Classes in Spanish Aid Vineyards

Most students in Chemeketa’s Spanish-language vineyard courses already know how
to prune, but instruction in their native language helps students understand why
operations are done in a certain way.
Salem, Ore. -- Words such as phloem and xylem (and how to manage damage to them
from extreme winter temperatures) may be hard enough to wrap your mind around in
English -- but try explaining it to a vineyard worker whose first language is
Spanish.

Vineyard managers have long grappled with the problem, which is why Salem-based
Chemeketa Community College began offering courses taught in Spanish for
vineyard workers in May 2003. “When you ask somebody to do a job, if they don’t
understand why they’re doing it one way versus another, it’s hard to get a
consistently good job all the way through,” said Bob Bailey, owner of Northwest
Vineyard Service Inc., near Amity, Ore.

NVS has been sending workers to Chemeketa since the inception of the Spanish
course offerings -- and before that to Spanish-language pesticide applicator
courses held at the college. The classes offered have been a significant benefit
to the industry, Bailey said. “Instructing the vineyard workers themselves
in…the reasons we do things and how things work, helps them to do the jobs
better and make better choices, if choices are given them,” he said.

Dr. Craig Anderson, director of agriculture programs at Chemeketa, said an
industry task force spearheaded the development of the course, which has
attracted 353 students during the past six years. “We felt that there was a need
to develop courses of a technical nature that would be delivered in Spanish to
the Latino vineyard worker,” he told Wines & Vines. “If you can learn something
in your native language, you’re going to understand it more thoroughly.”

Anderson said most of the workers have the ability to perform the jobs they’re
being asked to do. What the Chemeketa courses provide is an explanation of the
rationale in a language that the workers can better understand. While many speak
English well, it’s their second language, and explaining the concepts in Spanish
is a better method to deliver information, he said.

“You have more productive vineyard workers,” Anderson said. “Because they do
understand more of the technical nature of pruning a vineyard, for example, and
some of the botany behind it, and more details of the technique -- rather than
solely the technique -- they will be more productive workers.”

Courses cover topics ranging from tractor and equipment safety and pesticide
application to vine physiology, pruning and canopy management. The courses
typically take place for six hours on Saturdays at the Northwest Viticulture
Center, where students receive both instruction and a chance to apply what
they’ve been taught in Chemeketa’s 8-acre teaching vineyard. Enrollment for most
of the classes is $62.

Students are usually sent by employers, but they don’t receive academic credits
for participating in the courses. (Anderson added that Chemeketa, a public
institution, doesn’t  require proof of citizenship for enrollment, which means
undocumented migrants as well as legal workers may participate in the program.)

The majority of workers come from Mexico, but not all. Course instructor Juan
Pablo “JP” Valot, assistant winemaker at Silvan Ridge-Hinman Vineyard in Eugene,
said the diversity of backgrounds among students makes for a wide range of
language skills. Students may have a good knowledge of standard Spanish -- or
any one of a number of local dialects found in southern Mexico or Central
America.

The mix can impede communication, but the Chemeketa courses help standardize the
language that workers use in the vineyard, though even after the course some
compromise is needed to further adapt the knowledge delivered to the languages
spoken.

“They get on the same page,” said Valot, who also teaches a “Spanish in the
Vineyard” course for English-speaking vineyard managers, giving them both
Spanish and Mexican words to help them communicate with Latino workers.

Over the three years he’s been teaching the courses, Valot said many workers
have shown measureable progress. One worker, who scored 30% the first time he
took the pesticide applicators’ test, scored 55% following the Spanish-language
pesticide course (one of the most popular offerings). The worker still required
a 70% to pass, but the score marked a significant improvement.

Wineries have responded positively, too, because they see value in the courses.
“The more the guys know, the better it is for them, the better the quality of
the grapes,” Valot said.

“It’s always better to be smarter,” added Lee Bartholomew, vineyard manager at
Archery Summit in Dayton, Ore. She typically sends five to nine workers per year
for the tractor safety, maintenance and pesticide courses.
Bartholomew’s own Spanish language skills aren’t lacking, so the real value of
the courses is giving vineyard managers the knowledge they need to communicate
with workers, as well as educating and reinforcing the knowledge vineyard
workers already have.

“If I haven’t taught it to them, there’s somebody else there to catch the things
that I forget to teach to them,” she said.