Art History

In the spring of 2000, more than a dozen protestors marched 233 miles from Fort Myers, Florida to Orlando, carrying a 13-foot-tall replica of the Statue of Liberty (Figure 1). In place of the statue's iconic torch and tablet, the replica hoisted a tomato in one hand and a bucket of tomatoes in the other. These are a few of many changes made to Lady Liberty by the artist Kat Rodriguez, who also darkened the statue's complexion and placed her on a platform with the inscription: "I, too, am American." Rodriguez created Lady Liberty for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (C.I.W.) to protest the unfair wages of tomato farmers in Immokalee, Florida. Farmworkers in Florida contribute significantly to the national tomato business, producing almost half of the nation's $1.3 billion annual crop. Yet, they struggle with mistreatment, poor pay and backbreaking working conditions. Many farmworkers have also been held against their will by employers of tomato suppliers and have suffered abuses like beatings, shootings and pistol-whippings. The C.I.W.'s march in 2000 targeted major food corporations in Orlando to improve the deplorable working conditions and wages of their workers. Lucas Benitez, founder of the C.I.W. and former tomato worker, vividly remembers protesting with Rodriguez' Lady Liberty. While the sculpture was first tethered to the trunk of a car accompanying marchers, it eventually had to be dismantled due to police enforcement that prevented protestors from driving down a boulevard in Orlando. Benitez and members of the C.I.W. subsequently carried her on their backs, recognizing the sculpture's visual impact on this protest. Like the tomato workers who carried her forward, Lady Liberty carried on a long tradition in American history of artists and activists who used representations of food in protests and boycotts. As early as the colonial period,