The hands that feed us: Fausto Hernandez
The Hands that Feed Us is a series of Eating Niagara. It’s a monthly profile of a seasonal agricultural worker in Niagara.
This is Part 1 of a nine-part series.
Fausto Hernandez’s cravings for mole get more intense the longer he’s away from his home in Puebla State, Mexico.
By the time his seasonal job finishes at a local greenhouse in the fall, Hernandez can’t wait to return home to tuck into his favourite dish, a rich red or brown sauce made with chilli peppers and served with meat. Puebla, he says, is famous for its mole.
Mostly, Hernandez, 46, can’t wait to see his wife and three kids, who range in age from three to 17. After being away for eight months, there are life events to catch up on, friends to reconnect with, too.
But it’s around this time of year that he looks forward to hearing from his employer in Niagara. If all goes as planned, Hernandez will return to Canada this spring for his seventh tenure as a seasonal agricultural worker.
He’s one of more than 2,600 men and women who come to Niagara each year from Mexico or the Caribbean. They come to work in our orchards, vineyards, greenhouses and nurseries as part of the federal Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. Their work is physical and timely: pruning trees and grapevines, planting seeds, harvesting crops — all work that needs to be done manually and quickly.
The saying is ‘If you ate today, thank a farmer,’ but that gratitude is easily extended to farm workers like Hernandez.
Ask him and he’ll tell you he wanted to see the world, Canada in particular, when he made the choice to leave his family for so many months of the year. But the separation also brought Hernandez closer to providing the kind of life he wanted for his wife and children.
Speaking through translator Sonia Aviles at the Agriculture Workers Alliance Centre in Virgil on a rainy Sunday, Hernandez says leaving home offered the promise of making better money to pay for his children’s education. They attend public school but there are fees to cover and uniforms to buy. Soon, his eldest, could be headed to university.
It isn’t easy to say good-bye every spring, however.
“It’s always hard, especially in the beginning,” he says. “It was harder when I first started coming, but as the years went on, I’ve gotten used to it.”
Hernandez only planned to come to Canada for one season, but the wages beckon him back. He needs to start earning money again after a winter at home in Mexico. Casual work abounds in Puebla, but a sustainable living isn’t possible, he says.
That’s when Canada calls with the promise of more work. He arrives in March, ready to get his hands dirty.
Working in Niagara, he says, offers another perk. “Here, I like that it’s safe, it’s quiet compared to Mexico,” Hernandez said. “The people here are better drivers.”
That’s critical when you spend your days off exploring the region on bike. It’s Hernandez’s favourite way to while away Sunday, if he’s not scheduled to work.
He’s seen Niagara Falls on two wheels, and pedalled the streets and trails of St. Catharines and Port Dalhousie. He would love to see Toronto, too, but laments it’s too far to reach by bike. Still, getting around in Niagara is a challenge, he says, especially when you call a rural corner of the region home.
“The language is a challenge and transportation. There’s no bus service to the agricultural areas.”
It can make for a lonely existence. His first year away from his family was the worst, he recalls. But he “pushes the feelings out of his mind” or picks up his cellphone to call home.
Thanks to the technology, he can check in with his family every day. When he first started working abroad, doing construction work in the U.S., he spoke with them by phone every two weeks.
Hernandez likes it here. Most people are very welcoming, he says. Only once did he encounter hostility when he was walking his bike on a sidewalk. He moved over to let a couple pass when they started swearing at him.
“That was the only thing that made me feel bad,” he says. “But there was a nice lady who walked past and said hello.”
Did she understand why Hernandez was in Niagara? Perhaps. But he’s certain many people don’t.
“I don’t think people here know who we are or why we’re here.”