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Youth and Young Adult Network

YAYAs: The next generation

“The work of God is to give these youth opportunities to get involved and change their lives forever,” said Lariza Garzon, former coordinator of the NFWM Youth and Young Adults (YAYA) program. “The YAYAs were all about creating solidarity with the workers and the campaigns they were leading, and building leadership within the youth. We were allowing spaces where they could build connection and community. The biggest accomplishment is that those people, for their whole life, will talk about and think about farm workers.”

From building critical mass at rallies and marches to staging creative protests and campaigns to recruiting youth to engage in the movement, the YAYAs played an instrumental role in the growth and success of NFWM. In 2009, Lariza organized the first YAYA trip to North Carolina. She conducted an Alternative Spring Break with pre-med students, coordinating the trip to support a FLOC rally and speaking at the Reynolds Tobacco Company shareholder meeting. Attending the Reynolds shareholder meetings became a regular occurrence for the YAYAs.

Gabi Rios, a former professor at the University of Central Florida and active YAYA, helped then-director Nico Gumbs drive the youth on one North Carolina trip and recalls the experience: “When we went to farm worker camps in North Carolina, I enjoyed talking to the farm workers and bonding with them. Being an academic and away from home, it felt nice to talk in Spanish and connect. And seeing how they live was intense. Yet, the farm workers maintained a positivity amidst that. It’s humbling. And for me personally, to remember the stories my family told about growing up that way, being poor with no running water and only corn to eat and yet, they are able to be happy and maintain a balance between knowing what’s right and wrong and finding fun. They just wanted us to spread the word that they weren’t getting breaks and shade.” 

The brainchild of Erin Balliene, the YAYAs began under the tenure of former NFWM executive director Virginia Nesmith in 2004. With representatives across the country, members were in the hundreds and represented a variety of ages, faith perspectives, and colleges and university affiliations. In 2006, the YAYAs attended their first national meeting to coincide with the NFWM board meeting at La Paz, California.

To fully recount the activities and support of the YAYAs would require more than a few paragraphs, but Executive Director Julie Taylor shared a sliver of their impact: “They would go to the Reynolds Tobacco shareholder meeting every spring and they would be outside as part of the protest around the building. They carried banners and added to the numbers of local folks. They also did a lot in Florida – going after Sen. Marco Rubio about his stance on immigration, they did a whole campaign with flip flops because he was “flip flopping” in his support/lack of support for immigrants. They had a lot of homemade signs and posters that survived march after march. They were involved in the Fair Food Program, supported the Immokalee Workers and the Wendy’s boycott. They held demonstrations at Publix, leading chants. They were the group that made it happen for everyone else.”

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