Rhode Island Bar Association Web Site

BAR ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT�S MESSAGE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009


Thanksgiving Without Grapes Victoria M. Almeida, Esq. President, Rhode Island Bar Association My mother is cut from the same durable fabric as Mrs. Tarantino (John's mother). These two remarkable women are the beneficiaries of the lovingly handed-down values of their mothers and grandmothers who were masters of the art of motherhood. One of the values embraced is their unconditional love and devotion to their children. Some day, I would like Mom and Mrs. Tarantino to compare their treasure troves containing glimpses into the lives of their children, the lawyers. I think my Mom believes that one of my initiatives as President of the Bar should be to establish the �Rhode Island Bar Association Victoria M. Almeida Presidential Library� at Bar headquarters. I think she is already preparing its exhibits and pictorial history. Mom likes John Tarantino, a lot, and I think she would want to see an exhibit dedicated to his legacy in my Presidential Library. Every now and then something appears from the past in the library at the family home. The library is Mom�s domain, an exhibit of sorts, dedicated to her children�s accomplishments, great and small. In the library, many law books, biographies, dictionaries and literature are on display. The library shelves feature various news clippings on her children�s feats, as well as ribbons awarded at riding competitions, a newspaper article on election to a class office, piano and ballet recital programs, and the like. Recently, while sitting alone in Mom's library, there, placed in front of a French dictionary, was a framed photo of someone I did not quickly recognize. A photo from Mom's treasure trove, it was a picture taken on November 20, 1969, just before Thanksgiving, 40 years ago. The young college freshman in the photo is wearing jeans, a toggle coat with a college muffler and wire rimmed eyeglasses. She is in a picket line outside Almacs Supermarket at the Bellevue Avenue Shopping Center in Newport. She is holding a sign that reads �Thanksgiving Without Grapes.� You see, the issue that day was the plight of migrant farm workers in California, and their struggle for fairness and dignity in the fields. Solidarity with migrant farm workers became the struggle of the young woman and her classmates at a small New England college and at a shopping plaza in Newport. The young woman's message sought to inform others that Almacs was selling non-union grapes thereby contributing to the oppression of farm workers. The photo reminded me of my strong convictions then and my fearlessness in demonstrating, by word and deed, my outrage at injustice inflicted on others who were deemed unimportant. The photo also reminded me of how far away I have unintentionally strayed into the comfort zone of the status quo. We did not have grapes at our Thanksgiving table that year. The shot taken by a Providence Journal photographer, appeared in the Journal prompting a call from my Dad saying how proud he was of me, but reminding me to focus on my studies, too. I also received a call from my Mom. She, too, was proud of my actions and promised to join me at the next picket line scheduled at Almacs in East Providence the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and she did. Today, I ask myself what will be missing at my Thanksgiving table this year as a reminder of those who are still not welcomed at the table of plenty. Forty years ago, it was Thanksgiving without grapes, this year there is plenty of nothing for so many. Thanksgiving without a job that brings dignity, Thanksgiving without enough food for the 42 percent of children in Rhode Island who are food insecure, Thanksgiving alone, Thanksgiving with fear, Thanksgiving without good health, Thanksgiving without a forty-year-old photo to remind a lawyer why she became a lawyer in the first place. What will you be without this Thanksgiving and this holiday season? Chances are, whatever you will be without this Thanksgiving, it won't be grapes. What will you go without this Thanksgiving to show how grateful you are? Perhaps you will go without the grudge you have held onto, perhaps you will no longer go without the family member no one else will invite to the table, perhaps you will go without the need to be right when being right is no longer enough when your world begins to shrink, perhaps you will go without a table set exclusively for saints and invite a few sinners to your Thanksgiving table. This Thanksgiving, I will listen to the words of Elie Wiesel, and I will break my fast with what Wiesel termed the �perils of indifference� and rejoin the path of the young woman in the photograph. I miss her. Thanks, Mom, for putting her right where I could see her. Happy Thanksgiving, dear Mom, and thanks for rescuing the wire rimmed glasses I carelessly tossed out after law school. They have now been fitted with my present prescription, and I can see more clearly now that I have retrieved my youthful perspective.