The Immigrant in the Room
I can remember when I first fell in love with produce. I was standing in this same exact field. Only it was June, and the early morning sun was warm on my cheeks as it spilled over the hills onto the lettuce patch. There were deep purple Little Gems, robust romaines, and bodacious rosettes of butters. I can look down and see my Mucks nestled carefully between chartreuse pompoms of oaky-lobed leaves that glow neon against the chocolate cake loam. Green Oak Compact. That was my favorite.
The expert lettuce picker gives the center of a head a quick jiggle to be sure it’s not starting to bolt and in the same motion tilts the lettuce to the side and slips a knife through the perfect point, allowing the rough outer leaves to fall off but no more. I loved arranging the heads neatly into harvest totes, becoming more efficient and ergonomic by the day. I loved hoisting each full tote onto my shoulder and feeling my hips sway back and forth as I carried my little preciouses to the shade.
I loved everything about it. I loved getting up in the dark and riding my bike into the farm. I loved gearing up with the crew in our waterproof bibs and being on the back of the transplanter. I loved making a fool of my millennial self as I giddily stalled my way around the farm in an old flatbed called The Fish Truck, which read F O O D on the hood rather than Ford.
Every day was different even though every day was the same. I had no idea that something like lettuce could take so many different forms, look so different every day, taste so different throughout the season. We washed the head lettuce first thing in the morning before it would wilt, gently scrubbing the cut ends with our palms as we dragged each head through a cool water bath. Next came the bunched greens, of which I particularly enjoyed washing cilantro and radishes.
My hands learned to grab two bunches of cilantro at a time as I sprayed the mud out of the pale white rootlets. The fragrant power of cilantro is never stronger than in this moment. Radishes, on the other hand, were a treat for the eyes rather than the nose. With them, I grabbed each delicately arranged bouquet of muddy balls and blasted them until they became the radiant pink orbs they were destined to be.
Even when it was August and I was so tired from working markets and throwing watermelon and processing peppers and ultimately drowning in a sea of never-ending tomatoes, sorting them one by one, day after day, biking home, biking back, growing ever-confident that my cyclical existence had no meaning, I took pleasure in getting to know my new vegetable friends so intimately. Pick up tomato. Feel its weight. But don’t bruise it. Is it too soft to make it to market? Too sun-scalded for a restaurant? Not uniform enough for the grocery store? Just right to pop into my mouth right now? Pick. Wash. Pack. Repeat. This is how I fell in love.
I grew up living in apartments in suburbia, eating box mac, Stouffer’s lasagne, and instant mashed potatoes. We didn’t have a garden or own a dining table. Food was always a cost, often a crutch, and rarely an actual nourishing experience. If not purely by contrast, farm life was intoxicating.
After a few years working in the packing shed and out in the fields, I started managing our farmers’ market booths and became enthralled with a concept I called Vegucation. I wanted to tear down the intimidation surrounding cooking and eating real food for people like me who were just starting to dabble in the local food scene. I wanted everyone to feel what I felt.
So I became the voice of your favorite local organic farm. I am that wide-eyed lady at the farmers’ market who’s always giving out free samples of some root thing that you’ve never heard of and now can’t live without. I am responsible for the romantically-lit headshots of beets paired with a Tom Robbins quote in your Instagram feed. My hands are the ones who write your CSA Newsletter, keeping you up to date with life on the farm. There are many food writers like me. We are your couriers, your hostesses, your chaperones, from farm to table. It’s okay if you don’t know what kohlrabi is and we are here to help you. In the words of the one and only Michael Pollan, we are here to “lure you in with pleasure,” for the betterment of your health and that of our oppressed little blue dot.
Seven years later, I am still here, only there are alliums planted where the lettuce was. I stand in my experienced harvest stance, finishing up bunching scallions on a misty winter morning before I retreat to the office to write you another vegetal ode. But as with all loves, this seduction of salad, this hot pink radish romance, this steamy cruciferous crush, well, it’s become more complicated. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before because now it’s all I can see.
