“I was born in Medellín, Colombia and grew up in Mexico. I have been a migrant most of my life, moving from one land to another.
I remember seeing Vermont calendars many years ago with spectacular photographs of its landscapes, the fall foliage and the pristine white winters, and I fell in love with these lands. Never would I have imagined that I would one day call Vermont my home. Even less would I have imagined that Vermont’s splendid mountains would stand as walls, behind which is hiding a resilient population of migrants on dairy farms, survivors of the violence that expelled them from their home countries. These rugged Vermont mountains await them like a symbol of confinement.
I learned that not seeing them is a way of denying their existence, of avoiding becoming uncomfortable, even though they are an integral part of Vermont’s dairy industry. This lukewarm ignorance makes us colder than the sharpest winters. I believe it all starts with awareness. Awareness is the key to break up with the invisibility of others.
What am I proud of?
I am proud of being a mother and an educator. I understand that my education is a privilege that must be accompanied by a sense of responsibility, social awareness, and action.
I am proud to be a journalist. Journalism, for me, is a way of deciphering a world that makes me uncomfortable, but also marvels me. I try to unravel the world through my writing, perhaps even reinvent it.
I am proud of Fuerza Farmorkers’ Fund, the organization that I co-founded four years ago with my son and three Dartmouth students. We have built horizontal relations with a community buried in the shadows of invisibility. Our organization was born without a trace of paternalism or charity, but rather arose from an empathetic relationship on an extremely resilient population. From its beginning, the organization walked hand in hand with our friends from the dairy farms, with a sense of equity, appreciation, and respect.”
– María Clara de Greiff, East Thetford, VT
