About This Lesson

Shining a Light on Invisible Labor

Emily Cohen Ibañez’ Fruits of Labor is the portrait of Mexican-American teenager Ashley Solis, who lives in the agricultural town of Frescaville California. She spends her days either at school or working in the strawberry fields and her nights sorting frozen strawberries at a processing plant. All the while, Ashley does her best to maintain a social life, attend school, and enjoy her teenage years. As if the stress of her intense routine isn’t enough, the possibility of an ICE raid that could send her mother back to Mexico looms over her. This lesson provides insight into the world of child agricultural workers and brings awareness to the kinds of invisible labor that exist within both the paid agricultural sector and the unpaid labor performed at home. 

In this lesson, students will do group research on one of three topics related to the film. They will work in small groups to make connections between the film and their research and create a mini presentation on their findings. After students present, they will then engage in thoughtful discussion and feedback from their fellow classmates. This lesson can be modified to be longer and more in depth by having the students do additional research or shortened by giving students direct information rather than having them collect and paraphrase information from the materials given. 

A Note from Curriculum Creator, Celia Portman

It is my belief that every teacher should endeavor to know the students they teach, celebrate diversity, and invite honesty and vulnerability into the classroom. Part of this work means giving exposure to the diversity of each student body. As Plato once said, “the highest form of knowledge is empathy,” but in order to have empathy we must be allowed into another’s world. As a teacher in the lower half of Texas, I am no stranger to teaching students who work in the field of agriculture, but it has become clear to me as of late that not everyone is aware of how these students spend their days and nights. I believe this film and lesson call attention to important subject matter, allow students to take a deep dive into a world they may not be familiar with, and potentially, through their work, foster understanding and compassion. 

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