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Showing posts from September, 2019

WHEN "HANDS" BECOME A PERSON: Campaigning on a very narrow trail.

Many years ago I was teaching an Introduction to Women's Studies course and the class was stuck on the concept of objectification. After trying unsuccessfully to explain and getting ready to call it quits, a Chicano student raised his hand to help and very clearly and concisely defined the term, providing clarity to his classmates. At the end of the class I congratulated him on doing a good job and asked him how he understood it so well. He responded with something to the effect of "I am Texan, in Texas people like me are referred to as 'hands'; we are either 'good hands' or 'bad hands', but just 'hands'. If we are not 'hands', we either don't exist or are a threat to growers. We are never fully people." It was my first time hearing the term "hands" to refer to agricultural workers. I would later hear it when a grower was upset that one of his "good hands" was participating in a lawsuit for unpaid wages.