Deep Respect

On a cool, sunny afternoon we stood in a muddy field near Watsonville, California.  I was leading a group of Stanford students in a week-long exploration of the strawberry industry in the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys. We visited farm workers, agri-business executives, politicians, educators, and social workers.  I led this trip annually for five years, and I always counted it a success when students returned to campus with less certainty in their opinions about farm labor issues than before the week began.

This visit was with two strawberry farmers, a father and son who were sharecroppers.  It’s hard to believe that this practice exists so long after the days right after slavery ended, when black farmers were forced by economic necessity into oppressive contracts to produce crops for their former masters.  But it continues today, particularly with labor-intensive crops like strawberries.  A big strawberry “shipper” rents the land to the farmer, usually an hispanic immigrant.  The shipper stipulates exactly how the crop is to be planted and raised, and fixes the price of the produce.  The sharecropper is stuck with all the risk and all the burdens of hiring workers.

The father had come from Mexico and worked his way from being farm worker to being a sharecropper.  The land where we stood was a field the two men had rented on their own, without a contract from a shipper.  This was their first attempt to break out of the sharecropping system.  The father spoke no English, so his son, with whom he was a partner, translated for him.  The students asked questions informed by what they had already learned about the tough realities of the strawberry industry.  (Some Mexican farm workers call strawberries “la fruta del diablo” - the fruit of the devil - because of the intensive stoop-labor required to raise them.)  At first, the farmers were embarrassed and their answers were curt.  But when they kept hearing sensitive and serious questions, and saw that the students were taking notes, their demeanor began to change.

I stood behind the students and watched it happen.  These men spent most of their time struggling to make ends meet, working 12 hour days to get ahead in a difficult business, and not getting much respect or reward in the process. Outside their own circle of family and friends, they were not used to people taking them seriously.

But with each question, the men became more animated, more eloquent in their answers.  It seemed to dawn on them that they mattered beyond their own private sphere.  They appeared to see that their struggles were part of something bigger.  As a chilly wind blew, and the sun beat down on them, the students had honored them by asking and listening intently to what they had to say. By the end of that hour and a half on their strawberry field, I could see that the farmers were ennobled.

We bid the men farewell and walked back to our van.  The father got back on his old weather-beaten tractor and the son returned to moving irrigation pipes.  Much more work faced them before their day would be done.

On the way back to the van, I saw that one of the students was weeping.  Yoko was born in Japan and was a devout Buddhist, and we’d had long conversations about spirituality during the week.  Just looking at her, the tears formed in my eyes, too. “Something amazing happened with those men,” she said.  “It was profound.”  We were both so overcome with emotion that we barely could talk about it.  She and I had seen the same thing.  The farmers had been moved by hearing and answering our questions.  We didn’t do anything for them except show up, show respect, and listen.  But that was enough to touch them in a way we didn’t expect.

All people need food and water and shelter and sleep.  All of us need health care and education. These needs are obvious and basic.  But just as basic, but less obvious, is the universal human need for respect.  Each person needs to know that he or she is a somebody, not just an anybody.  Each person needs to know that he matters, that she has a unique story with infinite value, that he is no mere cog in a faceless machine.

Nearly all of the mayhem happening in inner cities is the result of young people seeking respect. Not sensing that they get it from the wider culture, they demand it from each other with automatic weapons.  So much of the rage in the Islamic world arises in populations that have been dishonored by Western economic domination, neo-colonialism, and claims of cultural and religious superiority.  Sometimes this frustrated need for respect is transmogrified into terrorism.

I saw the effect that deep respect had on two decent people whose only real ambition was to provide more for their families.  Imagine what would happen if we got serious about showing genuine interest toward people who feel insulted?  What would happen if we took time to ask them serious questions, and took time to listen intently to their answers, however challenging?  As deep respect can transform marriages, families, and communities, so it can change international relations for the better.  The president of the US ignored a recent letter from the president of Iran which, beneath its strident rhetoric, was not much more than a plea for respect.  Really, what harm would result if President Bush read and carefully, respectfully answered President Ahmedinejad’s letter?  How much of Iran’s drive to build nuclear weapons is a desperate grab for national self-esteem?  The security of the US increasingly depends on our willingness to go out of our way to show respect to people who feel denigrated for reasons that might surprise us. Putting our own displays of pride on hold while we uphold the pride of others: isn't this better than spending thousands of lives and billions of dollars to fight wars ignited by indignity?

In a line from the Magnificat, praising God upon learning that she was to become the mother of the Christ, Mary sang that “he has exalted those of low degree.”  It is a manifesto for followers of the Christ to participate in lifting up the self-esteem of those whose dignity has been compromised.  “What is man, that thou art mindful of him...?” asked the Psalmist, marveling at how puny we can seem compared to the universe around us.  “Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor.”  Faith calls us to help God exalt those who have forgotten their nobility as human beings.