Rich in vitamins and brimming with sweetness, strawberries bring us laughter and health. These strawberries are provided to us through the sweat and toil of laborers, but recently, I heard on the news that due to strict immigration policies, there are no workers on the farms. Illegal immigration is wrong, but I hope some kind of policy is put in place regarding the status of the labor force we truly need. It's even more tragic that behind the countless fruits and vegetables we consume every day, and the harvest itself, lies the precarious status of the workers.
I imagined and painted the strawberries thrown by armed agents as they swarmed the fields to arrest them, including the scissors and gloves used to pick strawberries, footprints, and scattered boxes of strawberries. These images, blurred by the morning fog, symbolize the unresolved and uncertain status issues of the workers. Through my painting, I sought to portray the lives and dreams of strawberry field workers, yet the sadness of their erased traces.