Florida Catholic | Apopka Youths Lobby Lawmakers For Farmworkers

Apopka youths lobby lawmakers for farmworkers

Students meet for two days with lawmakers in their Tallahassee offices to discuss pending legislation.

LAURA DODSON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 04.11.08

APOPKA | It was still dark the morning of March 31 when four local teenage advocates for farmworking families piled into a car destined for the state Capitol in Tallahassee.

“I’m here for my friends who came here as babies from Mexico and are just like me, but they don’t have any rights,” said Eva Trejo, 17, one of the Hope CommUnity Center youth group members who made the lobbying trip on behalf of farmworkers’ children, particularly those who entered the United States with their parents without documentation.

The teens in the group from the Apopka center, operated by the diocese’s Office for Farmworker Ministry, were observing National Farm Worker Awareness Week, which was March 30 to April 5 this year and always includes the March 31 birthday of civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. They chose to mark the week by bringing the gift of their witness of farmworker life to those who have the power to change it.

“They can’t get a driver’s license or go on to college,” said Eva, an 11th-grader at Apopka HIgh School and a member of St. Francis of Assisi Parish, also in Apopka. “My friends are afraid, too, that they can be deported at any time.”

Students met for two days with lawmakers in their offices to discuss pending legislation. “Everyone was very nice. They welcomed us. It is good to know that there is hope for change — that we are making a difference, not just letting things happen,” Eva shared.

National Farm Worker Awareness Week is an annual student initiative sponsored by the National Farm Worker Ministry and the Farmworker Association of Florida.

In addition to the Apopka teens’ road trip, events in the Diocese of Orlando took place at Stetson University in DeLand, Rollins College in Winter Park and the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

The campus events were aimed at educating students and the public regarding conditions in which farmworkers — native born and immigrant, documented and undocumented — work and live. They featured information tables, lectures, movies and discussions on human trafficking, immigration issues and farmworker problems.

Among those problems is exposure to agricultural chemicals. Jeannie Economos is the pesticide project coordinator for the farmworker association and relays anecdotes of sicknesses, disabilities, birth defects and deaths of farmworkers from exposure to pesticides. The Florida Catholic’s annual collection of long-sleeve shirts certainly helps, but far more needs to be done to limit the pesticides and provide health care to the workers, she said.

“The farmworkers feed us all,” Economos said. “We have to stand with those who work hard and are denied their rights. Injustice to one is injustice to all.”

Lucila Zamora, 16, in 11th grade at Wekiva High School, a St. Francis of Assisi parishioner and a member of the youth group, was also on the lobbying trip to support her friends. “I was undocumented, but I have my papers now and I still feel a part of it. The legislators were really touched by the story of one of the children. She is only 13 and she has diabetes, but she doesn’t have papers, so she can’t get KidCare. (Florida KidCare is the state’s insurance program for uninsured children, but it doesn’t cover the undocumented.) If it weren’t for a doctor who is donating her insulin, she would die,” Lucila said.

The diocesan Office for Farmworker Ministry serves the farmworkers in the area from the Hope CommUnity Center. Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Ann Kendrick has been working in the ministry for 36 years and said, “People who work the land have a closer relationship to nature and its lessons. There is the peace of appreciating God’s natural abundance. While there are problems, there’s also a resilient faith. We have been sophisticated away from it. They are field people who have gifts — if only we had the means to embrace them.”

Advocates gave a resounding response to the question, “What can people do to help?” To a person, those interviewed urged that people get educated; learn about pending legislation and take action in support of the farmworker; advocate for health care, fair wages and immigration reform.

Economos said, “We all sit down to say grace before meals. We must be aware that if it weren’t for the farmworker, we wouldn’t have this food on our tables. We should ask God to bless them.”

Her day at the Capitol had a profound effect on Eva. “I really never thought about it before today, but I think I want to be a state representative,” Eva said. “I didn’t know what that was, but I’ve learned a lot about what people can do to help and I want to do it.”

For more information, visit the Web sites www.nfwm.org and www.farmworkers.org.

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Apopka youths lobby lawmakers for farmworkers

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