American Dream

This past Sunday I spent the day in the tiniest rural town in North Carolina at a farmworkers festival. (Oh yea… I got a new gig as a Digital Arts and Publishing Intern at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and I live in Durham, NC. Sorry I didn’t update.) I drove an hour and twenty minutes, lost cell signal and ended up at an Episcopal church surrounded by fields.

I was there documenting the event and shadowing a photographer who is starting a documentary on latin music in North Carolina. The purpose is to see how latin music has changed or stayed the same as people migrate to the state. We met a lot of great people.

I was also there to take it all in. As time goes by, and I start to home in on what I’m passionate about, I realize that nothing makes me scream louder, smile bigger, cry harder and sing sweeter than issues regarding hispanic culture. Being a Cuban, a lot of what I was a part of on Sunday was completely different from my own culture. The food, the music, the accents and the sayings were all different. But I still felt a bond. Maybe it’s because I know the story of leaving one’s land to give yourself and family the best opportunities possible. Maybe because I write immigration articles now, and I understand the bureaucratic nonsense and the unjust laws that these people endure every day. Maybe it’s because the people who have no voices often have the best things to say.

The festival had a lot of families attend and countless buses were filled to bring in migrant workers from the camps they live in. These migrant workers work 8-16 hours daily for $9.00 an hour and if they’re undocumented that is $7.25 an hour to feed America.

I met one worker who is working under an H-2A visa, which means that he has a contract to work in agriculture, and once that contract is up he has to return home – in his case Mexico. He’s been working this way for years. And this man taught me the American Dream on Sunday. On his time off he spends his time singing in the church choir, giving music lessons, and helping his fellow workers anyway possible.

He told me that people think that the American Dream is owning a house, a car and having a job. But he says that the American Dream is helping people.

I learned a valuable lesson on Sunday.

Cheers!

Couples dance at the 20th Annual Farmworkers Festival in Newton Grove, NC.