We had the good fortune of having Mary Jo Dudley, the Senior Extension Associate Director of the Cornell Farmworkers Program, and Justine Vanden Heuvel, Associate Professor in Plant Sciences, attend the Becker-Rose Cafe Series.  They discussed a subject we all possess a deep interest and love of: food! However, what they shared and discussed with us was not the rosier aspects of the food industry, such as the distribution of goods at our local Wegmans or how to construct delicious meals out of healthy ingredients, but rather the farm workers who are indispensable to the industry and are the true source of the procurement of the food we consume daily.

Our guests raised an interesting point in stating that in the process of consuming food, we consider factors such as the manner in which it was cooked or perhaps the quality of the ingredients, but what is abstracted away are the human beings involved who are the source of this meal. We learned that over half of the farm workers in this nation are undocumented immigrants. The reality that our guests lamented is the average American’s distaste with farm labor because of factors like the negative stigma attached to the work and the physical labor necessary. With this in mind, the recent clamoring within the GOP for immigrant deportation is not only immoral, but completely infeasible from an economic standpoint. Our nation has been built off the backs of immigrant labor, and the least we can do is provide these workers an opportunity to fulfill dreams like learning English and obtaining a basic education.