Sugarcane Worker

In the state of Sao Paulo lies a small city by the name of Ribeirão Preto.  It’s a beautiful city where the people are friendly and some of the most hospitable I’ve ever experienced.  I spent several days visiting family in Ribeirão and discovered a city with an interesting story.  Ribeirão was at one point the largest coffee producer in the world but as of recently sugarcane began to surround the city for acres upon acres.  Currently Ribeirão is the largest alcohol and sugar producer on the planet, and most of its inhabitants live in poverty.

After the oil crisis in the 70′s the Brazilian government began to distribute subsidies to farmers to encourage them to plant sugarcane as part of an alcohol as fuel program.  Since then Ribeirão has grown substantially. There are two very distinct areas in the city; the south which  houses the local prestigious university with its shopping districts and bars and the north which supplies the labor force for all the shopping districts and the sugarcane fields.

By the mid 80′s many people in the north of Ribeirão were working excessive hours in the fields to support their families and growing food, not to feed the people but food for fuel.  At that time a small group of workers and community members began to meet and read the bible as a way to gain hope for a better life.  What they discovered was a solution to the conditions, right there  in the bible.    They began to read both the old and new testament and pieces by a local theologian by the name of Leonardo Boff.  They began to write music about liberation from their conditions and of a promised land created here on earth with justice from their oppressors.

Church of Christ the Liberator

Many in Ribeirão started to talk of organizing and leadership development of workers through the study of not just the bible but of the study of Jesus’ life and message as a liberator of the oppressed and poor.  Jesus as an example of a revolutionary for a new world with love and faith determining it’s destiny and not greed.  Before long a weekly meeting in someone’s house with 20 people turned into liberation themed mass/service in an empty plot of land down the street with over 200 people.  Afterwards people would eat together, sing, and organize their next move for creating the community they know God intended for all of us to have.    By the end of several years the north end of Ribeirão had 7 community churches in various locations.  Some churches were built from the ground up, brick by brick, and some were established by occupying empty schools or building in the neighborhood.  Workers began to demand better wages in the name of God and said the Almighty would want better conditions for his children.  Thousands of workers marched down streets and shut down business demanding justice with their pastors in the lead. The names of the churches ranged from Jesus the Liberator to The Church of the Poor. The official name of the diocese is named after the first church, a name given to the church by my uncle Luis Niz himself, and it is called The Church of Our Lady of the Sugarcane Worker.  

Revolutionize the schools and the people will make it (the Revolution) in the streets.

Today in Ribeirão the largest sugarcane factory in Brasil is located near the fields and as of right now the workers are on strike for a fair wage.  While they strike, the workers spend time reading the bible to inspire them while they struggle to fight for their human rights.  Less than a mile away the MST, Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement,which is the largest movement of poor and working class people in the world, has several camp sites where they are occupying land and doing leadership development and political education of the people to fight for Agrarian reform.  Twenty five years later and all of the churches mentioned are still operating and discussing liberation theology and moving people.  This small but powerful movement in Brasil was one of many that helped frame many other movements worldwide but I believe the most important lesson from this time in history is this; We don’t need to wait until we are gone from this earth to see heaven, we MUST see ourselves as part of the solution to creating our heaven here on Earth.

I can’t get this song out of my head.  This video is the best of them but the original lyrics are what makes this song so great.  Try and follow with these lyrics while watching the video above for a pretty inspiring and amazing feeling.

Wavin’ Flag

When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag

When I get older, I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back, and then it goes back
And then it goes back, oh

Born to a throne, stronger than Rome
A violent prone, poor people zone
But it’s my home, all I have known
Where I got grown, streets we would roam

Out of the darkness, I came the farthest
Among the hardest survival
Learn from these streets, it can be bleak
Accept no defeat, surrender, retreat

So we struggling, fighting to eat
And we wondering when we’ll be free
So we patiently wait for that fateful day
It’s not far away, but for now we say

When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back, and then it goes back
And then it goes back, oh

So many wars, settling scores
Bringing us promises, leaving us poor
I heard them say ‘love is the way’
‘Love is the answer,’ that’s what they say

But look how they treat us, make us believers
We fight their battles, then they deceive us
Try to control us, they couldn’t hold us
‘Cause we just move forward like Buffalo Soldiers

But we struggling, fighting to eat
And we wondering, when we’ll be free
So we patiently wait for that faithful day
It’s not far away but for now we say

When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back, and then it goes back
And then it goes back, and then is goes

And everybody will be singing it
And you and I will be singing it
And we all will be singing it

When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back, and then it goes back
And then it goes back, and then it goes

Filed under: Music, Poverty, World Cup ]]> http://erikaalmiron.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/theyll-call-me-freedom/feed/ 2 erikaalmiron http://erikaalmiron.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/an-open-letter-to-columbia-university/ http://erikaalmiron.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/an-open-letter-to-columbia-university/#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:40:08 +0000 Erika http://erikaalmiron.wordpress.com/?p=36 ]]>

Dear Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation,

I had the wonderful experience of meeting some of your students this weekend in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, along with some professors while staying at my bed and breakfast.  They were a young and eager group ready to fulfill whatever you set out for them to do and with full confidence in your institution.  Every day they went out to measure, excavate, and research on how to preserve three old buildings you plan to restore for an art space in the Port of Rio, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.  Well, in one of those homes on the second floor, guess what… lives a family.

