Page 147 - SpringBoard_ELD_Grade8_Flipbook

carcinogen: a substance that causes cancer
pesticides: chemicals used to kill insects
leaching: draining
toxic: poisonous
plague: a highly fatal epidemic affliction
wanton: immoral and excessive
fast: stop eating for a period of time
ACTIVITY 3.3
continued
Interpret the Text using Close Reading
My notes
9 Johnnie Rodriguez was one of 13 McFarland children diagnosed with cancer in recent years; and one of six who have died from the disease. With only 6,000 residents, the rate of cancer in McFarland is 400 percent above normal.
10 In McFarland and in Fowler childhood cancer cases are being reported in excess of expected rates. In Delano and other farming towns, questions are also being raised.
11 The chief source of carcinogens in these communities are pesticides from the vineyards and fields that encircle them. Health experts believe the high rate of cancer in McFarland is from pesticides and nitrate-containing fertilizers leaching into the water system from surrounding fields.
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12 Farm workers and their families are exposed to pesticides from the crops they work. The soil the crops are grown in. Drift from sprays applied to adjoining fields-and often to the very field where they are working.
13 The fields that surround their homes are heavily and repeatedly sprayed. Pesticides pollute irrigation water and groundwater.
14 Children are still a big part of the labor force. Or they are taken to the fields by their parents because there is no child care.
15 Pregnant women labor in the fields to help support their families. Toxic exposure begins at a very young age-often in the womb.
16 What does acute pesticide poisoning produce?
17 Eye and respiratory irritations. Skin rashes. Systemic poisoning.
18 Death.
19 What are the chronic effects of pesticide poisoning on people, including farm
workers and their children, according to scientific studies?
20 Birth defects. Sterility. Still births. Miscarriages. Neurological and neuropsychological effects. Effects on child growth and development.
21 Cancer.
22 Do we feel deeply enough the pain of those who must work in the fields every day with these poisons? Or the anguish of the families that have lost loved ones to cancer? Or the heartache of the parents who fear for the lives of their children? Who are raising children with deformities? Who agonize the outcome of their pregnancies?
23 Who ask in fear, ‘where will this deadly plague strike next?’
24 Do we feel their pain deeply enough?
25 I didn’t. And I was ashamed.
26 I studied this wanton abuse of nature. I read the literature, heard from the experts
about what pesticides do to our land and our food.
27 I talked with farm workers, listened to their families, and shared their anguish and their fears. I spoke out against the cycle of death.
28 But sometimes words come too cheaply. And their meaning is lost in the clutter that so often fills our lives.
29 That is why, in July and August of last year, I embarked on a 36-day unconditional, water-only fast.
124 SpringBoard® English Language Development grade 8
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