March 25 – 31 is National Farmworker Awareness Week (NFAW), an annual week-long celebration of farmworkers and the contribution they make to society, and a reminder of progress yet to be made regarding farmworkers' health, safety, and rights. The farmworker community is diverse, made up of various cultures, ethnic groups, genders, and ages, who have agriculture in common as their occupation. |
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Farmworkers Feed the World
During the past year, we have all come to recognize the essential role of workers in the food supply chain. Farmworkers are at the root of the supply chain, working to ensure the availability, quality, and safety of our fresh food. Each year upwards of 150,000 farmworkers labor in North Carolina and are at the backbone of North Carolina’s agricultural industry.
Farmworkers Have Fewer Protections
Low wages and minimal labor protections make farmworkers one of the most economically disadvantaged and unprotected group of laborers, especially considering farm work is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States.
Farmworkers Face Significant Health Disparities
Farmworkers face various health risks such as heat stress, skin disorders, musculoskeletal injuries, pesticide exposure, and green tobacco sickness from tobacco handling. Farmworkers and their families also face food insecurity, obesity, substandard living conditions, discrimination, and high school dropout rates.
Learn More About Farmworkers
Learn more by visiting the websites below or watching a documentary on farmworkers.
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There Is a disturbing paradox in the American workplace. As organizations look to reap the benefits of a diverse, multicultural, and inclusive workforce, the countervailing force of racism often undermines that effort, creating challenges that HR is often responsible for overcoming.
Binna Kandola, a British business psychologist and author of Racism at Work: The Danger of Indifference (Pearn Kandola Publishing, 2018) likens racism to a virus that lingers in organizations because people have internalized racist stereotypes.
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One of our country's premier cultural and social critics, bell hooks has always maintained that eradicating racism and eradicating sexism must go hand in hand. But whereas many women have been recognized for their writing on gender politics, the female voice has been all but locked out of the public discourse on race.
Killing Rage speaks to this imbalance. These twenty-three essays are written from a black and feminist perspective, and they tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it. They address a spectrum of topics having to do with race and racism in the United States: psychological trauma among African Americans; friendship between black women and white women; anti-Semitism and racism; and internalized racism in movies and the media. And in the title essay, hooks writes about the "killing rage"―the fierce anger of black people stung by repeated instances of everyday racism―finding in that rage a healing source of love and strength and a catalyst for positive change.
Bell Hooks is Distinguished Professor of English at City College of New York. She is the author of the memoir Bone Black as well as eleven other books. She lives in New York City.
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Underrepresented in Medicine Community List
The purpose of the Underrepresented in Medicine Community List is to allow students, staff, residents, and faculty of underrepresented identities that are affiliated with the UNC School of Medicine to find community, mentorship, and representation. Such identities include those belonging to non-dominant religions, races or ethnicities, and sexualities or gender identities.
This community is open and accessible to anyone with a UNC Onyen and password, including current staff, faculty, students, residents, and fellows.
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March Dates to Note
Other important dates can be found on the
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The last month in the Baha'i calendar is dedicated to the Baha'i Fast. For nineteen days each year from March 2 to March 20 Baha'is refrain from eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset. This is a time for reflection on one's spiritual progress. |
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March 8: International Women's Day |
The movement to create an International Women's Day began as part of the socialist movement for greater women's rights, particularly the right to vote. First designated as the last Sunday in February by the Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1910, it was later changed to be uniformly celebrated on March 8 to honor women's role in the Russian Revolution. With the resurgence of feminism in the late 1960s, International Women's Day gained renewed interest as a day to celebrate women's lives and work. |
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March 11: Lailat al Miraj |
This holiday, known as the Night of the Ascension, commemorates one of the most important events in the history of Islam - the nighttime journey of Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended to heaven and was told by Allah of the Muslims' duty to pray five times daily (Salat). Muslims observe this day by attending special prayer services at a mosque or reciting special evening prayers at home. |
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March 11: Maha Shivaratri (Shiva's Night) |
This Hindu festival honors Shiva who, along with Vishnu and Krishna, is one of the most important deities in Hinduism. It is observed in the spring and is celebrated with fasting, prayer, and meditation. |
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March 17: St. Patrick's Day |
Tradition holds that Ireland's patron saint died on this date in A.D. 493 at the age of 106. The anniversary of his death is celebrated in Ireland as a national holiday, with green, the color of the day, signifying undying gratitude to the memory of St. Patrick, who brought Christianity to Ireland. The shamrock is worn to commemorate its use by the saint as a symbol of the Trinity. St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by people of Irish descent all over the world as an expression of pride in their heritage. |
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March 21: Naw Ruz (New Year) |
Celebrated at the time of the vernal equinox, this is the beginning of the Zoroastrian new year according to the Fasli seasonal calendar. The most elaborate of the Gahambars, or feasts of obligation, observed during the Zoroastrian year, Naw Ruz celebrates Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom, and the holy fire symbolic of His divine light. The sixth day of Naw Ruz, called the Great Naw Ruz, is the most important day of celebration, since it is believed to be the birthday of the Zoroastrian prophet Zarathushtra. Patterned after the Gregorian calendar, the Fasli calendar keeps in harmony with the seasons by inter-calculating one day every four years, with the date of Naw Ruz being fixed on March 21.
