THE DAILY TAR HEEL (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

March 30, 2010

Students honor local farmworkers

By Jacob Martin, Staff Writer

Rebecca Clay said events this week will shed light on a group of people that is taken for granted.

National Farmworker Awareness Week, which began Monday, is a national movement that attempts to highlight the injustices farmworkers across the country experience in work and pay. It occurs annually during the week of labor leader César Chávez’s birthday.

In honor of the week, Alianza, a student group dedicated to working for farmworker justice, is screening documentaries and films and inviting speakers to the University.

“There is a huge break between the Chapel Hill and surrounding rural areas, and students fail to recognize what happens just 30 minutes down the road,” said Clay, co-chairwoman of Alianza.

The week will culminate in an action project as Alianza will travel to the home of a migrant farmworker and build a chicken coop Saturday.

Alianza, Spanish for “alliance,” visits camps of farmworkers in the fall, connecting with the workers and their children, co-chairwoman senior Rachael Mossey said.

The group also advocates on farmworkers’ behalf on campus.

“Workers making food need to be treated like human beings should be treated, so this week attempts to overcome the lack of information about this, specifically in North Carolina,” said senior Sam Wurzelmann, Alianza founder.

The week’s keynote address on Wednesday is a presentation by Mujeres Sin Fronteras, a group of farmworker women from Lenoir County who farm organically and are attempting to form their own non-profit.

The group, formed in July 2009, will speak on their members’ daily lives, future goals and how they plan to accomplish them.

Mujeres Sin Fronteras has built greenhouses, chicken coops and community gardens in the past two months, Mossey said.

In planning this week, Clay said Alianza wanted to gather the widest range of subjects possibly represented in North Carolina.

“We have presentations on men, women, families and youth who are alone here and whose families still live in Central America,” Clay said.

The week will educate students of the laborers’ struggle, and could motivate students to get involved with workers’ rights, Clay said.

“This week will bring an invisible people into visibility.”