Fields of (No) Return

    The end has come...

    But has it?

    Okay guys, time to whip out the soap box before all chances are lost.  I know many of you are still in it for another year or more, but many of my peers and I are just about done at UCSC, and with only a few days left, it is really easy to pop on into high school senior mode and tune out.  And that is obviously fine - we have all worked pretty damn hard to get where we are.  But here is my request - don't let that last.  

    Not a lot of UCSC students are from Santa Cruz originally.  That is simply the fact of a university built in a small town.  And many, like me, have made the 7+ hour jaunt up from Southern California to get here, more than likely several times a year.  I myself have driven those roads too many times to count.  I have taken just about every route and detour, as well.  Historic route 1, wine country up the 101, the dreadfully boring I-5, and even the 99 for a quick stopover in Yosemite.  And unless you have taken a plane for every single trip (which you really should consider driving one of those highways at least one time in your life), you have surely driven past the seemingly endless miles upon miles of fields.  America's produce section is at our doorstep.  Watsonville, Castroville, Fresno, Salinas, Oxnard, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum.  Miles upon miles of them bursting with artichokes and strawberries and lettuce and grapes and almonds.  Just about anything that grows is grown right here.  So have you noticed them?  Have you taken a good long look?  Have you been guilty, as have I, of letting these fields so often turn into nothing more than one enormous green blur between here and the fields of Los Angeles gray?

    My real hope would be that, as we all commute back to our respective homes across this state (or further), that we take some time in this next week or so to really LOOK at what we so easily take for granted.  And some of you may be staying right here in Santa Cruz - take a short drive.  I implore you.  Not far; you don't have to go far.  Ten or twenty minutes north or south along the Cabrillo Highway should suffice.  Take a sunny weekend and drive down to Moss Landing.  Elkhorn Slough is beautiful this time of year - chock full of otters and sea lions and seals - and the produce stands are a steal.  

    And that is the point, right?  

    Cheap food equals cheap labor, and it is right there in the open for us all to see.  And when something is so open and obvious, it is a reflection of the society in which it exists just how well that really open thing is treated.  If your neighbor was beating his dog, or starving him, or leaving him out in the sun for hours on end without access to water, what would you do?  Would you hide yourself inside and do your best to never look into the next yard?  I would like to think I would act - call the authorities or take it into my own hands to confront the indifferent owner.  I would probably feel like some damn white knight savior.  I would buy myself a beer.

    So why do I care for the dog and not for the human?

    Have I convinced myself that it isn't all that bad?  That the labor is fair and the paycheck is good?

    Then why aren't there any white folks out in the fields?  Why don't I take a summer job picking fruit for my fellow man?  Is farming not the exalted and pride-invested pursuit that it once was?

    These are all rhetorical questions, of course.

    While running the risk of becoming really preachy and holier-than-thou, I want everyone to take a second this summer to really think hard about the kind of world we want to live in.  Do we really want equal opportunities and freedom for all, or just those of us lucky enough to be born on the right side of a fence?  After two years in Santa Cruz, I feel like I know the average UCSC student.  I don't feel qualms about saying that these are good people.  Damn fine people.  So if anyone in this country is going to become the spearhead that speaks for the ones who cannot speak, it is going to have to be the really damn good people.  I've said it before and I will say it again: If university students aren't pushing these kinds of issues, who will?  Politicians?  Lobbyists?  

    Exactly.

    And as you consider these things, remember that everything local is also typically global.  The contado of America in the twenty-first century has no limits.  It reaches all around the world and even into space.  Yes, these are big and difficult problems to solve.  But only we can do it.

p.s. I know this video is technically farm workings IN Mexico, but the imagery is pretty much the same, and I liked the quality on this better than the other videos I found.