Link: Prayer of the Farm Workers’ Struggle
Show me the suffering of the most miserable;So I will know my people’s plight.
Free me to pray for others; For you are present in every person. Help me to take responsibility for my own life; So that I can be free at last. Grant me courage to serve others; For in service there is true life. Give me honesty and patience; So that I can work with other workers. Bring forth song and celebration; So that the spirit will be alive among us. Let the spirit flourish and grow; So we will never tire of the struggle. Let us remember those who have died for justice; For they have given us life. Help us love even those who hate us; So we can change the world.
Written by Cesar E. Chavez
Since I like to mock backyard-gardening-framed-as-farming, I have to reblog Cesar Chavez here. Because one of my main problems with a good chunk of “foodie” culture is that it likes to portray itself as somehow saving the world through dilettantish subsistence farming and suchlike. Meanwhile, farmworkers the world over are still struggling to barely make a living wage (and in some cases free themselves from literal slavery).
So. Happy Cesar Chavez day, foodies and nonfoodies alike. Take some time today to think of the people who grew and picked the food you’re eating.
-Julia Childless