Oral history and photo project to explore the untold stories of the region’s farmworkers

By CHRIS LARABEE

Staff Writer

Published: 04-08-2023 2:00 PM

To highlight the often-unseen perspectives and experiences of Franklin County’s agricultural workers, The LAVA Center is launching a new program, as well as an accompanying podcast, to document their stories.

Entitled “indiVISIBLE: Celebrating Indispensable Agricultural Workers, Making Their Stories and Presence Visible,” the project will use oral history and photos to tell the stories of the region’s farmworkers and their communities, while the “Documenting indiVISIBLE” podcast will tell the story and methodology of the program from its conceptual state to The LAVA Center.

Alfonso Neal, who is co-directing the project, said indiVISIBLE is sort of an extension to the social justice in arts programming The LAVA Center pursued last year. His personal background as a first-generation American and previous work, including his current exhibit at the center, also contributed to the inspiration.

“In thinking about the bigger picture, what are the stories not being told?” Neal said, adding that Franklin County’s farm industry is huge, but the seasonal workers are often underrepresented. “We don’t really see them as often as we think we would, given the size of our agriculture workforce.”

Neal is also the executive director of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center and an adjunct professor in Latinx studies and history at Holyoke Community College. Joining him as co-director is Lindy Whiton.

The goal, Neal said, is to foster conversation by diving deeper into these “unique and vibrant” communities and their experiences.

“We want to place them in the context of how they are part of the community and how they make the community thrive,” Neal said. “How do we start these conversations to get to know and understand each other better?”

LAVA Center Co-Coordinator Jan Maher said the project fits right into the center’s ongoing exploration of the county’s community and its mission to create opportunities. She said indiVISIBLE is sort of an extension on the ECHO (Exploring and Creating Histories Ourselves) program The LAVA Center previously ran.

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“We thought this would be a great way to build on that,” Maher said. “To have Al and Lindy be the co-directors of this project is really exciting.”

She said the goal is to “make these folks more visible,” especially because they “are the very people getting food from farms to our tables through their labor.”

Throughout the summer, she said there will be opportunities for community members to participate in events centered around indiVISIBLE. The project will also contribute to the development of curriculum for secondary and college-level education, which will be taken on by Greenfield Community College faculty member Alyssa Arnell.

“We want to know your story and we want to know it in the way you’re willing to share it with us,” Maher said.

Work on indiVISIBLE will begin in May when workers arrive and head out into the fields and farms of Franklin County. With a 14-month grant period, Neal expects to have some sort of exhibition or presentation by the end of the year.

The project is funded by grants from Mass Humanities, the Markham-Nathan Fund for Social Justice and Greening Greenfield.

To go alongside indiVISIBLE, Neal is also launching a podcast that will explore how the exhibition comes together, and how projects like these can ethically interview and feature their subjects.

“We’re thinking about what our intent is, and what is the impact our intent could have,” Neal said. “We’re looking at how to ethically collect oral histories and how to document that stuff.”

The first episode of the podcast will premiere sometime in the next week and features Michael and Carrie Kline, a Sunderland couple who have spent decades collecting oral histories around Appalachia.

Once available, all episodes of the podcast will be available on any streaming platform, as well as The LAVA Center’s website. Neal currently has six episodes planned, although he is willing to do more.

The episode will also feature co-host Doug Selwyn as he and Neal talked to the Klines about their vast experience in entering communities to collect their stories. Neal said their discussion revolved around the “broader conversation about what it means to be invited into a community to tell their story” and what methods can be used to help put people at ease.

“It’s trying to figure out how we balance the different methods of collecting stories and understanding there’s a lot more nuance at play,” Neal said.

While indiVISIBLE is in its infancy, folks can get a teaser of what to expect with Neal’s current photo exhibition “No Somos Máquinas (We Are Not Machines): Farmworker Resistance in the Connecticut River Valley,” which he and the Pioneer Valley Workers Center created.

“This is now going to go beyond [No Somos Máquinas],” Neal said of indiVISIBLE. “This has inspired a group of folks.”

No Somos Máquinas will be available through the end of April and can be visited during The LAVA Center’s open hours on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 3 p.m.

Anyone interested in volunteering a story to share or a connection to the agricultural community for indiVISIBLE is encouraged to reach out to Neal at alfonso@indivisiblegreenfield.org.

Chris Larabee can be reached
at clarabee@recorder.com or
413-930-4081.

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