(Host) An exhibition of artworks created by some of the roughly 1,500
Mexicans working on Vermont dairy farms is now on display at the Vermont
Folklife Center in Middlebury. Commentator Tom Slayton – long time
journalist and observer of all things Vermont – visited the show and has
the following observations.
(Slayton) Anyone who doubts that
the urge to make art is universal, really ought to visit the Vermont
Folklife Center in Middlebury and see the current exhibit of artworks by
Mexican farm workers in Vermont.
The exhibit, "Invisible
Odysseys" features dioramas and other art made by people who, despite
putting in 12- and 16-hour days of heavy physical labor, have managed to
produce striking, very moving works of art.
This isn’t fine
art, it’s folk art, and the lush, ornate Mexican style of decoration is
the predominate motif. And yet perhaps for precisely that reason, the
show is profoundly effective. It hits you in the gut.
The
stories they tell are both shocking and inspiring. Shocking, because
it’s hard to realize the amount of hardship these Mexican workers have
had to endure; and inspiring, because they’ve not only endured their
hardships, but triumphed over them.
Along with the bright colors and ornate forms, the human spirit is on display here.
In
"The Mirage of a Dream," an artist identified only as "Z" tells of his
journey across the harsh desert of the Mexican-US borderlands, avoiding
border surveillance and gunmen, and finally his arrival in Vermont, and
the farm barn where he works today . A single dollar bill, borne by an
angel, wings along a red-arrow path, over a strip of sandy desert, back
to his home in Mexico.
And a simple heart-wrenching statement
tells us why he came to work here: "Like many," he writes, "I had a
dream of giving my family a little more, a plate of food, shoes to wear,
schooling. But to do this, I had to be separated from them, leaving
them my heart…"
Those themes – the hope of bettering their
families’ lives in Mexico, the danger of the desert crossing, and the
farmworkers loneliness and isolation – yes, isolation here in
community-minded Vermont! – echo throughout this exhibit.
Their
fear of being deported back to Mexico by the authorities is constant and
all-pervasive. They’re often afraid to leave the farms on which they
work. A simple trip to town might result in deportation. And so, in the
land of the free, they’re not free.
To the credit of those
Vermonters who know of their plight, informal organizations to help the
Mexicans have sprung up in Addison County. Yet as this exhibit makes
clear, their situation is still often dire. And this is wrong.
Because,
as their art so eloquently demonstrates, they’re human beings, like us.
And by taking hard, dirty jobs that most Vermonters don’t want, they’re
helping keep Vermont’s vital dairy industry afloat..
There’s a
bill in the Vermont Senate that would create a Vermont guest farm worker
program and would secure rights and recognition for the Mexican farm
workers. Passing some form of it would be an act of simple human
decency.
And this exhibit, by making the "Invisible Odysseys" of
Vermont’s Mexican farm workers visible, may help them win the public
acceptance and rights they so obviously need and deserve.