The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers' Lives, Labor, and Advocacy

Appendix I: Developing a Syllabus on Farmworker Advocacy

appendix i Developing a Syllabus on Farmworker Advocacy Below are topics, suggested readings, and films for a fourteen-week semester seminar. Note that this syllabus was developed prior to the release of this book, and therefore this volume does not appear in this sample. This work is very much intended for course use, and we hope that courses will be organized around the themes of the book, with a week devoted to each chapter’s theme. See the recommended reading list and works cited in this volume for further suggestions and full citations to supplemental materials. SAF houses readings and films related to farmworkers that can be checked out through SAF’s lending library. Basic elements for a course on farmworkers and advocacy: • History of farm work particular to the region where the course is offered. In the Southeast, any discussion of farm work must discuss links between current farmworker conditions and slavery, sharecropping, and tenant farming. • Contextualization of farm work with region’s agricultural crops. How did the crops that farmworkers prune, plant, and harvest in this region become popular here? Why grow these crops and not others? How are these crops transported to markets? How have these cropping patterns and crop selections changed over time? • Changes in farmworker populations over time. Discuss the shifts of farmworker population ethnicities and countries of origin. Why do whites and African Americans make up only a small percentage of the farmworker population today, while Latinos make up the overwhelming majority? • Push/pull factors that encourage or force farmworkers to enter farm work today. In the Southeast, discuss the vacuum created by the out-migration of the descendants of slaves and sharecroppers from agricultural communities. Also review the economic and social aspects of communities in Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere that create a climate where inhabitants must leave in order to survive. Discussions about NAFTA and other federal trade programs and how U.S. policy has helped create poverty in Latin America are also important. 300 The Human Cost of Food • Patterns of farmworker travel and labor in the present.Where do farmworkers who work in the region being studied stay in the winter? What months are they in your community? How long do they stay? Where do they come from and where do they go when they leave? Are there year-round workers in the area? • Farmworker advocacy.What were the antecedents to present-day farmworker advocacy? How do farmworker advocates of the past resemble those of the present? Familiarize the students with various areas of advocacy including education, legislation, housing, health, and immigration. • Direct experience with farmworkers and advocates. While it may be difficult to work with farmworker communities during the academic year, students should have some contact with farmworkers and farmworker advocates. This can come in the form of a field trip to a labor camp and farm, inviting farmworkers and advocates as guest speakers, or requiring students to volunteer with local farmworker organizations. • Volunteer experience with farmworker advocacy organizations. Servicelearning requirements can be a useful tool to involve students in the farmworking community. In lieu of writing academic papers, students can document their volunteer experiences as a means of conveying what they have learned through oral histories, photography, video, and/or ethnographies of the agency personnel/community members/farmworkers with whom they have worked. A journal is an effective means of documenting experiences, and required presentations encourage students to convert journal writings into effective communication. • Special reports by the students to expand upon topics only slightly covered by required readings. Depending upon the level of student experience and interest , students may have their own topics of interest to explore and present to the class. Suggested class topics Abbreviated citations (last name and page numbers) from the particular texts listed below appear in the syllabus as readings for each week. Additional readings are listed for individual weeks. • Brandt, Deborah, ed. 1999. Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain: Women, Food, and Globalization. Toronto: Second Story Press. • Flowers, Linda. 1990. Throwed Away. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. • Hahamovitch, Cindy. 1999. The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870–1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. • Hellman, Judith Adler. 1994. Mexican Lives. New York: New Press. • Manly, Libby, Alejandra Okie, and Melinda Wiggins, eds. 1998. Campos sin Fronteras/Fields without Borders. Durham, N.C.: Student Action with Farmworkers . 301...