“Quiero dar gracias a mi familia por enseñarme los grandes valores como el honor, el respeto a mi persona, la honestidad, y mantener siempre la dignidad.

Quiero dar gracias a mis maestrxs por apoyarme y creer en mi capacidad como estudiante.
Y más que nada, quiero dar gracias a todxs lxs trabajadorxs en huelga que me han enseñado la gran lección de dignidad.
Por eso quiero decirle a la Comisión de la Fresa: ‘Gracias, pero NO gracias.’
La dignidad y el respeto propio no tiene valor monetario y por eso rechazo esta beca en solidaridad con lxs trabajadorxs.
¡Viva la lucha estudiantil y obrera!”
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[Oxnard, CA 5/18/15] Last night at the Strawberry Scholarships banquet (sponsored by Driscoll’s & The California Strawberry Commission), Gladys Morales, a young daughter of farmworkers rejected her award from the growers’ cartel who have been complicit in supporting the slavery-style conditions of farmworkers in San Quintin. She is a student at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) who is studying for her degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Expressing her support for the fighting jornaler@s of San Quintin, she ended her rejection statement with the words “Viva la lucha estudiantil y obrera!” – Long live the struggle of workers and students!”

“I want to thank my family for teaching me great personal values like honor, self-respect and honesty, and to always have dignity.
I want to thank my teachers for supporting and believing in my capacity as a scholar.
And most of all I want to thank all of the farmworkers on strike that are teaching me a great lesson of dignity.
So I want to say to the California Strawberry Commission, ‘thank you but NO thank you.’
I want to say that dignity and self-respect has no monetary value and that I reject this scholarship because I also stand united with the farmworkers.
Viva la lucha estudiantil y obrera!”