If you don’t think too much about it, it’s easy to imagine that the links of the food chain stretch only as far as, say, the nearest Trader Joe’s to our dinner plates.
But one publication aims to put the focus on an overlooked, but essential link in that chain – farm and agricultural workers.
The latest issue of the literary journal The Common, which is published twice a year out of Amherst College, includes a special portfolio of writing and art from 27 writers, poets and a visual artist – many with ties to California’s seasonal, migrant and immigrant farmworker community.
The journal will be sponsoring a free event at Skylight Books at 7 p.m. on Jan. 25 that will feature contributors reading and discussing the work, including essayist Amanda Mei Kim, poets Aideed Medina and Oswaldo Varga and National Book Award finalist and UC Riverside Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. Visual artist and former farm worker Narsiso Martinez, who uses flattened cardboard produce boxes as his canvases, will also be there discussing his art.
Emily Everett, managing editor of The Common, co-edited the portfolio with award-winning poet and writer Miguel M. Morales. Everett, who spoke to me by phone this week, credits Morales and his work as inspiration for the issue.
“Our most recent issue has a special portfolio of writing from immigrant, migrant, seasonal farmworkers – most are from California,” says Everett. “We have farmer-writers who are coming to the event … They’re from Long Beach, Riverside, one grew up in Oxnard.”
The work in the new issue includes essays, poetry and prose that focus on farmwork, family, immigration, justice and more. Everett, who grew up on a dairy farm, says some of the pieces are harrowing – exposing cruelty, bigotry, mistreatment and long days working in the hot sun.
There are other facets to the work, too.
“A lot of really beautiful stories. I love seeing the commonalities between the pieces,” says Everett. “About family and how close families are when they work together, and how close you can become with your family when you really have to depend on each other.”
Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Aideed Medina, author of the upcoming poetry collection, “Segmented Bodies,” has three poems represented in the issue: “Picket Line Baby,” “La Corrida” and “In the Fields.”
“Having my work included in Issue 26 is much more than another publication to cite for me. It is a moment of justice for the second grader who was told by her teacher that she was just a dirty wetback and NOT a writer, and for the fourth grader who was accused of plagiarism because it couldn’t be possible for a daughter of farmworkers to write something well crafted,” says Medina via email.
“I am not alone in my poems. My family and community are standing with me in every line I write, and now I am standing up with my Issue 26 cohorts. I hope the readers recognize themselves in our work too and gain a new perspective of their fellow human beings.”
Oswaldo Vargas, whose poems “Thresher Days,” “Noé,” and “Crossandra” are in the portfolio, worked on farms in California.
“I am happy to bring my farm and field-working experiences to this portfolio; even though I stopped in 2015, my poems still take me back to that time, back to when I dreamed of writing about the beauty and reality of the fields while not realizing I was cultivating that work along the way,” says Vargas via email.
“And for that, I am grateful.”
Amanda Mei Kim grew up farming with her family near Oxnard, which she writes about in her essay, “California Obscura.”
“This portfolio brings so many beautiful, personal farmworker stories to light. These poems and stories fully and righteously demonstrate that farmworker communities are full of talent, brilliance, and courage; and that every American, whether they know it or not, is connected to them,” she says.
The Common puts its issues online, so you can check out and read from the wealth of material compiled for the issue ahead of the Skylight Books event.
“We’re hoping that it will get people to think about something they don’t often think about, which is where their food comes from. And what kind of life they hope that the person who picks that food is having. That’s what I’ve thought about a lot while we’re working on it,” says Everett.
“We just sort of assume these things are coming, that there’ll be food at the grocery store, but it’s a whole system. And I would love for it to be a little less behind the scenes and bring it a little out of the shadows.”
For more information, check out The Common and Skylight Books.
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