Today, as I stand bent over the scallion patch, ripping handfuls of stalks from the soil and smacking the dirt off on my boot tip, effortlessly slipping the thin skins off each stalk as my hands form my bunch on autopilot, I know that I can’t keep writing about farming as if it were flawless. I can’t even have a regular conversation with my coworkers anymore. There is an elephant in this movement. Some people know it. But most people don’t.
“Más alambres!?” [More ties?] Berta yelled from across the field. She began walking down the row and yelled again, “Chicas, más alambres?” [Ladies, more ties?]
“Yo tengo cinco,” [I have five,] I yelled back without looking up. “Tengo ocho,” [I have eight,] another girl replied down the bed.
“Dame unos,” [Give me some,] Berta said as she jolted my way.
“Claro, mi amor, un regalo para ti,” [Of course, my love, it is a gift for you,] I replied, looking up with a smile as I handed Berta three of my twist ties, knowing very well that despite my experience she could definitely bust out three bunches in the time it took me to do two. She giggled and dropped her tote down next to mine.
“Qué bonito los escallions aquí! Y porque no me dijiste nada?” [The scallions are so nice here! And why didn’t you tell me?] she said jokingly with a swoosh of the hip. There are many Latino/a migrant farmworkers who work at the farm in the heat of the season, but Berta is one of the few who stays year-round. We have become quite close over the years, she’s a particularly sweet soul who reminds me a lot of my childhood best friend — such a worrywart. Berta was always worried that we should be picking from a different part of the field, that we weren’t working fast enough, always looking out to make sure that I was drinking enough water throughout the day even when she was not herself.
I laughed and said, “Necesito todo lo que puedo conseguir para trabajar tán rápido como usted!” [I need everything I can get to work as fast as you!] We both laughed, spun our finished bunches in unison to seal the twist tie, tossed them like darts into our respective totes, and moved onto constructing the last few. “Voy a salir después de escallions hoy,” [I’m leaving after scallions today,] I reminded her.
“Ay no, no me dejas con estas chismosas,” [Ay no, don’t leave me with these chatty Kathies,] she lamented, and I laughed. “Vas a hacer el kimchi?” [Are you going to make kimchi?] she said curling her nose and waving her hand rapidly in front of her face.
I chuckled again and replied, “Oh tu favorito? No, hoy tengo que escribir el periódico para las cajas. Pero no hay nada más para decir sobre las verduras. Qué piensas que debo escribir? Digame, Berta.” [Oh, your favorite? No, today I have to write the CSA newsletter. But there’s nothing more to say about vegetables. What do you think I should write? Tell me, Berta.]
“Mm, no sé,” she replied quietly. “Solo soy una trabajadora.” [Mm, I don’t know. I am just a worker.]
“Usted es una reina,” [You are a queen,] I replied defensively. I thought I saw her crack a tiny smile, but she said nothing.
Everyone had finished up all the twist ties and were starting to load up the truck with the harvest. As Berta and I walked toward the truck together with our full totes, she suddenly yelled out, “Oh! Laurita, puedes preguntar a los patrones de mi cheque? Es que yo trabajé seis días cada semana pero solo está para cinco.” [Oh! Laurita, can you ask the owners about my check? I worked six days a week but it’s only for five.]
“Oh no! Sí, sí, claro. Solo es la machina nueva, los mujeres en la oficina están diciendo todo el tiempo que no sirve. Ellas necesitan decir a todos que deben recordar sus horas para ser seguro. Voy a hablar con ellas hoy.” [Oh no! Yes, yes, of course. It’s just the new machine, the women in the office are saying all the time that it doesn’t work. They need to tell everyone to record their hours to be sure. I’ll talk to them today.]
“Ok, bueno. Gracias. Muchas gracias, Laurita. Gracias.” [Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you so much, Laurita. Thank you.]
“Claro, Berta, no problema, de verdad,” [Of course, Berta, no problem, really,] I replied, looking up and seeing the concern in her face. The rest of the crew began loading up into the crew van to harvest something else in some other field, but Berta hesitated before returning to them.
