Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

interview: montenegro
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Interview: José Montenegro
International Center for Sustainable Rural Development (CIDERS), California, USA
Interviewer: Rebecca Reider
José Montenegro. Photographer: Steve
Taylor.
Q: What is your personal background, and how
did you come to do the work you’re doing?
A: My organization came to be because of my
own personal background as an immigrant and
because of my background as a child of farmers,
small farmers in Mexico. My dad said, “You need
to go to school, because things are tough on the
farm – so you need to develop opportunities for
yourself.” He told me, “I foresee tough times
ahead for farmers.” So I went to the school of
agronomy in my state of Durango, Mexico, from
which I graduated as an agronomist, in plant
science. I actually had an opportunity to work for
one of these agencies, for the Secretaria de Agricultura in my state. At that time I knew
the system of this agency was really corrupt, and I felt that by joining this agency, I
was going to be betraying my dad in some way because this agency was very
paternalistic, very destructive – in that the agronomists would just go to the fields
and collect information from the farmers without really leaving them with tools,
knowledge, and skills, without really developing meaningful opportunities for them.
And I felt that I just cannot be a part of this, I can’t.
I ended up leaving Durango in September of 1990, and I arrived in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, where I have some relatives. That was the first time I experienced the sense
of invisibility, of powerlessness, that immigrants often talk about. I started working
in a foundry, in a factory, for almost two and a half years, under really difficult circumstances.
For me, it was especially very difficult morally – because throughout that
time I had this internal struggle: “Why did I leave my country, why didn’t I go back
to farm?” But after 1990 and for the next few years, I met hundreds of immigrants like
myself. I know one thing I experienced the first day I arrived here was “I want to go
back. I want to go back.” And in talking to immigrants, I learned that it wasn’t only
José thinking along those lines. It was the Marias and Rositas and Margaritas and
whoever also thinking along those lines.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies