But being the son of farmworkers has taught me so many things. Some lessons were tough, and I wish I hadn’t learned them at such a young age while others were a blessing.
My biggest lesson is realising that the greatest wealth anyone could ever have in life is family. I love my family, I am forever grateful for every fruit and vegetable my parents have picked, for the countless weeks they laboured under the hot sun well into the dead of night.
I am especially grateful they always took me and my siblings with them on the road, so no matter how far we were from our house, we never left home.
Unfortunately countless farmworkers leave their home, their families, and their culture. They leave it all for a better future for their loved ones.
Such a sacrifice can only come from the most humble of hearts. Sadly, the issues faced by these farmworkers are countless - poor housing and health, racism, low pay and poor treatment. To make matters worse, they have to face these issues by themselves.
This was the main reason I decided to sign up for a summer internship with Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), which is featured in Dateline’s story Bittersweet Harvest.
Some of us in the program, kids of farmworkers, we felt a lot of pressure.
I'm not really worried of where I'm going to go or who or what I'm going to confront in life, I can handle that. I'm more worried about letting my parents down, of not being good enough. I feel an enormous debt and owe them so much.
There is no way I could have ever gone through this by myself. But despite everything SAF does, despite what I did as an intern at the Farmworker Unit with the Legal Aid office in Raleigh, North Carolina, I feel that there is so much more to be done.
Don’t get me wrong, I have never felt something as special as helping individual farmworkers with wage issues and working conditions; the way they thank us is something I will never forget.
However, for every single farmworker we help, there are a hundred more looking for guidance, and that is so difficult to live with, I refuse to accept this.
Farmworkers vaguely know about their rights as agricultural workers, about their vast strength in numbers, about their vital importance to the world, and that is our greatest issue.
Farmworker Jose Manuel Gonzales hopes that his children won't have to work as hard as him and "can lead a better life". Source: SBS Dateline
If we can educate them, to educate each other, then we can create real change. Until then, I will do my best to continue to help one person at a time.
I used to think that being a farmworker was the worst thing in the world. You think it's embarrassing or not fantastic work. But right now I feel really proud.
I keep wanting to shout it out. My parents did this and I witnessed it. It's an important job. Farmworkers literally feed the world.
More
Another Student Action with Farmworkers intern, Nadia Moreno, has written the blog below for Dateline, plus read more blogs from other students on the SAF website.
