YLC Zine - 2024 Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Learn Spanish to Advocate for Farmworkers!

By: Nat Simms

According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey of 2019-2020, “78% of all farmworkers identify as Latino/Hispanic” and “Spanish is the most dominant (comfortable) language for 62% of all farmworkers”.1 In addition, many Latino farm workers experience discrimination and poor treatment in the workplace.2 Therefore, it is clearly important that we understand the experiences of these workers and support them in fighting for their rights. In order to raise awareness for these issues, I have listed some words and phrases in Spanish below. Understanding at least some of the language spoken by Latinx/Hispanic farm workers can help connect advocates more closely to these issues and promote inclusivity overall.

English (Inglés)

Farm Farmer

To learn

To support

Workers’ rights

To fight (for one’s rights)

Equality, Unity

To protest, Demonstration/Protest, Strike Power, Human rights

Spanish (Español)

La granja

El granjero/La granjera

Aprender

Apoyar

Los derechos de los trabajadores

Luchar (por los derechos)

La igualdad, La unidad

Protestar, La manifestación, La huelga

El poder, Los derechos humanos

I highly encourage readers to look into pronunciation and more online!

1. 2 Farmworker Justice, “National Agricultural Workers Survey 2019-2020 Selected Statistics”, (2022): 1, www.farmworkerjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NAWS-data-fact-sheet-FI NAL docx-3 pdf

Snipes, Shedra A. et al. “‘The only thing I wish I could change is that they treat us like people and not like animals’: Injury and Discrimination Among Latino Farmworkers”, J Agromedicine, National Library of Medicine, (2017): www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5555594/.