United Farm Workers Of America Honor Farmers By Showing People How Ingredients For Thanksgiving Meals Are Harvested
Asking the question What are you thankful for? is probably one of the most beautiful traditions surrounding Thanksgiving. Sure, some might think it’s funny because it has become a bit of a cliche, but just think about it: the question makes you reflect upon all of the good things that happened to you. Even if it is brief, it feels good.
It also provides an opportunity to honor everyone who was involved in making this goodness a reality. Just like United Farm Workers of America did with their now-viral Thanksgiving campaign where they asked people to share their favorite Thanksgiving dishes and responded to them by showing the work and the people behind them as a thanks for their hard work.
United Farm Workers of America, a labor union protecting farmers’ rights, recently asked people to share their favorite Thanksgiving meals
So, United Farm Workers of America, a labor union that fights for farm worker rights in the United States, has recently shared a video of farmhands hard at work harvesting cabbage, and a tweet that reads: “Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we’ll share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.”
This was done as part of a Thanksgiving-themed campaign to thank all of the hardworking farm workers who break their backs and work through thick and thin to make food available to millions of households nation-wide.
And when people started sharing, the union responded with pics and vids of how the ingredients are harvested in order to thank farmers that make it all possible
Soon after, people began tweeting at UFW, sharing their favorite dishes and foods. These included pineapple cranberry sauce, cranberry-orange relish, cornbread stuffing with carrots, onions, and celery, turkey stuffing, cooked yams, turnips, rutabagas, apple and sweet potato pie, and many more.
And the UFW Twitter account responded to them accordingly. Each tweet got its own video, or picture, at the very least, of how particular ingredients used for these dishes were harvested, honoring the workers who made sure these very same fruits and vegetables reach stores and ultimately people’s Thanksgiving tables.
People shared everything from actual Thanksgiving meals to just fruits and veggies that they usually use for their own Thanksgiving meals
These include pineapple cranberry sauce, cranberry-orange relish, cornbread stuffing and a bunch more!
The UFW posted videos of how food like pineapples, ginger, cranberries, carrots, celery, grapes (someone asked about wine), parsley, yams, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, turnips, and apples, among many others, are harvested.
Some of the videos show just how intense harvesting can be: you can see how fast and with ease people do their job—one moment, they’re picking a veggie off the ground, and the next, it’s chopped and in the bucket or any other receptacle for collecting produce. It’s like clockwork. Satisfying to watch, to say the least.
The campaign sent a powerful message throughout Twitter and beyond, reminding people that Thanksgiving meals would be nothing without the hardworking farmers
The campaign sent a powerful message throughout Twitter, drawing in many people to react and be reacted to. Besides sharing their favorite dishes, many have shared stories from their Thanksgiving celebrations and expressed their thanks to the hardworking farm workers as well as everyone else on Twitter.
This campaign also started making headlines beyond Twitter—in online news media—turning it into a pretty wholesome movement honoring the people who are, when you think about it, a huge part of everyone’s Thanksgiving. So here’s one more thing to be thankful for!
Check out the rest of the videos below and let us know what you thought about this!
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comment section below!
They aren't really "farmers". They don't own farms. They're usually migrant workers. Or, as many 'Muricans like to call them, "Illegals."
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We should be especially grateful of this work knowing that most/many of these essential workers do not have health insurance or any benefits at all. Essential workers are denied basic rights in the United States, but we're happy to eat the food they put on our tables.
Yep. And they're constantly being demonized as "illegals." :/ We'd have barely much food if not for their hard work.
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Mindboggling how much work goes into these harvests for so little pay. I can't get over that poor person on their knees gathering parsley. How many of us do anything with parsley other than throwing it away?! Someone was on their knees for an 8-hour shift so you could toss away that little green garnish.
