Por: David Conde
A few days ago, Maria Garza, the CEO of the largest migrant farm worker children Head Start agency in the country was invited to Washington, D.C. to participate in a round table discussion on issues associated with agricultural workers in the fields of America. The vast majority of these farm hands are Latino and a majority of those are immigrants.
Just like first responders, the farm worker labor force was out harvesting crops for our country’s tables in the middle of COVID. They are one of the reasons that the Latino community was the hardest hit by the virus.
The nation’s farm worker is also changing and diminishing in numbers at a time when the supply chain cannot keep up with the demand for fresh food. The perfect storm is being created by a combination circumstance that cuts down on the number of immigrants coming to the country and the growing shortage and high costs of farm products.
After a two-year COVID hiatus, UnidosUS, our biggest and most powerful Latino advocacy organization, is having its national conference on July 8-11 in San Antonio, Texas.
The subjects of the discussions at the gathering are diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, ensuring the future well-being of the community and country, access to quality education and creating general wealth.
The exchanges are designed so that the Latino community can take another step in its journey to becoming the face of America. The workshops on education, health, housing, creating financial wealth, immigration, racial equity, workforce development and voting and political empowerment provide a road map to the middle class.
Joining the middle class is basically the realization of the classical American Dream that is part of the immigrant tradition that identifies America. The view of the Dream is distorted however, by the fact it is an immigrant Dream and the people that speak and try to relate to it are, by enlarge,
far removed from the ancestors that first came to this country.
This is also what was missing in the history of the Latino community in the United States. For a long time and still in some places, Latinos in America and their ancestors that were already here have been displaced, discounted, oppressed and told that they do not belong.
In some sense, Latinos did lack the history associated with the notion about America as an immigrant country until very recently. Latino immigrants in large numbers, especially beginning in the last half of the 20th Century, joined the tradition and have endured the prejudices associated with being an immigrant and more because of color and language.
Latino immigrants have and are working hard to “earn” the same sunshine others take for granted. At the same time, they have closed the circle that allows that community to join the foundations of the American story.
Besides teaching us about how to work hard again, the Latino immigrant also brings us closer to a new “American” beginning characterized by an arrival to a new land with the intention of finding opportunity for a better life and, in doing so, taking part in the continuing transformational miracle central to the story of this country.
The founding of this land based on the creed of democracy, family and the encouragement of economic potential continues as the primary message and a beacon for the world.
One of the most popular statement in the history of our politics is about America being an immigrant country. The Latino immigrant brings that statement to life.
