There's been a huge amount of buzz and discussion taking place over the Dodge Ram Super Bowl ad that featured the classic radio voice of Paul Harvey addressing the Future Farmers of America in 1978 while photos of farmers and rural America play alongside the audio in Ken Burns style.
While a lot of Americans were moved sentimentally by the images of classic rural Americana, some noticed that a huge group of farm workers in this country was noticeably absent from the ad. That huge group of farmers and farm workers would be Latino Americans. Follow below the squiggle for more...
While some pundits made some comments the day after the Super Bowl about the ad not reflecting all of today's reality of farming and farm work; namely, that much of America's farms are actually tended to by huge groups of Latino Americans and immigrants, most of whom would have to work at least three full years of salary to earn enough money to purchase a Ram truck, a group of enterprising Latinos took notice of this and decided to create their own version of the ad.
Now this diary isn't meant to diss Dodge or Chrysler; it's a very effective ad, and it pays homage to American farmers in a very touching way. But it also leaves out a bunch of people who are or have been just as vital to the American way of life as those people they are celebrating.