Construction by Miriam Wosk, inspired by a quote from farmworker Roberto Acuna, on a poster from the Images of Labor poster series.

“If I had enough money, I would take busloads of people out to the fields and into the labor camps. Then they’d know how that fine salad got on their table.”

Roberto Acuna became an organizer for the United Farm Workers because he saw the need to change the “California feudal system,” to improve the lives of the Mexican-American farm workers, and to make the growers realize that they weren’t “above anybody.”  In an effort to bring the growers to the bargaining table, the union launched a national boycott campaign in the mid-1960s to publilcize the plight of the farm workers and to ensure that American consumers did not buy non-union produce.  Despite the success of the campaign, many Americans remain completely ignorant of the farm workers’ struggle for justice.  Thus Acuna’s desire to “take bus-loads of people out to the fields and into the labor camps.” 

Roberto Acuna’s quote comes from Studs Terkel’s 1972 book of interviews with working people, Working. 

Image from the Images of Labor Collection, Bread and Roses, artist Miriam Wosk.