Language Justice and Equity in Agricultural Education 

Insights based on the experience of the Futuro en Ag team with the Cornell Small Farms Program. 

Language justice is a key part of equity for educators attempting to reach underserved populations. Language justice is a series of practices employed so that people who speak non-dominant languages can communicate and receive information in their language of choice, to understand and be understood.  

Over the last few years, the Futuro en Ag project of the Cornell Small Farms Program (CSFP) has been growing in scope and experience, building a Spanish-first educational platform to serve the Spanish-speaking agricultural community in New York State and beyond.  

Through our work, we have found it important to center language justice to achieve effective and equitable programs. Yet language justice cannot stand by itself. It must be accompanied by a range of other practices grounded in equity. This article proposes elements of a definition of language justice and discusses several supporting principles that make language justice come alive. 

Multiracial, multicultural teams working together across language at a Futuro en Ag in Western New York.
Cornell Small Farms Program 

Defining language justice 

According to the Community Language Cooperative (CLC), “Language justice is a key practice used…to create shared power, practice, inclusion and dismantle systems of oppression that have traditionally disenfranchised non-English speakers.”   

The CLC notes that language justice is different from language access. Language access can be a simple technical operation, such as translation or interpretation, adapted to any context. Language justice, the cooperative argues, “is an intentional practice that values interpretation and translation as critical tools for opening communication and empowering all voices.”

Far from a values-neutral practice, then, language justice contains at its core a process of empowerment. In his 2021 essay, “We Are Language Warriors,” Emiliano Vera echoes this sentiment and links language justice to leadership development among speakers of non-dominant languages. He notes that we should not simply seek proficiency in different languages, but communicate in the way the people speak, which comes from having listened to how a people defines its own struggles. “In doing so,” Vera says, “we are developing new leaders…and bringing out the voices of leaders from language communities that aren’t heard enough.” 

Language justice is implemented to create spaces where inequality is acknowledged, inclusion is practiced and power is shared. Language justice advocates for full participation in society for speakers of non-dominant languages: that is, for full participation in decisions that affect their lives.   

For CSFP, one important way language justice happens in practice is by dedicating resources and staff to Spanish-first programming, with the intent to reach more and more of the tens of thousands of Spanish speakers in the New York agricultural sector. 

Language justice as part of effective and equitable education 

Language justice is an important component of effective and equitable education, but it cannot function without other best practices. Here we discuss several of these best practices: cultural competency, relevant and appropriate programming, development of trust, advocacy and innovation in our home institutions and with partners, a process of feedback and co-construction of vision and activities, and leadership development.   

Cultural competency 

Language is not just a difference in vocabulary and accent. It also represents elements of shared history, culture and tradition. Language justice cannot be truly practiced without cultural competency. 

In a CSFP strategic planning focus group with Latino/a/x farmers in April 2023, participants expressed that they desire “CSFP staff with real cultural competency, not just people who speak Spanish.” 

Cultural competency means being an astute listener and communicator, aware of cultural patterns and sensitive to potential differences in ethnicity, social class and educational background, as well as differences in regional or national origins.  

For example, certain kinds of vocabulary, tone and humor may be acceptable and expected in some regional or national contexts but incomprehensible or even offensive in others. Private matters such as immigration status may deeply affect a person’s openness or willingness to participate actively in programming. A culturally competent educator is aware of and navigates these subtleties. 

Relevant and appropriate programming 

The topics, content and methodology of the educational work must be relevant to the target population. 

In our interactions with service providers struggling to serve a Latino/a/x audience, we often hear that they believe the Latino/a/x population doesn’t have time or interest in education. Service providers often ask, “How can we convince them to come to our events?” We have found it more effective to start with questions like, “What do people want to learn?” and “What problems do they need to solve?” 

No matter their background, people are much more likely to participate in programs or events in which their issues are being discussed and dealt with. If the content hits the mark, participants will not have to be “convinced” to attend. Rather, they often spread the word and invite others.  

Bilingual communications specialist, Tim Shenk (right, in green), works with event attendees.

Our team has found that educational opportunities developed and carried out in Spanish for a Latino/a/x population, with outreach methods tailored to them, tend to guarantee greater and more enthusiastic attendance than English-language programs in which Spanish speakers are included via interpretation. We rely on texting, WhatsApp messages and individual phone calls, rather than email and social media. Calling or texting people one by one is certainly more time consuming than sending a mass email, but the personalized contact makes all the difference in recruitment. 

Relevant and appropriate programming also means being aware of highly varied levels of education, literacy, digital literacy and digital access among the target audience. We need to start where people are, not where we wish they were. A successful educator will develop methodologies that take those realities into account. 

