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The following is a direct translation
from the original Spanish of a speech that Owner,
William McAlpin gave in 1994 to the La Minita
workers.
He is invited to address the Farm Workers’
Association on an annual basis.
Good morning, first, hands up to all of the
workers that were pruning shade trees outside
my house this morning at five o’clock.
I see, well if any of you need verification
that you arrived on time today, just tell your
foreman that I can vouch for both your early and
noisy arrivals to work.
Usually, when I speak to you at this meeting I report
on the specific results of our efforts of the previous
year and then I talk about next year’s agenda
of programs.
However, this year I’m neither going
to talk so much about what we’ve accomplished,
nor about what we are planning.
Instead, and really for the first time, I
intend to explain why I’ve guided the development
of our working and social environment towards certain
ends.
For ten years
I’ve been seeking to fulfill a specific vision
of the way that the farm should function.
This year with the addition of the new
clinic, one of the final stones of my vision’s
foundation has been laid.
I must explain
that I see the farm as a single living organism.
A dynamic “body economic” that
depends internally upon the constant healthy interaction
of earth, water, air, people, plants, animals,
and even the insects and microbes.
This organism that we call La Minita must
remain as self reliant as possible.
Why is this?
Because I believe that it is likely that
we are at the beginning of a slow, but accelerating,
and inevitable universal decline of human opportunity
of a magnitude unseen since the dark ages.
After the first industrial revolution and
two centuries of unprecedented physical human
development, (and please note I do not say progress),
evidence of retreat is all around us and growing
daily. We
can easily identify the decline of the physical
environment, of moral value, and of spiritual
tenets.
A vortex of materialism has created a vacuum
in the heart of human aspiration.
I have tried to
engineer a dual response to these threats.
First, I’ve built a defense to guard
us from this rot by developing land, forest, and
water management systems that ensure the continued
viability of our natural resources.
Then I’ve
attempted to encourage cultural and spiritual
enrichment by providing a secure working and social
habitat.
I have reached for this by trying to satisfy
the classic hierarchy of human need.
Food: inexpensive from our commissary or
clean, healthy, and varied from the farm’s
own garden.
Shelter: decent, modern housing on the
farm for any of our workers in need of a home.
Health: our refusal to use herbicides or
insecticides, and now our own dental and medical
clinic with our preventative medicine program.
Security: our workers’ savings plan,
and our retirement village.
With these physical
human needs addressed we have been able to provide
leisure activities that promote educational, cultural,
and spiritual activity.
This includes support for the local school
and college, our sports teams, association outings,
and the new women’s choral group.
Finally, as no
worker is obligated to participate in any part
of farm like beyond work, we have liberty, and
when liberty is combined with satisfied needs
we can have contentment.
As I said, I’ve
never before explained my vision to you.
The reason for this has been my fear that
you would cynically liken me to a venal politician
making promises never to be fulfilled.
So instead, and preferring on occasion
for you to think me completely mad, I’ve
saved my explanation until I could show you the
proof to demonstrate that, together as La Minita
workers, or as I prefer to think of us, as La
Minita citizens, we can continue to build this
dream.
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