What the Common Good Looks Like at Bowdoin

Mauricio Cuba Almeida '27, coleader of one of this year's five Alternative Spring Break trips, reunited at the symposium with participant Mico Carpiniello '29.

Cuba Almeida and coleader Noemi Guzman '26 brought their group to Salinas, California, to examine "the intersection of issues facing immigrants and farmworkers," he said. Farmworkers, Cuba Almeida noted, are especially vulnerable to exploitation because many lack legal protections, despite "being responsible for feeding all of us."

Alternative Spring Break trips (ASB) take place during the first week of March vacation and are entirely student-planned and led. This year's ASB trips traveled to Hawai'i, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, California, and New York to explore a variety of issues.

Cuba Almeida said his own Alternative Spring Break experience the previous year-when he traveled to Immokalee, Florida, to study farmworkers' rights-was transformative. "I wished more students knew about this issue," he said. "We may learn about it in class, but it's a different experience seeing the housing conditions and challenges people face."

During the weeklong trip in Salinas, students met with nonprofit leaders helping immigrant communities become self-sufficient farmers and gain access to affordable health care. Carpiniello said the experience strengthened his interest in nonprofit work. "These are the kinds of people I want to work with," he said. "You could tell the work was so meaningful to them."