Building trust 

Building trust is a clear first step in building an effective educational program, especially with a Latino/a/x target audience. This population has many legitimate reasons historically and currently to be skeptical of people they don’t know. Regardless of immigration status, many people prefer to keep a low profile and keep to a close group of trusted friends and family. This is even more true if they have children or elders who depend on them. 

Building trust means visiting people in person, calling them on the phone and taking time to build a relationship. Much of this trust building needs to happen in the evenings and on weekends, since this is when people tend to have time outside of work. Building trust includes following through on promises and commitments made and showing interest in people’s lives beyond the 9-to-5 workday. 

Advocacy and innovation in our home institutions and with partners 

Institutional backing is key for equitable programs with a language justice element. This goes beyond having a supervisor or director who is personally supportive or who quietly appreciates the outcomes.  

Truly supporting equity and language justice work means building these components into strategic priorities, securing steady funding for equitable programming that allows for medium- and long-term program development, prioritizing the hiring and retention of bilingual or multilingual staff who share identity markers of the target audience, and budgeting sufficient staff time for time-intensive and individualized outreach and support strategies. 

We believe it is in the interest of the whole institution, including monolingual English speakers, to turn language from a barrier and blind spot into an opportunity for mutual learning and understanding. Language justice makes institutions more effective in that it allows them to draw from a wider breadth of human experience, perspective and intelligence. In this sense, implementing elements of language justice is not the responsibility of non-dominant language speakers alone to advocate for, but rather the responsibility of the whole institution to address strategically. 

Effective and equitable programming for the Latino/a/x agricultural community in New York State means seeking innovative solutions in our institutions that the target population requires. This requires combating a mentality of “This is the way things work here” and actively advocating to change institutional systems to make them accessible to marginalized communities. 

One area in which institutions can support equity and inclusion includes creating new and flexible forms of compensation when members of the target audience contribute to enriching the programming. Making forms readily accessible in Spanish, expediting documentation processes for relatively small payments or reimbursements, finding creative solutions for insurance requirements, and making it possible to distribute cash or gift cards to presenters are specific ways institutions can operate equitably with regard to the Latino/a/x population. 

Feedback process and co-construction of vision and activities 

Another key to inclusion that helps to implement language justice is an active process to receive feedback from participants about their needs and interests, as a step toward co-construction of vision and activities.  

An active feedback loop is one way our Futuro en Ag team attempts to develop the relevant and appropriate programming referenced above. It is how we build a project that can be responsive to the changing needs of our target population.   

Perhaps most importantly, co-construction of vision creates the buy-in necessary to build a project that can go beyond the capacity of a few paid staff toward engaging a larger percentage of the Latino/a/x farmers and aspiring farmers in New York State.  

Leadership development and multiplication of capacity 

The prior element, feedback and co-construction of vision, leads into the necessity of development of leadership and capacity in the Latino/a/x agricultural community. 

This priority takes on importance in the context in which many Latino/a/x agricultural employees are treated, in the words of one of our farmer collaborators, as burros de carga, or pack animals. Many employees, he says, are told what to do but not taught why they’re doing it. 

Futuro en Ag project lead, Mildred Alvarago (left, in tan), guides event attendees through an activity.

In New York State there is a commitment to reversing a decades-long tendency in the agricultural industry to underinvest in decision-making or leadership capacities among members of the Latino/a/x community. Many farm owners are now encouraging their employees and supervisors to get leadership training and certifications during work hours. Some also provide English language training during work hours.  

At Futuro en Ag, we understand part of equity to be encouraging more and more members of the Latino/a/x agricultural community to take on roles in teaching and leading in their areas of expertise. They are the true leaders of this effort, and the project will succeed only insofar as they are involved and taking ownership of it. A small team of professional bilingual educators cannot fulfill all of the needs of this community on our own, but we can contribute to the multiplication of capacity by training and supporting emerging and established leaders. 

Concluding reflections 

We have been developing the Futuro en Ag project for just a few years, so our reflections are necessarily based on our experiences with Futuro as well as past experiences each of us brings. Working with people is a complex endeavor. We don’t strive for perfect policies or practices, but rather try to be true to our values and center the needs of the people we serve. This requires a great deal of listening, being a part of people’s lives, and complicating the educator-student or service provider-client relationship. We look forward to deepening our understanding and practice in dialogue with others who are committed to equity in our communities. 

In addition to the author, Nicole Waters, Mildred Alvarado, Suly Valdez and María José Oviedo have contributed to developing the approach and practices outlined in this article.