“Es que, todavía estoy trabajando dos días cada semana para gratis con el gobierno robando mi dinero. No puedo perder más. Ay, Laurita, estas cosas son difíciles.” [It’s just that, I am already working two days a week for free with the government stealing my money. I can’t lose more. Ay, Laurita, these things are hard.]
“Entiendo, Berta, es puro paja. Lo siento que el mundo es así,” [I understand, Berta, it’s bull shit. I’m sorry the world is this way.] I said defeated, knowing that I don’t really understand, feeling broken and hopeless and dripping with privilege.
“No digas ‘lo siento,’ Laurita, no es tu culpa. No digas ‘lo siento’.” [Don’t say ‘sorry,’ Laurita, it’s not your fault. Don’t say ‘sorry.’]
“OK, Berta, no voy a decir ‘lo siento.’ Ahora pues, tengo que salir con los escallions. Hasta lunche?” [Ok, Berta, I won’t say I’m sorry. Alright, I have to leave with the scallions. See you at lunch?] I asked as I hopped onto the back of the flatbed with the rest of my scallion brethren.
“Sí, venga, tengo una sopa con las verdolagas de ayer. Venga. Ahora pues, te amo, Laurita. Venga para lunche,” [Yes, come, I have soup with the purslane from yesterday. Come. Alright, I love you Laurita. Come for lunch,] she said behind her as she jogged to join the rest of the crew.
I yelled after her cupping my hands around my mouth like a microphone, “Qué rico! Te amo también, Berta! Hasta lunche!” [I love you too! See you at lunch!] The truck jolted forward and my hands quickly found nooks to grip just as Berta disappeared into the van.
Needless to say, or perhaps not, Berta and I have two very different experiences as actors within the local food movement. I studied Spanish and English throughout high school and college. She speaks an indigenous language as well as Spanish, but cannot read or write either well. The farm is my life, my home, my platform, but for her it is little more than a paycheck. I chose to work at the farm. She is here because she has no choice.
My hands tightened their grip on the edge of the truck as it lurched again, struggling into second gear before turning into the parking lot. Our packing shed has an attached farmstand and restaurant that serves “modern European peasant cuisine,” complete with an earth oven, freshly-made potato doughnuts, and a wooden dining deck lined with glass walls that overlooks the flower garden. It is a most beloved destination for both tourists and locals.
The driver brought the big truck to a halt to let a group of older folks with bright white hair cross. They meandered slowly from their Prius to the stone steps that led up into the restaurant and looked over at me. Oh look, they must have thought, in a whiny, nasally voice, isn’t that beautiful! Young farmers bringing in the vegetables straight from the field. How very farm to table. They saw me, the white girl in rubber boots, sun glasses, and a floppy sun hat floating in a sea of scallion tops jutting up into the sky. They saw the driver, another white girl with botanical arm tats and thick turquoise bangles, bequeathed with the mantle of proper state licensure. They did know that they did not see Berta.
After the driver backed the truck up to the packing shed edge, I hopped down and sprayed the mud off the bottom of my boots one foot at a time. Making my way to the office, I noticed my friends standing toward the middle of the packing shed, only today, I just saw them as two white men standing still whilst holding coffees and clipboards. One is the farm’s business manager, the other runs cultivation. As I got closer I could hear that they were lamenting the latest and greatest Trump tweet.
I used to jump at every opportunity I could get to chat up those cool cats, to talk with people who loved to nerd out on the botany of brassicas and the politics of parsnips. But today I’d really just rather save up my words for Berta at lunchtime. The farm serves us all breakfast and lunch every day, a unique benefit that is so generous and beautifully human. I used to think it was flawless. But if I were to pay attention to more than just myself, I would notice that many of the farm’s Latino/a employees do not actually care for the “American” foods provided to appease the values of the white foodies who work here. They regularly and silently retreat out of view to their locker room and prefer to heat up leftover tortillas y sopas y frijoles there, rather than sit with the English-speakers out in the open dining area. But when a new lunch chef was hired who, heaven forbid, served us pre-made potato salad and pastries from Safeway, the uproar from the foodies was so loud that management talked with her about needing to source healthier ingredients.
