Common Folk Collective

About a week late and more than a few dollars short, this post might not be the most timely but it’s worth revisiting. The Paul Harvey “God Made a Farmer” Superbowl commercial for Ram trucks. I thought it was arresting in it’s stark contrast to the flash and ostentatiousness of everything else, beautiful photography simply overlaid with audio snippets from a speech espousing the virtues of the American farmer.

Unfortunately, as LatinoRebels point out, it’s not so much what the commercial does show but more what it doesn’t, a more proportionate representation of american farmers. They describe the ad as more of a whitewashed Americana rather than the real “America,” given the fact that 78% of agriculture workers were born outside of the U.S., the vast majority being from Mexico (these are actual stats from the United States Dept. of Labor). The ad does show a picture of some latino farmers, that you’d miss if you blinked, but that doesn’t quite cover the disparate representation. So going off the old adage that if you want something done right do it yourself, LatinoRebels posted some “corrected” remakes of the ad including this one by Cuéntame-

And for even greater irony they add, “You know where Ram Trucks are made? In Mexico.” Check the link for yourself, it’s straight from the Chrysler webpage.