Insulated from suffering

We live in a world where the suffering of others is virtually absent from our awareness of the world. It is easy for us to live our lives totally unaware of the impacts of our choices. If one desires, one can buy and consume without considering how it is we are able to live the way we can. We have grown so accustomed to being able to go to the grocery store and get produce year round. We have no concept of what it means for us to be able to buy bananas year round for dirt cheap. How do we get this produce? Who picks it? I think that it is so interesting to hear people on the news talk about migrant workers are taking jobs and hurting our economy. Since the push to crack down on migrant farm workers coming from Mexico there have been literally fields of crops that go unpicked. The argument that has been made that Americans should do these jobs since there are Americans out of work. But for this to become a reality, we need to confront the current condition that the migrant farm workers have.

Two summers ago I volunteered in Oregon at a church camp. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to engage in a 5 day march from Salem to Portland. I participated for three days of the march. We marched around 12 miles a day. It was really powerful. There were three main points of the march: the Iraq war, education, and migrant farm worker rights. The march wanted to point to the connection between the Iraq war and education. Oregon had its national guard in Iraq and was spending money to fund their national guard. Meanwhile, a large proportion of the school system did not have enough money to have school five days a week. A large percentage of the schools were only having four days a week. The third focus of migrants rights was very interesting for me. At night we heard speeches by various people. One memorable night we attended a rally where farm workers told of the horrible conditions where they worked. But there is not a real choice for them. They’re here so what are their options? They told of not being able to have bathroom breaks; being forced to work for long hours for illegally low pay. The rally concluded with the small church where we were meeting erupting in cheers of “la raza unida jamás será vencida”, which means “the people united will never be defeated.” Through are marching and our rallying we rose awareness about these issues. People from many different walks of life came for different reasons. But we were united in our message. We raised awareness about these issues through our actions. What saddens me is that the invisible has not yet been made visible on a national scale. We are unaware of the injustices that have been perpetrated for the sake of cheap produce.

This march reminded me in lots of ways of Gandhi’s salt march. The people immediately affected by the injustice standing up for their rights. However, this march was not illegal. It did not raise as much awareness as the salt march did because it was not as widely covered and it wasn’t as much of a national issue as the salt. It was great to stand up and engage in a long march in the name of rights. I would love to see the US become more active in our marching and the people taking to the streets, peacefully, in the name of wanting justice and peace.