I meet Berta in the locker room and have lunch with her often. I think she takes joy in cooking for people, and I love eating her amazing food and hearing her stories of life in her pueblo. I’m amazed by her. Yet having lunch with Berta is also problematic. When I’m in that little locker room usually I feel more than welcome, but sometimes I feel paranoid. Like, if they didn’t want me there they would have no autonomy to do anything about it and I would never know. White girl comes and sits down in their private space, where they can be with their friends and talk in Spanish or Mum and not be in a white space for just a half an hour? Even now I say “their” as if there is a monolithic Latino experience at the farm, as if they are not all individuals who would have their own opinions about me sitting in that space with Berta. I think honestly they couldn’t care less. I don’t know. Am I just as ignorant of my privileges as those two men getting paid higher wages to stand still and hold coffees as brown bodies scramble around them?
And yet, am I taking this all too far? I know those men. They are my good friends. One was an anthropology major, the other was married to one. They do a lot of very difficult work at the farm that not many other people could do. Perhaps they had worked through their break earlier and were only just now taking a moment and I am just being an uppity piece of shit.
But the reality is, I don’t really know. Many of us do not yet have the tools to talk or even think about privilege and “soft” racism. Even as I open up to you here, I have so much fear. Even after studying these issues through an anthropological lens at the university, I am still unsatisfied with narrowness of terms such as “American,” “Immigrant,” and “Latino.” We don’t use these words at the farm, we just say, “the field crew,” our own special term that technically refers to the harvest crew but actually is just a softer term than “the Latinos.” I feel frozen in silence, aware of the narrowness of my own perspective, knowing that even now I am likely thinking about all this precisely backwards. I am worried that my clever title may very well imply that I mean to say that immigrants are like elephants in some way, the object of discussion rather than the sovereign actor that has yet to be included on stage. Even though I had help editing, I am worried about the Spanish dialogue that I typed because I am not a native speaker. To be quite honest, I do not know exactly what I am doing. I just know that something needs to be done. And that, my fellow locavores, is a very dangerous place to be when dealing with a vulnerable population. Welcome to the problematique of local food.
I continued on through the packing shed, past the walk-in cooler full of pallets waiting to go to high-end restaurants, and through to the hand-washing sink behind the restaurant’s bakery. I looked over at the racks of pear galettes and pain au chocolat and thought of the countless times that the pastry chef would offer me a special treat, or how I see the white men in management go into the kitchen and take whatever they want. As I scrubbed the dirt off my hands I thought about how Berta has likely never been offered one of these fine desserts and how she would certainly never take one without permission. And yet, my refusal to eat one now out of some sort of solidarity is a farce that could only possibly result in me feeling slightly less guilty for being privileged. It helps no one. Guilt is not the goal.
I dried my hands, walked past the pastries, and turned the corner to go up the stairs. Just a few steps up I caught a glimpse of the farm’s new employee board and my body stopped mid hop. A cork board about two feet tall and three feet wide displayed head shots of the current on-farm employees, separated into crew categories: Field, Packing Shed, Seed & Irrigation, Farmstand, Office, etc. As you moved from one side to the other, one thing was clear. There was a stark juxtaposition from field to office, from farm to table, from brown faces to white.
Feeling like I had been standing there too long, I turned away and booked it up the remaining stairs two steps at a time. I ignored the sign on the door at the top of the staircase labeled “PRIVATE PROPERTY” and pushed it open (in the case of an ICE emergency, a warrant would be needed to enter the room). I greeted the office workers and got settled into my desk as they told me all about how boring it had been up there all day and how I should take a look at this new music video that they had just cued up. I just told them I was busy and needed to get my newsletter written before lunch.
As I sit upstairs in this toasty office today, above all the workers bustling about in the cold, muddy fields, about to represent the farm to the public once again, about to reproduce whiteness and oppress people of color via omission as I write about how excited “we” all are for sunchokes to be making their seasonal debut this week, I know that I just can’t do it. When I write for the farm, I am always saying “we” but it isn’t true. I could tell you about how much “we” love sunchokes for their rich umami flavor and artichoke-like tang, but that “we” does not include Berta. You know what sunchokes are to the field crew? Sunchokes, pronounced “Sancho,” is the man who’s at home sleeping with your wife while you’re at work. You know what Green Oak Compact is to the field crew? Fucking lechuga [lettuce].