Just like with wealth inequality, land inequality can have disastrous effects on agriculture and on society as a whole. A new study by the Land Inequality Initiative has determined that land inequality “is also central to many other forms of inequality related to wealth, power, gender, health, and environment and is fundamentally linked to contemporary global crises of democratic decline, climate change, global health security and pandemics, mass migration, unemployment, and intergenerational injustice.” https://modernfarmer.com/2020/11/study-finds-1-percent-of-farms-own-70-percent-of-worlds-farmland
Some Americans want to kick these "illegals" out not realizing how hard this work is and how little they get paid for it (and they cannot claim welfare). I always ask if they would do it and they say sure, but they wouldn't work for that little, they'd want at least $10 or more an hour. I then point out that they'd be paying quadruple or more for fruit and veg. And let's be honest, how long do you think these people would actually last? Not long. I appreciate everything immigrant workers to do bring food to our table. They are the reason we eat and pay reasonable prices. People should think about that when the parrot Trump.
I'm thankful for hard workers like this! They do have a stigma attached I guess: South of the Border, low wage, illegal, homeless. Not all that much is true, probably very little. If not outright citizens most have valid working visas, or legal rights of some kind to work, AND they pay their income tax too! Some still are of European descent just preferring that kind of life. Quit anytime, travel around, work for a while... That was big for some of us Baby Boomers. Plus, this video campaign was created by the United Farm Workers, a big union of the few left. If all these folks are Union Workers well, I envy them! My great career was spent with local small businesses with no benefits or coverage. It's the billionaires that go around convincing us that Unions are no good because it hurts their profits. Take it all back a few generations and these workers were actual farmers with property. They were forced out by drought and dust storms to California to pick fruit. Go UFW!!
I will never forget the time I met a girl of about 9 who picked cherry tomatoes for 50 cents an hour :'(
Thes workers work so Fast!!! I rlly think they should earn more money tho
Farmworkers, as well as health workers, SHOULD be better paid. Are there very many jobs that are more important, really?
Teachers! (Not better, necessarily, but at least as important) 👩🏫👨🏫
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So Mr Trump...how was your turkey dinner......picked and processed by the fine people that you wish to lock behind a wall... i bet not a lot of americans would do this work, and the fine people of mexico....work their ass off, so you can be fat and stupid ...hows that wall coming along?
Yams are not the same as sweet potatoes. I hate sweet potatoes because, like carrots, they taste too sweet when cooked. Yams are starchy and much nicer. I agree with all the others who have said that the pay these people get is way too low.
Technically, they are not even the same species, not the same genus, and not even in the same family. Yams are African, usually yellow or white on the outside, while sweet potatoes are indigenous to the Americas, and are usually reddish brown.
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That's what I had, it was great! No one had to die for me to be thankful for what I have.
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My family owned a lemon grove when I was a kid. There is some dangerous work harvesting - lemon tree thorns are very long and sharp. After the commercial harvest was complete, we would go and collect some for ourselves. The ones that were not large enough to be processed. I have first hand knowledge of those thorns.
And before anyone makes a comment about "illegals" at that time, there was a bracero program. So the harvesters were there legally.
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It hurts my heart to know that people really take them for granted and think that farmers, and even just plain old country folk, are worthless and it's a job for grannies. Honey if you wanna starve to death go ahead I'm not one to judge ;)
I said this above, but I'd like to repeat it. They aren't "farmers." They don't own farms. They're migrant agricultural workers -- "illegals" to many Americans. Edited to add: I want to stress this because, politically, "We must help farmers!" usually translates to "We must help people who own farms!" -- which, all to often, translates to, "We must subsidize huge agribusiness corporations! (Even more than we already do.)"
Load More Replies... They aren't really "farmers". They don't own farms. They're usually migrant workers. Or, as many 'Muricans like to call them, "Illegals."
Load More Replies... We should be especially grateful of this work knowing that most/many of these essential workers do not have health insurance or any benefits at all. Essential workers are denied basic rights in the United States, but we're happy to eat the food they put on our tables.
Yep. And they're constantly being demonized as "illegals." :/ We'd have barely much food if not for their hard work.
