further up and farther in: Rural Plunge

This past week I was in Yakima Valley, WA with ten students on the Rural Plunge. It's fall break at UP. Every year Volunteer Services sponsors an alternative break trip to learn about farmworker communities. It was an eye-opening experience into the world of those who grow, pick and pack our food. We met families who had crossed the border from Mexico, making their way up the coast and going from season to season picking crops. We volunteered at Head Start, taught an ESL class, went to WA Apples packing plant, picked for a day at Inaba Farms and went to a farmworkers rights radio station.

We also met a lot of folks who were farmworker rights activists. One was Tomas Villanueva who is running for state senator. We went to a forum he spoke at called "Our Neighbors on the Edge" sponsored by the churches of Toppenish. We learned about the crises in health care and education for undocumented workers in the Valley and we heard from all the candidates for state legislature from that district.

All the challengers were brown (either American Indian or Hispanic) and all the incumbents were white farm owners. It was a strange thing to see and we were especially disturbed by how clueless the farm owners were about the issues impacting workers' lives. A few days after this we met with Tomas to hear his story: living in the labor camps in the 60s, earning his GED by night, dropping out of college to work with Cesar Chavez. It was a moving story. At the end Tomas told us that many of the whites in the Valley didn't want to support him because they assumed he was only representing the workers. He smiled a little and looked at each of us. "I am not a racist," he said, "but I do hate injustice."

For one of our nightly reflections I read the sections from the last chapter of Lamentations. This trip may have been the first time these words have a face.

We must pay for the water we drink;
the wood we get must be bought.
With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven;
we are weary, we are given no rest.

Our skin is black as an oven
from the scorching heat of famine.
Young men are compelled to grind,
and boys stagger under loads of wood.
The old men have left the city gate,
the young men their music.
The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.

But you, O Lord, reign for ever;
your throne endures to all generations.

I was amazed by how many people wanted to go back to Mexico but couldn't, how many people missed their families and felt isolated from their communities by language and culture.

But we also had a lot of fun being there. We had an interesting group: three international students (No. Ireland, Mexico and China), all majors and years. My student leader, Michelle, was awesome and we were able to laught together and be changed by what we saw.

They were a good group and I continue to pray that a few of them feel the call of God on their lives to be agents of change for people in the Valley.