At 8 a.m. every Sunday during the growing season, migrant workers in Unicoi, Tennessee, gather for Mass before heading to the Scott’s Strawberry & Tomato Farms. “It’s a little Quonset hut that is set up as a chapel. Faith is very important to them,” says Father Tom Charters, celebrant and associate pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in nearby Erwin.
Father Tom notes that some current parishioners had their children baptized and had their First Communions in that chapel, long before Glenmary came to the area. “Our religious education coordinator and her sister worked those fields as teenagers,” Father Tom continues.
On Mondays at 7:15 a.m., Father Tom celebrates Mass in a field on the Lipman Family Farms. “There’s a little hut where we have a table and chairs. The men set it up for a little chapel. We don’t have musicians at the Lipman Family Farm, but if there’s no one to play music, the men pick up the songbooks, pick out their songs and they sing them. To me, their voices are just as good as the Sistine Chapel choir because they come from the heart. These are rugged men who are working 10 hours a day in the fields. If you’re not coming to Mass, you’re hearing it. It’s beautiful. I look at these men knowing they’re God’s children, like all of us are God’s children,” Father Tom says.
Between 30 and 40 men attend Mass each week at each of the farms. In addition to Mass, Father Tom hears confessions.
Because the men are here on H-2A [Temporary Agricultural Worker] visas they can only be in the United States for half of the year. “They have to go through all sorts of paperwork in Mexico to come and they do. They’re working hard to support their families in Mexico. They work six months here and for some of them this is the only job they have all year because they don’t have work back in Mexico,” explains Father Tom.
The first group of migrant workers arrives at the end of March with the last group leaving by mid-November. The staggered arrival times coincide with different aspects of farming. “The early group comes to get the fields ready, then they stake the fields when tomatoes are starting to grow, others help with harvesting,” Father Tom notes.
When a new group of migrants arrive at the Lipman Family Farm, St. Michael the Archangel parishioners welcome them with a meal of beans, rice, and meats. “Some of our parishioners are seeing cousins, siblings, and fathers coming to work the farm. That’s because these parishioners were former farm workers who found permanent work in the area. Some have opened their own businesses,” says Father Tom.
“When you bite into that tomato or that fruit, give thanks to God for the workers who are willing to come here because, without them, you wouldn’t be eating that.”
