THOUSANDS ATTEND GROWERS AND FARMWORKERS FESTIVAL
California employs somewhere between ⅓ and ½ of all farmworkers in the country — 500,000 to 800,000 — who are responsible for growing, picking and packaging ⅓ of the nation's vegetables and nearly ⅓ of its fruits and nuts.
That's according to The Center for Farmworker Families, an organization that promotes awareness about the difficult life circumstances binational farmworker families face in the United States.
Yolo County has approximately 7,000 agricultural workers, many of whom are migrant workers temporarily moving to the county each growing season and often lack adequate health care and food security, according to a 2021 Healthy Davis Together case study.
In an attempt to show its appreciation to the county's farmworkers — migrant or not — the city of Woodland partnered with Brown Issues to hold the 2nd Annual Yolo Growers and Farmworkers Festival Friday evening in downtown Woodland.
The event welcomed thousands with the goal of connecting farmworkers to vital resources while providing them an opportunity to relax and enjoy a break from their demanding jobs.
Monica Aceves Robles, a Brown Issues advisor for Cesar Chavez Community School who helped organize the event, said the purpose of the event was to honor and celebrate the farmworkers “who work hard to put food on our tables.”
“During the pandemic, we were running out of toilet paper and water, but we never ran out of food and it was because farmworkers were putting their life on the line to make sure we had food on our tables,” Robles emphasized. “A lot of the times they go unnoticed even though it's challenging work.”
Robles noted that Brown Issues created a scholarship program meant to help farmworkers' children with hopes and dreams that require additional education.
“We wanted to do much more than just have a one-day event,” she stressed. “We know one of the reasons they work so hard is because they're trying to provide a better life for their kids. A big part of that is their kids seeking higher education, so we wanted to make sure that we provided some type of financial support for them.”
Brown Issues will be offering several $500 scholarships to children of Yolo County farmworkers who apply to trade schools or universities. Applications are available by visiting docs.google.com/forms/d/e/ 1FAIpQLSeoF22fLbvm6ffLKL Z7G22enEqhKC2pj3AgQI5oIs_ lCB5atg/viewform.
Being born in Mexico and moving to Woodland when she was five, Robles said it's nice to be able to give back to her com
munity.
“It gives me a sense of belonging and that I'm doing something to support the place that saw me grow up and raised me,” she remarked.
Additionally, the event provided an opportunity for Yolo County organizations aimed at helping farmworkers or low-income families to connect with people.
Laura Guevara, interim executive director for RISE Inc., said her nonprofit organization serves a lot of farmworker families in the Esparto and Winters area.
“When we learned about this event, we wanted to be here providing resources and letting the community know what we do and the different programs that we offer,” she said.
The organization works to enhance the quality of life and opportunity for self-sufficiency for the rural community through mental health services, after-school programs and food distributions in partnership with the Yolo Food Bank.
Guevara applauded the work the city and Brown Issues have done for the rural community and hopes to participate in future festivals.
“I think our community really needs support like that and the education piece is so important,” she said regarding the scholarships. “We're just excited to be here and see how the next couple of years of the event will grow.”
Yolo County Board Supervisor Angel Barajas attended the event along with a delegation from Woodland's Sister City, La Piedad, Michoacán.
“The delegation… is very happy to be here today,” he emphasized. “They themselves have a lot of farmworkers because La Piedead is agricultural and a lot of their residents actually come here to Woodland and work in the fields in Yolo County.”
Barajas said the board is a co-sponsor of the event and contributed $3,000 towards it.
“It's about bringing the community together, appreciating farmworkers and their families and just making sure that the community knows that we appreciate them at all levels,” he highlighted.
Ramon Cuencas, a delegate from La Piedad, said he enjoyed the event and appreciated that Woodland was showing that farmworkers matter to the community.
“It makes me think of my father because he was here first as an illegal farmworker and then a Bracero,” he said in Spanish referring to a 1940s program that permitted millions of immigrant Mexican farmworkers to work legally in the U.S. on short-term contracts. “But it makes me happy to see what I'm seeing and for these farmworkers to feel included with their fellow citizens.”
Thanks to his father, Cuencas said he was able to attend University and graduate with a doctorate degree. Now, he works as a surgeon in Michoacán.
He argued that events like this highlight what farmworkers do, not only for their families here but also for their families back home in Mexico.
“So many of these farmworkers are working diligently and even send money back to their families in Michoacán so that they could have access to medicine, doctors and more because a lot of people don't have money back home,” he emphasized.