado la oportunidad de crecer como una persona. Una de sus motivaciones es su madre; el explica que mientras el trabaja en el campo, ella siempre esta en su mente. Aunque estos tres hombres trabajan juntos, cada uno de ellos representa diferentes esperanzas, sueños e inspiraciones de los trabajadores agrícolas migrantes.

Juan is from Zacatecas, Mexico on a plateau in the town of Santana Pinos.  After moving to Tennessee to work in tobacco, he now picks vegetables in South Carolina. Work in the fields begins at 6 a.m with two 15 minute breaks during the day- one at 10 a.m. and the other before the work day is over- and an hour break at noon for lunch. Juan is a picker, cutting vegetables with a machete, or a “cuchillo,” as he and other workers from Zacatecas call it.

“Our days off sometimes are boring. While you’re working, and the more work you have, it makes it as if time was passing quicker… like now, now that we’ve been off all day, it’s like our bodies are used to working. And now Sundays seem a little tough, a little long. But it’s ok because you tell yourself, nah, tomorrow’s Monday. But yeah I mean, you try to not to think too much about life here nor life over there; it’s like you have to stay between the two sides.”

Juan es de Zacatecas, Mexico en una meseta en el pueblo de Santana Pinos. Después de mudarse a Tennessee para trabajar con tabaco, el ahora pisca vegetales en Carolina del Sur. El trabajo en el campo empieza a las 6 a.m. con dos descansos de 15 minutos durante el día – uno a las 10 a.m. y otro antes que termine el trabajo – y una hora de descanso a las 12 p.m. para el almuerzo. Juan es un escogedor, cortando vegetales con un machete o con un “cuchillo” como el y los otros trabajadores de Zacatecas lo llaman.

“Porque los días de descanso para nosotros también a veces es aburrido. Ya trabajando, y entre mas trabajo, como que el tiempo pasó más rápido. Entonces, que a veces cuando esta uno trabajando quisieras descansar un rato, verdad. Pero ya, como ahora que descansamos todo el dia, pues ya osea como que el cuerpo ya se acostumbro de trabajar. Y ya este, domingo se te hace un poquito pesado, largo. Pero ya dices nah es que Manana es el lunes, pero como te digo osea, tratar de no pensar mucho aqui ni aya, osea estar entre los dos lados, verdad, para, como te digo ya ahorita cada ocho dias habla uno aya con la familia aya, ya te relajas un poquito ya.”