Things They Left Behind
Migrant farmworkers are the backbone of the food industry, but their lives get to be disregarded, how food gets on the table and where that food came from does not get acknowledged, therefore the lifestyle of migrant farmworkers and their achievements is absent. This also means that their “stuff” gets discarded as well and everything that has been with them through certain journeys and steps of their life. Stuff is a term that can hold a lot of significance or can be used as a placeholder for indescribable items that have no true value. When thinking in terms of personal stuff, people are typically very protective of their items and find that those items hold a lot of significance for them. If one were to think about a friend's stuff or a person they know and are familiar with, they are likely to be respectful of their stuff, they wouldn’t go through it and they wouldn’t question it, however they know that that person’s stuff is important to them, therefore it is seen as valuable to them because of their relation to that person. However, when looking at other people's stuff, people who are strangers or are unknown, are viewed more as disposable and lacking meaning or value. The word value only gets applied to a person's stuff if there are signs of life through it. Although, if one is able to disregard signs of life then one is able to disregard the value of that person's stuff. The Geneseo Migrant Center was the place that advocated for migrant farmworkers by providing them with a number of opportunities for them and their families. By offering various workshops and artistic camps, the Geneseo Migrant Center was home to many migrant farmworkers "stuff". This StoryMap is to bring back the life to these migrant farmworkers valuables which they do not have access to anymore. Despite being separated from their creator and their lifeline, these miscellaneous items still hold value, stories, and life within them.
If you’ve ever seen the Travel Channel’s television series, “Mysteries at the Museum”, you’d be familiar with how unsuspecting items can stand for the symbol of an intense history and surprising background. However, these items that were found are not held in a museum, instead they are held in archived boxes in Geneseo, New York kept preserved by the Geneseo Migrant Center. The stories to these items have not been uncovered and similar to the lives of the migrant workers who created them, they have been forgotten. These boxes contain countless amounts of poetry, artwork, letters, and images of migrant farmworkers with no sense of rhyme or reason to this collection. A lot of these materials come without names and locations, stripping the person of their creative work and becoming out of sight, out of mind. Something especially peculiar that resided in these boxes was a simple piece of wood with a nail sticking out of it. If this piece of wood is important enough to be preserved, along with all of the other items that were included in those boxes, then there must be a story behind it. Clearly there is a life behind every article printed and every poem wrote in these boxes because there must have been an author. The same goes for the piece of wood, despite not having written words or any outstanding attributes, this piece of wood was created by someone with a life and with a story.
Jacob Wawatie's Moose Head
It is about five inches in height and length and roughly an inch or two wide with an odd triangular shape to it. A rusty nail pokes out at the bottom implying that it was once connected to something. It’s not the kind of thing to find in a box and think, “There must be a story for this”, it’s one of the items where you see it in a box filled with poems and pictures and think that it got there by mistake. However, this small piece of wood led to the discovery of a very intriguing person with a rich history of education, agricultural work, and a knack for woodcarving. In a separate box from the one with the wood in it, is a set of pictures depicting a large wooden moose head. The stain and finish of this moose head looked all too familiar. The piece of wood that had no business being in a box of archived papers suddenly had a lot more meaning to it as the tip of the antler in the picture matched the shape and stain of the piece of wood perfectly. This piece of wood had a story behind it and value no matter the circumstance of its whereabouts.
The Geneseo Migrant Center (GMC) honored the work that migrant farmworkers do everyday and gave a place to view the artwork that was made by them to showcase their creativity and talents. The GMC hosted an exhibit titled “PASSAGES: A Celebration of Migrant Arts” and by looking at the pamphlets that were archived, under line 17 of the Algonquin exhibit there is a description of the pictured moose head, “'Moose', Carved pine with stain and varnish Jacob Wawatie, Geneseo, NY 1990". Through the archived exhibition pamphlet a name can be tied to the moose head photo and the piece of wood, adding a whole new meaning to this piece of wood and its history.
Jacob Wawatie, an Algonquin Native American, was a teacher who was interviewed in 2002 by Elaine Keillor. To understand Jacob Wawatie and understand more about this moose head, it’s important to understand who the Algonquins are, where they reside, and what kind of "stuff" is important to them. According to this pamphlet discussing traditions of migrant workers, "The large wood carvings displayed here present elegant images of the bush: the moose and other animals hunted for food, hides and fur." Algonquins respected all acts of life and nature, wood carvings of animals became a way to respect that animal and offer it gratitude for the things it offered the Algonquins. Woodworking and building items in itself is a large part of Algonquin culture and history being passed down through generations as entertainment and a necessary life skill for people who spend a majority of their time in the woods.
Garcia Family Photographs
These photos represent the lives of migrant farmworkers through the eyes of migrant farmworkers, unlike many of the photos taken by teachers during art classes these reflect a more intimate kind of personality to migrant farmworkers than someone could capture in the middle of a class. Each photo has a certain quality of uniqueness to them. The photographer was clearly a fan of vivid imagery and capturing the environment in which the person was in more so than the person themselves. These image encapsulate the nuances of being a migrant farmworker, in some cases the living conditions are not the greatest but memorable life experiences occur nonetheless.
Herbert Canty's Poem "My Grandmom"
Poems can capture a deeply felt, important moment in time. Usually their authors are assumed to be exceptional people, but the GMC's Creative Artists Migrant Program Services (CAMPS) sponsored workshops that resulted in hundreds--or likely thousands--of poems written by migrant farmworkers. They wrote about their work in New York; they wrote about the things they left behind back home. Now many years later, what happens to those all of those poems and thoughts, once the people have left?
Herbert Canty's poem "My Grandmom" is like that of many other migrant farmworkers separated from their families. In this case, it may have been many years and now his grandmother has passed. Deep regret is something he has carried with him. He mourns all of the "things I could never say" to her, except maybe in the form of the poem's words. It's a very private moment, but now we're sharing it decades later. Do we share Canty's faith when he writes, "Bless her, bless her Lord, / Like I know you would"? Along with this one moment are so many others, collected in folders and stored in cardboard boxes and waiting for someone to remember them.
Johana's Unfinished Mandala Drawing
This mandala drawing, while simple and unfinished, includes a lot of depth and nuance to it. Created by Johana, this mandala includes a heart at the center with vibrant flowers growing out of it. In the center of the heart is Johana's name in pencil which is hard to see unless looking closely. The faded name can imply that migrant farmworkers are almost ghosts at surface level to most people. They do a lot of the work that feeds the population but people turn a blind eye to their efforts. Johana's incorporation of shading in this mandala adds to the essence of it along with the curved lines coming out of the heart creating a nice flowing image. This mandala exudes warmth and love through the heart, flowers, and the name printed front and center of it all.
It is fascinating to find lost or forgotten items that people have clearly put effort into. It's difficult to not feel a bit incomplete knowing that these items are no longer with their creator, but it gives people an opportunity to uncover the mysteries of these items and the beauty hidden beneath them. From just a small piece of wood to an intricately hand drawn mandala, this stuff once had a life and was held very dear to someone's heart. By recognizing the effort and love gone into these items we give them back their life and their value making them once again something to admire. There are countless amounts of projects and pieces of art that have yet to be uncovered, but through some curious minds any item's story can be rewritten and given new life.