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¿Horticultura?
To teach the material she wants to cover in 15 weeks, Kraft replaces typical vocabulary on furniture, household items, and anatomy with lessons on the workplace, health and safety, and gardening equipment. Yet, Kraft says the teaching is not just one-way. “I learn so much from my students,” she says.
Before developing the course, Kraft had no prior background in horticulture, but she knew from conversations with green industry officials the importance of teaching the Spanish language and cultural awareness.
“About 85 to 95 percent of the labor force in the nursery and landscaping industries is Spanish speaking,” says Greg
Miller, who manages Willow Spring Tree Farms in Montgomery County, Va.
Two decades ago, workers from Puerto Rico began filling jobs in the United States that Americans left unoccupied. Academic programs such as the one started at Virginia Tech, Miller says, are filling the cultural gap between horticulturists and the Latino community.
But horticulture students are not the only ones who might benefit from such a class. Kraft has already begun collaborating with Virginia Tech’s Sloan Foundation Forest Industries Center to develop a similar training program for forestry employers.
A majority of Kraft’s students have previously worked in the green industry, whether in a family business or an internship. They already know that post-college life may involve working 10 hours a day with the Latino community, she says, and many of them understand the relevancy of Spanish for the Green Industry before attending the first class.
“Spanish for the Green Industry has helped me by expanding my ‘farm’ vocabulary, my skills to think and translate quickly, and my views on migrant culture,” says Theresa Long, a junior agricultural sciences major.
Long lives and works on a vegetable farm that employs a Spanish-speaking labor force. She says the class provided her with skills she will use well after graduation.
“Although I am not a horticulture major, I am pleased that the university requires Spanish for the Green Industry in the horticulture department because in today’s horticulture industry, as well as the future of horticulture, it is and will be a necessity,” Long says.
Kraft asks her students to read The Devil’s Highway: A True Story by Luis Alberto Urrea. The book explores different perspectives on illegal immigration by charting the journey of 26 unemployed Mexicans who cross the Arizona border in hopes of finding a better life in the north. Less than half of them survived the actual event.
“It gives you a story behind a heavy issue,” Kraft explains.
Discussions about legal and illegal immigration can replace stereotypes, myths, and exaggerations with actual facts and perspectives on a critical issue. In one lesson, Kraft brings campaign posters mentioning immigration from last year’s gubernatorial race to show how it affects Virginians. She says students in her class cut across the political spectrum, from open border advocates to those wanting a moratorium on immigration.
“We have some intense discussions in the class,” she says. “This class has a little bit of everything in it.”
Because Spanish for the Green industry depends on shifting demographics, Kraft says the course is always adaptable and open to change. For example, in recent years the Czech community has burgeoned into Virginia’s green industry.
“Who knows?” Kraft asks. “In 20 years we might be offering this
course in Czech instead of Spanish.”
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| Barbara Kraft identifies tools in Spanish for her students. |