Con Bondad: A Farmworker Family Drive
By Sebastian Young
MAP: An Eye-Opening Experience
During Fall 2019, I had the opportunity to attend the AMHS annual Farmworker Reality Tour. This Tour consisted of meeting with the organization Center for Farmworker Families, an advocacy group fighting for legislative action and communal support for farmworkers. While on this trip, we heard from five strong women who shared their immigration stories. The women discussed their struggles with healthcare, transportation, immigration, and more. These brave and persistent women demonstrated their desire to overcome systemic oppression by providing the best opportunities for their children. Since then, vignettes of their daily struggles have remained with me, as their stories echo their tenacity and resilience. This Tour inspired me to create the Con Bondad: A Farmworker Family Drive, to connect and share these women’s stories, and to raise awareness within the Mitty community of this population of workers.
Driving Change Forward
With the tour experience imprinted on my heart and the struggles of the deadly pandemic and the raging California wildfires, I often think about the farmworkers who during these difficult times labor for less than a living wage and whose hard work goes unrecognized. Work conditions for these individuals are difficult as they are not always provided shade from the high temperatures of the Central Valley nor do they have access to heat during frigid winters. In an effort to improve these conditions, AMHS is holding a student-led drive this winter titled “Con Bondad: A Farmworker Family Drive.” The name for this drive begins with “Con Bondad” and in Spanish “bondad” means “kindness” and this drive is a moment to act with kindness to help the people who pick our food in treacherous conditions. This situation needs our immediate attention, and together we can make a difference. “Con Bondad: A Farmworker Family Drive’’ is an opportunity for us all to live out our school’s motto: “Made in the image and likeness of God’’ by helping a vulnerable community who has helped feed us. The drive is an opportunity, as President Biden noted, to unite as a community to help one another.
A Personal Connection
The farmworker is one that has personal significance for my and my family. Growing up, I heard firsthand accounts of the back-breaking labor my grandparents and great-grandparents endured working in the fields near Fresno. My grandparents explained to me that their work consisted of long hours in the hot summer sun, hunched over, and being paid very little. My great-grandfather, an orphaned immigrant from Durango, México and whose name I carry, often had difficulty finding steady work and providing for his family of eight. Without my great-grandfather’s determination and strong work ethic, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother would not be the strong, resilient women they are today. My grandmother continues to tell stories of her father’s perseverance and her family’s need to work in the fields of California’s Central Valley as a way to provide for her “familia.” The very valuable lessons, passed down to me, give me the opportunity to know my history and to share these stories within our community and with future generations. My great-grandfather’s values of family, education, and hard work, along with my grandfather’s personal stories, remind me why, as a Mitty Monarch, I am obligated to help my fellow brothers and sisters — connecting our stories with the stories of others and raising awareness about the people who provide food for us.
Fulfilling Mitty’s Motto
The Farmworker Reality Tour combined with my family’s history helps illuminate the necessity for the Con Bondad: A Farmworker Family Drive. For this drive, the Mitty Advocacy Project (MAP) and the Latinx Student Union (LSU) will be partnering to help our farmworker families in need. This drive is searching for essential items: diapers, detergent, black beans, white rice, toilet paper, and paper towels all of which can all be purchased on the Amazon Wish List or donate directly to the Center for Farmworker Families. Through our partnership with the Center for Farmworker Families we will successfully deliver the items to farmworkers in Santa Cruz County in California. The drive will take place from January 5th, 2021 until January 29th, 2021. To learn more information about how to access the links and other information please make sure to visit this page on the MAP website. Please note your contributions are tax deductible. The federal EID for the Center for Farmworker Families can be found on the Amazon Wish List. Thank you in advance for donating as these items will greatly help these farmworkers very much during this time of crisis. We hope that you can join us for this wonderful event, which will work towards helping the families of the vulnerable, unrecognized essential workers during the pandemic.