Load More Replies... Mindboggling how much work goes into these harvests for so little pay. I can't get over that poor person on their knees gathering parsley. How many of us do anything with parsley other than throwing it away?! Someone was on their knees for an 8-hour shift so you could toss away that little green garnish.
Just like with wealth inequality, land inequality can have disastrous effects on agriculture and on society as a whole. A new study by the Land Inequality Initiative has determined that land inequality “is also central to many other forms of inequality related to wealth, power, gender, health, and environment and is fundamentally linked to contemporary global crises of democratic decline, climate change, global health security and pandemics, mass migration, unemployment, and intergenerational injustice.” https://modernfarmer.com/2020/11/study-finds-1-percent-of-farms-own-70-percent-of-worlds-farmland
Some Americans want to kick these "illegals" out not realizing how hard this work is and how little they get paid for it (and they cannot claim welfare). I always ask if they would do it and they say sure, but they wouldn't work for that little, they'd want at least $10 or more an hour. I then point out that they'd be paying quadruple or more for fruit and veg. And let's be honest, how long do you think these people would actually last? Not long. I appreciate everything immigrant workers to do bring food to our table. They are the reason we eat and pay reasonable prices. People should think about that when the parrot Trump.
I'm thankful for hard workers like this! They do have a stigma attached I guess: South of the Border, low wage, illegal, homeless. Not all that much is true, probably very little. If not outright citizens most have valid working visas, or legal rights of some kind to work, AND they pay their income tax too! Some still are of European descent just preferring that kind of life. Quit anytime, travel around, work for a while... That was big for some of us Baby Boomers. Plus, this video campaign was created by the United Farm Workers, a big union of the few left. If all these folks are Union Workers well, I envy them! My great career was spent with local small businesses with no benefits or coverage. It's the billionaires that go around convincing us that Unions are no good because it hurts their profits. Take it all back a few generations and these workers were actual farmers with property. They were forced out by drought and dust storms to California to pick fruit. Go UFW!!
I will never forget the time I met a girl of about 9 who picked cherry tomatoes for 50 cents an hour :'(
Thes workers work so Fast!!! I rlly think they should earn more money tho
Farmworkers, as well as health workers, SHOULD be better paid. Are there very many jobs that are more important, really?
Teachers! (Not better, necessarily, but at least as important) 👩🏫👨🏫
Load More Replies... So Mr Trump...how was your turkey dinner......picked and processed by the fine people that you wish to lock behind a wall... i bet not a lot of americans would do this work, and the fine people of mexico....work their ass off, so you can be fat and stupid ...hows that wall coming along?
Yams are not the same as sweet potatoes. I hate sweet potatoes because, like carrots, they taste too sweet when cooked. Yams are starchy and much nicer. I agree with all the others who have said that the pay these people get is way too low.
Technically, they are not even the same species, not the same genus, and not even in the same family. Yams are African, usually yellow or white on the outside, while sweet potatoes are indigenous to the Americas, and are usually reddish brown.
Load More Replies... That's what I had, it was great! No one had to die for me to be thankful for what I have.
Load More Replies... My family owned a lemon grove when I was a kid. There is some dangerous work harvesting - lemon tree thorns are very long and sharp. After the commercial harvest was complete, we would go and collect some for ourselves. The ones that were not large enough to be processed. I have first hand knowledge of those thorns.
And before anyone makes a comment about "illegals" at that time, there was a bracero program. So the harvesters were there legally.
Load More Replies... It hurts my heart to know that people really take them for granted and think that farmers, and even just plain old country folk, are worthless and it's a job for grannies. Honey if you wanna starve to death go ahead I'm not one to judge ;)
I said this above, but I'd like to repeat it. They aren't "farmers." They don't own farms. They're migrant agricultural workers -- "illegals" to many Americans. Edited to add: I want to stress this because, politically, "We must help farmers!" usually translates to "We must help people who own farms!" -- which, all to often, translates to, "We must subsidize huge agribusiness corporations! (Even more than we already do.)"
Load More Replies...
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