Amy Elkins, Community Health Worker and Co-Founder of NC Field gives a testimony on exploitation, environmental racism & systemic neglect of latino communities in Eastern North Carolina.
Amy Elkins represented NC FIELD, a grassroots nonprofit created by the community and for the the community, at the People’s Hearing on Wednesday, June 11 in Greensboro. She was joined by Yesenia Cuello and Vidal Lormendez.
This is Yesenia Cuello, our Executive Director and former child farmworker and Vidal Lormendez, a former H2A farmworker and now our H2A Specialist.
I am Amy Elkins, the Sembrando Salud Coordinator. I came to NC from the mountains of West Virginia at the age of 7 from the coal mining fields where the death filled smoke killed my grandfather and those before him. Where cancer poverty and addiction are the leading causes of death.
As a child in NC. The Farmworker Community. My community. opened their arms and took us in, they are why I am, who I am today.
Today I speak for my community in Eastern NC.
Farmwork in NC is a multi billion dollar industry with no legal age for child labor North Carolina regulates the number of hogs but not the number of people required to care for them. And my community are the backs from which these industry’s line their pockets.
My community is delicious tamales and hot chocolate, its picking sweet potatos in the back breaking heat for 50 cents a bucket when your contract says 16$ an hour, my community is Banda and cumbias, hugs and laughter in the face of oppression, my community is promised living conditions, but arriving to live in a plywood box and 1 outhouse for 30 men, women and children and septic runoff seeping into the yard.
My community is giving what little they have to help a child with no insurance who needs a surgery, they are unity in the face of odds stacked against them, my community is the unregistered address 911 can’t find — the system isn’t broken, it was never built for us.
My community is children as young as infants playing in pesticide saturated fields because the childcare promised when they arrived to work didn’t exist,
My community is always sharing a plate of food even if its only tortilla y frijoles. its the Mom who can barely feed her family while picking the food you put on your table. My community are who taught me to raise, pluck and cook a chicken so I would never be hungry. My community are farmers without land.
They are more than hardworking they are the epitome of dedication knowledge, and responsibility. My community are the ones being sprayed with pesticide in a tobacco field because they are threatened with bodily harm and they risk being able to feed their family if they speak up. My community are the Hopes and Dreams of a better education and life for their children. My community is the child as young as 8 forced by poverty to work in one of the most dangerous industry’s in the country with no legal protection. They are the college valedictorian without a work permit.
My community is Fuerza and Amor wrapped in Spanish, spanglish, indigenous languages, and culture that they hold on to with bleeding hands. My community is Resistance in their continued existence alone.
I carry my communities’ stories in my heart and on my shoulders. Their struggle, love, their labor, their resistance— are what made me and what has built and sustained this country. My community deserves more than survival. They deserve dignity, protection, celebration.
Our government uses, abuses, and oppresses and then when they think they no longer need you they simply call you a criminal. So don’t be fooled: this isn’t about documentation. This is not about laws or lines on a map. It’s about a system built on exploitation. A system that uses our labor, our bodies, our culture, and our silence—only to discard us and criminalize our very existence the moment we dare to rise. This is systemic racism. This is ethnic cleansing wrapped in legal language. This is the brutal reality of discrimination, and it’s not accidental—it’s by design. Don’t let them distract you with talks of documentation or legality. This is about dignity and humanity.
How does this country dare to survive off of My Communities’ suffering and still look away! How dare they bite off the hand that feeds them!
We will not be silent. We will pop the bubble of privilege. We will not be erased. Environmental Justice is people justice. My community doesn’t need saving we need systems to stop stealing from us. We are not invisible. We are the roots. And nothing grows without us.
Pa’lante
