San Diego farm workers honored with car parade

Posted on April 27, 2020

While most San Diegans are sequestered at home, many are still going to work, including the county’s more than 10,000 agricultural workers. Like our frontline medical personnel, they are essential and this past Saturday morning dozens of San Diegans gathered at the fields of the Carlsbad Strawberry Company to show their appreciation, collecting face masks, detergent, and other PPE, and then delivering them to farms in Oceanside, Vista, and Carlsbad in three parading caravans of cars decked out with signs and placards of support.

One sign read: Sin Uds, No Commemos. Con Uds, Venceremos. (Without You, We Don’t Eat. With You, We Shall Triumph.)

Lead by the FarmWorker CARE Coalition, the event was inspired by a similar event in Watsonville earlier this month, and these events have spread to other farming communities throughout California.

The FarmWorker CARE Coalition brings together representatives and leaders from local health and social service agencies, community-based organizations, educational institutions, local governmental agencies, and grassroots groups to improve employment and living standards of agricultural workers and their families in North County.

“The work of farm labor is essential, more so today in this pandemic,” says Maria Figueroa, a volunteer with the organization. “We want to bring light to the importance and essential nature of their labor.”

A San Diego Farm Workers’ Fund has been established. To contribute please click here.

Bill Abrams

Photography by Bob Stefanko