Seafood Workers
Dear Editor: In recent Sentinel issues there have appeared articles featuring individuals from the AmeriCorps Volunteers group of 29 who have come to Sitka to offer their services, despite the serious drawbacks to travel and health in this time of COVID-19. I have found the details of their lives and their motivations for making this commitment interesting reading. My husband was a Vista Volunteer in Alaska and our daughter was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua. So, from the perspective of our family’s experience, I wish them the best success.
But, something else occurred to me as I thought about the public nature of their welcome to Sitka. It struck a discordant note, as it is in stark contrast to the reception of “non-resident/resident seafood workers” who have not been extended the same acknowledgement and honor in a public way in Sitka and across our state. They have only been referred to statistically per COVID-19 testing results. All of Sitka’s seafood workers are performing essential work in their handling and processing of Alaska’s sacred food from the sea. They too are putting themselves at increased risk to do so. They each have a story. Though their rights to privacy are supremely important, and we may never meet those whose homes are elsewhere, I do wonder if our community is looking beyond the statistics and appreciating the beauty of their gift to our town.
I was a seafood worker many years ago in Petersburg, as were my parents before me. Back then, there was a quality of admiration which came from our community for this hard work which was done by individual people and was integral to the economic well-being of everyone’s lives. Let us take a lesson from this example to never allow groups of people to become invisible, and to guard against this erosion of their dignity.
Thank you, dear workers, for your sacrifices and may God bless and keep you safe.
Amelia (Kito) Gage, Sitka