These newsletters are supposed to provide our customers with a heartfelt narrative that connects them to what’s going on at the farm. Scrolling through my newsletters from over the years, I see dozens of clever and corny alliterative titles and inspirational metaphors about life gleaned from working closely with plants. I remember that I felt like I was achieving my food writer goals when CSA customers would call or email in telling me about how they looked forward to the newsletters just as much as the produce itself, how they were moved to tears, how they feel so grateful to be able to support such amazing farmers. I felt like I was channeling my inner Michael Pollan. I felt like I was really making a difference in the world. And in reality I was, and obviously so is Michael Pollan. But neither of us are making any difference in the lives of the incredible migrant and seasonal farmworkers who are the backbone of our local organic farms, except of course, by further oppressing them by never recognizing that they exist.
So it’s not actually that I don’t know what to write anymore, it’s that I know I can’t write what I want to write. I want to write about how Latino immigrant farmworkers are completely left out of local food movements despite being the leading labor force that supports them. I want you to know that even though they participated in local food in their home countries they do not participate in them here because of the barriers they face that are largely a result of this movement’s historically white shortcomings. I want to explode the assumption that Certified Organic implies something about social justice when it is in fact just a regulation on soil inputs and crop sprays.
People understand that there are major infringements on social justice within conventional agriculture, even within conventional organic. People even get that local organic fare is socioeconomically exclusive and that something must be done to lower the cost of good food. People get that. But nobody in my local food movement really understands that all their favorite local organic farms that dominate their farmers’ market still depend on largely segregated Latino/a immigrant labor. And yes, life on a small-scale organic farm is much “better” than on conventional farms. Truth. But the vulnerabilities are still there. The power disparities are still there. Whiteness and racism are both still being reproduced. And yet, this is only just being acknowledged by academics and almost never discussed by farmers and foodies themselves.
But I can’t just come out and say that. I cannot make some grand statement from a major local farm on social media about our vulnerable employees without inherently making them more vulnerable. Moreover, it is not my place to talk “about” anyone. But even if I could, some of you wouldn’t want to hear it. When I write about food for a local organic farm that serves a broad audience, I have to keep things relatively light. I can’t get too political or even too botanical without losing people. But really, I’m already framing the situation entirely wrong. I’m sitting here asking myself, what should I write in this newsletter? But I am not the voice that needs to be heard.
I may not be the person with all the answers, but I am a person who knows that we need to start trying to come up with some. In Eric-Holt Giménez’ latest book, A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism, he explains how our food system functions by extracting wealth from both the environment and from labor . And yet the discourse around local food is all about bringing value to the environment and never about valuing immigrant labor. What would the world look like if foodies and farmers valued a social justice certification as highly as organic? What would my local farming community be like if the immigrant voices that supported them were leading the way?
Before we get too excited about how to start “helping” to bridge this gap from immigrant to table, a trap I fall into on the daily, let’s not. I hold a quote from Indigenous Australian activist Lilla Watson close to my heart while working through these problematic issues, and I like to think that I am more balanced because of it:
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
I am still in love with produce. But this isn’t even about that anymore. It’s not about maximizing the warm fuzzy feels that I get when I commune with the soil or with customers at market. It’s not about me. This is about the migrant farmworkers in my local farming community who continue to be oppressed and forgotten even by the supposedly woke ethical consumers who they feed, as if voting with our dollars was really ever going to solve anything.
This is about how even local organic farmers do not understand their labor force in context and have never been expected to. This is about how I got a bachelor’s in agriculture without taking one class on migrant issues. About how foodies at market ask about what sprays we use and what heirloom tomato varieties we have and not about who we employ. This is about how the power of the words like “Local” and “Organic” has become so complete that we can no longer see a reason to question its limits. This is about a conversation that is not happening between people who do not know each other.