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March 21: Ostara (Vernal Equinox)
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This is the Sabbat observed on the vernal equinox celebrated by the Pagan and Wiccan religion. |
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March 21: International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination |
The UN General Assembly proclaimed this international day in 1966 in commemoration of the Sharpeville Massacre. On this day in 1960, at least sixty-nine people were killed by police in a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid "pass laws" in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. This day is commemorated in South Africa as Human Rights Day. |
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March 25: International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade |
This is a day to honor and remember the more than fifteen million men, women, and children who were victims of the 400-year transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest and most tragic chapters in human history. It is also a time to raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice in today's world. |
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March 26: Birthday of Prophet Zarathushtra
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This Zoroastrian holiday, known as the Great Naw Ruz, celebrates the birth of the Persian prophet Zarathushtra, who founded Zoroastrianism. Known in Greece as Zoroaster, Zarathushtra is believed by scholars to have lived sometime between 1400 and 1000 B.C., although the Zoroastrian tradition teaches that he lived between the early 600s and the mid-500s B.C. Zoroastrianism originated in the Russian Steppes of Central Asia, along the northern border of the Persian Empire near the Aral Sea. |
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This Jewish holiday, which is observed for eight days, celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Moses, an Israelite born into slavery, raised in the Pharaoh's household, and later banished as a young man for defending his people, returned to Egypt and confronted the Pharaoh in the name of God, demanding freedom for his people. The Pharaoh capitulated only after God sent ten plagues, the last of which killed the first son of every Egyptian family, including that of the Pharaoh. The Israelites marked their doors to identify their homes for the angel of death, who passed over and spared them. Moses then led the Israelites through the desert for 40 years until they came to the land of Canaan, later called Palestine. The celebration of Passover, a spring festival commemorating freedom and new life, begins the previous evening with a Seder, a meal during which the story of Passover is read from the Haggadah. The menu includes a number of traditional foods such as matzoh, or unleavened bread, which recalls the unleavened bread eaten by the Israelites in the desert. |
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Palm Sunday is observed on this day according to the Julian calendar followed by Coptic Orthodox Christians and Eastern Orthodox Christians. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Palm Sunday is often called the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and is the beginning of Holy Week. On Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, believers prepare palm fronds by knotting them into crosses in preparation for the procession on Sunday. |
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Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, celebrates the coming of spring throughout India and the new harvest of the winter crop. It is celebrated over two days, Holi and Dhuleti, also known as chhoti holi and badi holi. Celebrations begin on the full moon night of the Hindu month of Phalgun, when large bonfires are lit to cleanse the air of evil spirits and to symbolize the destruction of Holika, for whom the festival is named. Newly harvested grains, coconuts, and sweets are thrown into the fire as offerings, followed by singing and dancing around the bonfire. When the fire dies down, water is splashed on the embers, and everyone applies the ash to their forehead. Some of the ash is kept in the home to apply to children's foreheads to protect them against evil throughout the year. The following day is the festival of colors, a riotous and exuberant celebration of throwing colored powder, or gulal, on friends and spraying them with colored water, playing games, folk dancing, singing, feasting, and general merrymaking. |
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This is a three-day Sikh festival celebrated in Anandpur Sahib in the Indian state of Punjab. Hola Mohalla, literally “mock fight,” is a display of martial arts and military exercises, including mock battles, sword fighting, archery, and maneuvers on speeding horses, followed by music, dance, and poetry competitions. It was introduced by Guru Gobind Singh Ji in 1701 as a way to strengthen the martial arts in the Sikh community. |
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This holiday, known as the Night of Deliverance, is the night that Allah frees those who were destined for Jahannam, the Islamic Hell. Sunni Muslims observe a nightlong vigil with prayers, repenting to Allah and seeking forgiveness. This is also the night that decides a person's life in the coming year, including whether they will have the opportunity to perform the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. In Shi'a Islam, this day is celebrated as the birth date of the Twelfth Imam, Imam Al Mahdi. The observance goes by several names, depending on the country in which it is observed. Most can be categorized into two general meanings: Mid-Sha'ban or Half of Sha'ban, named after the day's chronological position in the eighth month of the Islamic calendar: Nisf(u) Sha'ban (Arabic), Nisfu Syaban (Malay) Nim Sha'ban (Persian) Bara'at Night. Bara'at is an Arabic noun, roughly translated as innocence, records, assignment, deliverance, or salvation. Laylat al-Bara'at (Arabic) Berat Kandili (Turkish) |
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Dates to Note is a compilation intended to include, but is not all-inclusive, notable information from the internet, Diversity Best Practices, 2021 Diversity Holiday Calendar, and other sources). |
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Stuart Gold, Committee Chair
Christian Lawrence
Robin Howard
Jennifer McElroy
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Martha Perry
Nina Jain
Hadley Kifner
Zachary Pettigrew
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Kenya McNeal-Trice
Benny Joyner
Jennifer Gutierrez-Wu
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