What do you plan to do with them?

Your students seemed a little confused and disillusioned that the university they so entrusted would lead them into a situation where today, they need security to finish the job.  It seems like the Brazilian community that is there does not welcome your plan to create “change” in their neighborhood. Your students seemed upset when they were not welcome in the Port but lucky for them I know why; because I know your history.

I know what you have done to the people of Harlem, I know about how you gentrified and displaced many of them from their beautiful neighborhood in New York over the last few decades.  I also know that you are the largest land owner in New York City.  So it’s of no surprise, as an educational institution that has had it’s hand in the land owning cookie jar for some time, that you would put your own self-interest before those in Rio and of the very students you promise to educate.

They were completely unaware of what they were stepping into and I am sure, if they had known, many of the people in your project would not have chosen to work on something that would displace families and communities.  Did you know the family in the building is represented by many on the block who are working on a social housing project, that they are organized?  They have seemed to figure out how to preserve things more important than buildings, things like families, lives, etc.

I know The Port is in the early stages of re-zoning by the city so it can be “revitalized” for when Brazil hosts the 2014 World Cup. I put the word revitalized in quotes because many around the world know that it really means, to change a neighborhood for new people to come in at the expense of the people who have historically been there with no plans to make sure they can stay.  But you seem to already be familiar with how that goes so I won’t bore you with the details.  Here is something you may not know, this summer in South Africa many people were displaced in the name of “revitalizing” for the World Cup. Many were evicted from their homes, some were killed, in the name of revitalization.  Just thought I would mention what World Cup revitalization looks like right now to give you some perspective.

In conclusion, to the staff and students that I met, do what in your heart of hearts is right.  I know you all were struggling when I left Rio with what to do in this moral dilemma and all I say is, think of the family and the many other families in that neighborhood who will eventually be displaced with no protections in the coming months. And to Columbia University, maybe you can learn something from the family on the second floor; maybe, just maybe, preservation is meant to be for more than just buildings.  Maybe we are to be concerned with the preservation of families, lives, love, and hope for everyone.

Sincerely,

Erika Almiron

What is food justice?  It’s been only  recently that I have thought about what that means.  Is it about food access in our inner cities?  Is it about land and agricultural reform across the globe?  Or is it a combination of all those conditions that shows the need for all those affected by food injustice to come together and fight for a better world?  I set out next week to Paraguay and Brazil to find out.

As the child of Paraguayan immigrants my experience with food justice issues has been mostly from an urban perspective.  I grew up in and outside of Philadelphia and New York most of my life and I have witnessed what has recently been dubbed “The Obesity-Hunger Paradox“  The idea behind the paradox is based off a recent survey that found the most severe cases of hunger to be in the South Bronx, also one of the nation’s capital for obesity.  How can a community with such severe hunger also be obese?  Well, even more interesting, experts said these weren’t problems affecting people in different neighborhoods or homes but sometimes in the same household, even the same person.  The piece said “the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat.”

The Bronx Paradox, as some call it, said what I have been saying for years and what I saw over and over again growing up.   In my community many, including myself, were struggling with weight issues and had very little access to healthy foods.  I would see families order take out or go through the drive through for dinner many times.  It was a pretty easy way to feed a family of six for under $20 if you hit that dollar menu, especially if that was all you had.  I’m positive there was no better deal in town back then to feed a family.  Sometimes that drive thru was an answer to parents prayers.  Not to mention how many parents in my neighborhood, including single mothers,  would rush home exhausted after working excessive hours and just want to spend time with their kids.   I myself experienced these same conditions as my parents where trying to keep a roof over me and my siblings head and sustain their shoe repair business.

So I leave tomorrow for Brazil and Paraguay and have plenty to do beside visit my precious family.  I plan to learn about the landless movements in both countries, agrarian reform, poverty, and displacement.  But even bigger is I really am setting out to discover how these same struggles are connected to ours here.  Are they one in the same? The struggles of poverty, healthy food access,  access to land, and immigration here.

I know I have plenty to learn while I am away but I promise if you follow my adventure over the next month you will learn just as much as I do.

I’m also reading MLK’s best sermons in a his book “Strength to Love” which so far has been amazing.  My favorite King quote about love so far has been “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

I plan to add some pics to get used to this thing called a blog and hope it works.

wish me luck…

MLK gives me his wishes