Sergio Silva is one of a growing number of Hispanics who own or operate farms in the United States.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions about it. The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.
1 What do we learn about Sergio's education?
2 What are newcomers doing?
3 What does '21%' refer to?
4 Why does Sergio mention 'Friday'?
5 How do the two partners at Rancho Espinosa divide their work?
6 What does Sergio say about America ('in this country')?
To check your answers you can read the transcript below.
I would like this particular colour because the colour is amazing, because flowers, to begin with, is to make people happy, so bright colours make people happy, gets you excited.
Sergio Salvador dropped out school when he was a teenager and worked long hours in fields like these (1). Today he sits in the front office as the co-owner of a flower-growing company that covers 50 acres in Salinas, California. He’s among a growing number of Hispanics who own or operate agricultural business in the United States today.
In this area you have all these new Mexican-Americans starting new businesses. New-comers like myself are, you know, buying the greenhouse and turning those greenhouses into production (2).
Although agriculture has been traditionally dominated by whites, between 2007 and 2012 there was a 21% increase in Hispanic-operated farms (3).
You know, when you’re a minority in this country and you’re the small business, you cannot miss, you have to be successful. My dad and my mother were born in Mexico. When we came here, my mum and dad, you know, they worked in the fields. I dropped out of school before… I never graduated from high school. I went directly to the field, you know. For me it was getting a paycheck every Friday, that was awesome (4), so I didn’t mind doing the field work, as I grow older, I start looking for a… opportunities, I got a better job, yet I had this dream that I wanted to do something different, so what I decided to do then we… I joined a company last year with another partner.
You know, he had thirty years plus experience running a huge operation because I know the product good inside out, just want to be more focus on growing and Sergio focuses more on the operational and business side (5). Our company name is Rancho Espinosa just to let people know, hey, you’re dealing with some rancheros.
You have plans for dinner?
Oh, yeah we want to go to the rodeo.
Rodeo? I don’t want to go to the rodeo. There’s so much people. You have to see horses.
I wanted to offer my kids a better future and I saw that in this country, that if you work hard and you have a dream and you really put that time into it, with education or not, you still can live up to your dream (6).
