After the Rains

- March 31, 2023

How timely Caesar Chavez Day is this year. Here in sunny San Diego County we’ve had endless, record breaking rain these past months. As much as we always need rain, this has been extreme. Streets are flooding. Boulders are falling down hillsides. Freeways are shutting down due to sinkholes. And work has practically dried up for residential gardeners, the people who keep our trees trimmed and our yards weed free. These are the people who have no insurance, paid vacations or sick days. Many of them are trying to stay off the radar as they wait in an endless line for the papers that would make them legal residents, and they are often exploited and taken advantage of. Talk about being vulnerable.

Over the years my husband and I have come to know and care about our gardener and his family. They are indigenous Guatemalans and the language they speak is Q'anjob'al. It sounds like the wind whistling through a tunnel. We’ve learned how Guatamalan tamales are different from Mexican tamales (they wrap them in banana leaves instead of corn husks.) We’ve seen his younger brother cry when he got the news that his baby daughter had died in their country. And we’ve heard his teenage daughter say how frightened she was of her big brother being deported – although she was born here, he came here as a little boy.

Caesar Chavez was a champion for social justice and workers rights. He devoted his life to empowering and uplifting the lives of workers, especially farm workers. When we dig into a delicious bowl of strawberries we usually don’t pause to think about how picking strawberries is monotonous, exhausting, back aching work done by people who don’t have nice kitchens in which to prepare and enjoy the fruit they picked. And if it weren’t for Caesar Chavez and his legacy, things would be even worse for farm workers than they already are.

Most of us are very far removed from the people who pick our produce, but we’re pretty close to the people who work around our homes. We can’t all be community organizers and champions for social justice, but we can all treat the people who work for us with dignity and respect. After these rains and lack of work, many of these people are hurting. Not just financially, but emotionally. There is nothing worse than worrying about how to feed your children or get them new sneakers when they outgrow their old ones. Cash bonuses, raises, and gas cards are all ways we can help restore dignity and wellbeing to the people who help us live better lives.