We farm workers are closest to food production. We were the first

Host: The sun had begun its slow descent, bleeding orange and crimson across the fields of California’s Central Valley. The air was thick with the smell of earth, sweat, and the faint, chemical tang that lingered after the crop dusters had passed hours ago. Rows upon rows of lettuce stretched like green ribs across the valley floor, and the wind carried with it the low hum of insects and distant engines.

Jack stood by the fence, his boots dusted, his hands rough and stained from a day’s labor. His grey eyes watched the sunset with a kind of numb awe, like a man too tired to feel. Across from him, Jeeny knelt in the dirt, pulling her gloves off slowly, her fingers trembling slightly as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

Host: Behind them, the tractors were quiet now, the day’s noise fading into a stillness heavy with memory. The soil, still warm, held the stories of hands that had touched it for generations, and of the toxins now soaked deep beneath its skin.

Jeeny: “Cesar Chavez once said — ‘We farm workers are closest to food production. We were the first to recognize the serious health hazards of agricultural pesticides to both consumers and ourselves.’”
Her voice was soft, but each word landed with the weight of truth. “Every time I smell that chemical sting after spraying, I think about him. About how much we still ignore.”

Jack: He gave a tired, wry smile. “Ignore, or accept? Because out here, Jeeny, it’s not ignorance — it’s survival. You can’t feed your family on ideals. Pesticides keep the crops alive, the crops keep us employed. That’s the equation.”

Host: The light dimmed, casting long shadows over the fields, the kind of shadows that hid truths better than night itself.

Jeeny: “So we’re supposed to accept poisoning ourselves for a paycheck?”
She stood, brushing off her knees, her hair catching the last light like threads of fire. “Chavez fought for the right to breathe clean air in these same fields. He starved himself to make people listen. And now, decades later, we’re still trading our lungs for lettuce.”

Jack: “Don’t make him a saint, Jeeny. Chavez fought for workers, not miracles. Even he knew the system’s too deep. You can ban one chemical and they’ll invent another — cheaper, deadlier, and perfectly legal. You think corporations care about conscience?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But conscience still matters. Without it, we’re just machines harvesting poison.”
Her eyes were fierce now, dark with anger and grief. “People forget — those strawberries, that spinach, the almonds they love so much — they come from here. From hands like ours. From lungs that breathe in death every season.”

Host: The wind picked up, stirring the leaves into a low, hissing whisper, as though the earth itself were listening. The sky was now deep violet, and a thin layer of dust hung in the air, catching the fading light like a ghostly veil.

Jack: “You talk about conscience like it’s armor. But look around, Jeeny. These people can’t afford to quit. I’ve seen fathers collapse in the fields from pesticide sickness — and the next week, their sons take their place. Because the rent doesn’t wait.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the system should be forced to wait. That’s what Chavez taught — that silence keeps the poison flowing. The boycott, the marches, the hunger strikes — those weren’t just protests. They were survival.”

Jack: He looked away, toward the horizon where the sun melted into red fire. “And what did it change? The chemicals have new names, the profits got bigger, and the workers still wear masks that don’t work.”

Jeeny: “You’re wrong, Jack. It changed everything — even if not enough. Because for the first time, the invisible became visible. He made people see the blood in their fruit, the sickness behind their cheap food. That’s the beginning of every revolution — awareness.”

Host: A truck passed down the dirt road, headlights flashing, dust rising behind it like a brown cloud that swallowed the light. Jack watched it go, his jaw tightening, his expression unreadable. Jeeny stared after it, hands clenched, breathing the poisoned air like a kind of defiance.

Jack: “You think awareness feeds anyone? You think it buys inhalers or hospital visits? What do you want, Jeeny — an uprising of field hands? A world where people stop eating until we’re all pure?”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I want a world where purity isn’t a luxury. Where the people who grow the food can eat it without dying.”
Her voice broke, but she kept speaking. “Did you know studies found that farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley have some of the highest pesticide exposure rates in America? Birth defects, cancer, respiratory failure — all because people want spotless produce.”

Jack: His hand froze mid-gesture, as if the truth itself had stilled him. “I know. I’ve seen it.”
He paused, eyes dropping to the soil beneath his boots. “My father died that way. Back in Fresno. He worked the fields before they even warned us what those cans contained. They told us it was just fertilizer.”

Jeeny: Her voice softened, grief flickering across her face. “I didn’t know, Jack.”

Jack: “He used to say the smell of the chemicals meant the crops would be clean. Funny, huh? The cleaner the fruit, the dirtier the lungs.”

Host: The silence that followed was heavy, the kind that sits inside the chest, unspoken but alive. The last light of the sun slipped away, and darkness settled over the valley, thick as a blanket.

Jeeny: “That’s why Chavez fought, Jack. For your father. For all of us. Because we deserve more than survival.”

Jack: “And what if survival’s all we get? You keep talking like change is just one protest away. But the fields don’t care about dreams. They grow what’s fed to them — water, sun, or poison.”

Jeeny: “Then we feed them something better. That’s the point.”
She knelt, scooping up a handful of soil, holding it in her palm. “This earth remembers, Jack. Every toxin, every drop of sweat, every cry. But it also remembers healing. It knows how to start again — if we let it.”

Host: The moon rose, pale and unforgiving, casting its light over the rows of crops, silvering the leaves, turning the dirt into a mirror. The world seemed both still and restless, as if caught between repentance and denial.

Jack: “You really think the soil forgives us?”

Jeeny: “I think it waits for us to forgive ourselves first.”
Her voice was a whisper now, carried away by the wind, gentle but unbreakable. “Peace isn’t just for nations, Jack. It starts right here — in the fields, between the hands that feed and the mouths that eat.”

Jack: He looked at her, his face unreadable for a long moment. “You sound like him.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because his fight isn’t over.”

Host: The night deepened, filled with the soft sounds of crickets and the occasional rustle of leaves. The air had grown cool, but the ground still held warmth, as though the day’s labor refused to die away completely.

Jack: “You know,” he said finally, his voice low, “maybe peace isn’t just the absence of war — maybe it’s the absence of poison.”
He looked down at his hands, rough, scarred, alive. “Maybe that’s where it begins.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said, her eyes glinting softly under the moonlight. “And maybe it begins with us.”

Host: They stood together, silent, watching the moonlight spill across the rows of crops, turning them into rivers of silver and shadow. The wind shifted, and for the first time all day, the air smelled clean — just earth and sky, nothing else.

And as they walked back toward the lights of the small town, the fields behind them seemed to breathe — not the breath of labor or exhaustion, but something quieter, purer. The breath of change, waiting, rooted, alive.