Farm workers are society's canaries. Farm workers - and their children - demonstrate the effects of pesticide poisoning before anyone else.
Interpretation
Farm workers are often the first to experience the health impacts of harmful chemicals used in agriculture.
Cesar Chavez is highlighting the vulnerability of farm workers to pesticide exposure, suggesting that their suffering serves as a warning for society about the dangers of chemical use in farming. This metaphor of farm workers as 'canaries' implies that just as canaries were used in mines to detect toxic gases, farm workers and their families are the early indicators of the harmful effects of pesticides, urging society to pay attention and act before more widespread harm occurs.
In practice
During a speech on agricultural reform, one might say, 'As Cesar Chavez reminded us, farm workers are society's canaries, urging us to rethink our pesticide policies.'
I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings.
I think one of the great, great problems...is confusing people to the point where they become immobile. In fact, the more things people can find out for themselves, the more vigor the organization is going to have.
In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what the political system is...We don't need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation.
There is enough love and good will in our movement to give energy to our struggle and still have plenty left over to break down and change the climate of hate and fear around us.
Our union represents a breaking away...represents sharing a power, represent questioning, represents a new force...however long it takes, we are geared for a struggle.
Every time we sit at a table at night or in the morning to enjoy the fruits and grain and vegetables from our good earth, remember that they come from the work of men and women and children who have been exploited for generations.
AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion... It's, what, a few months in Iraq.
It is not the soul alone that should be healthy; if the mind is healthy in a healthy body, all will be healthy and much better prepared to give God greater service.
The doctor of the future will be oneself.
Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.
What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system.
Thinking of disease constantly will intensify it. Feel always 'I am healthily in body and mind'.
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