While improving farmworkers’ English abilities is instrumental in helping them connect with the greater community — for example, many FoF tutees aspire to learn English to communicate with their children’s teachers or schedule doctors appointments with greater ease — English holds broader implications for farmworkers. English proficiency is “the first step to self-advocacy, a sense of belonging in their community, and creating a life beyond the farm,” says Boch-Torres.
Due to their immigrant status and limited English language capacities, many farmworkers face both social and systemic obstacles. LEP immigrants often feel excluded from their peers as non-citizens in the U.S., with many experiencing difficulties obtaining a job, acquiring healthcare services, or applying for government financial assistance for food or housing (Rao et al., 2024).
Language advocacy is essential to ensuring that socioeconomic resources are made accessible to underserved immigrant groups, as well as empowering them to understand and participate in the systems that govern them. “The law is often very complex and especially so for people who are not fluent in the language it is written in,” says Dimaiolo. “Making sure that those who live in the country know their rights is a central issue of language advocacy, as in many cases these rights are hidden behind extremely convoluted language (that sometimes not even I can understand as a fluent [native] speaker).”
Beyond equipping immigrant farm workers with advantages, Boch Torres and Dimaiolo, as tutors, have also benefited from participation in FoF’s ESL program.
“When I first encountered the club during ClubFest my sophomore year, I saw it as a good opportunity to use my Spanish to give back to the local immigrant community … Furthermore, the club seemed like a good way for me to improve my teaching and communication skills, which are both very important to bettering myself,” says Dimaiolo.
Boch Torres echoed Dimaiolo’s sentiment, expressing that as she looks into her work in the future, she “hopes to continue giving back to immigrants … using [her] Spanish language along with [her] passion for service to bridge communities together.”
Overall, FoF has become a medium for Boch Torres and Dimaiolo to employ their language skills to advance social justice in the local community. By providing ESL instruction to immigrant farmworkers across the Tompkins area, FoF plays a pivotal role in closing language and public service accessibility gaps for this underrepresented group. The organization is part of a preponderate effort to champion language equity for the growing immigrant population in NY State and across the country.
