Cindy Hahamovitch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691102689
- eISBN:
- 9781400840021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691102689.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter considers the developments of the 1980s for the Jamaican guestworkers. The decade brought guestworkers immigration reform legislation known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act ...
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This chapter considers the developments of the 1980s for the Jamaican guestworkers. The decade brought guestworkers immigration reform legislation known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which promised permanent legal status for all “alien farmworkers.” It also brought a huge $51 million courtroom victory and unprecedented attention in newsprint, books, and on film. Yet the 1980s ended up being a decade of devastating disappointment. Cane cutters—and only cane cutters—were excluded from the congressional “amnesty” for immigrants; court appeals denied them the back wages awards they had won; and machines replaced them in the cane fields. For Jamaican guestworkers, the 1980s left the sort of bitter aftertaste that lasts a lifetime.Less
This chapter considers the developments of the 1980s for the Jamaican guestworkers. The decade brought guestworkers immigration reform legislation known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which promised permanent legal status for all “alien farmworkers.” It also brought a huge $51 million courtroom victory and unprecedented attention in newsprint, books, and on film. Yet the 1980s ended up being a decade of devastating disappointment. Cane cutters—and only cane cutters—were excluded from the congressional “amnesty” for immigrants; court appeals denied them the back wages awards they had won; and machines replaced them in the cane fields. For Jamaican guestworkers, the 1980s left the sort of bitter aftertaste that lasts a lifetime.
Lori A. Flores
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300196962
- eISBN:
- 9780300216387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300196962.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter examines the farmworker movement in the Salinas Valley after the termination of the Bracero Program. It first considers the rise of Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers Organizing ...
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This chapter examines the farmworker movement in the Salinas Valley after the termination of the Bracero Program. It first considers the rise of Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) and the lawsuits filed by Salinas farmworkers with the help of the California Rural Legal Assistance. It then explores how the continued importation of braceros in what was supposed to be a post-bracero era affected Salinas's farmworkers, the majority of whom were Mexican Americans. It also discusses the legal actions and victories of Salinas farmworkers against growers who sought to continue importing braceros and prevent their employees from joining the UFWOC. These legal actions and victories, the chapter argues, were evidence of the farmworker movement's revival in the Salinas Valley.Less
This chapter examines the farmworker movement in the Salinas Valley after the termination of the Bracero Program. It first considers the rise of Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) and the lawsuits filed by Salinas farmworkers with the help of the California Rural Legal Assistance. It then explores how the continued importation of braceros in what was supposed to be a post-bracero era affected Salinas's farmworkers, the majority of whom were Mexican Americans. It also discusses the legal actions and victories of Salinas farmworkers against growers who sought to continue importing braceros and prevent their employees from joining the UFWOC. These legal actions and victories, the chapter argues, were evidence of the farmworker movement's revival in the Salinas Valley.
Lori A. Flores
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300196962
- eISBN:
- 9780300216387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300196962.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter examines the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee's (UFWOC) 1970 strike in the Salinas Valley and the various groups of UFWOC allies and detractors involved. It first considers the ...
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This chapter examines the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee's (UFWOC) 1970 strike in the Salinas Valley and the various groups of UFWOC allies and detractors involved. It first considers the circumstances that led to the strike before discussing the strike in more detail. In particular, it analyzes the battle between Cesar Chavez's supporters, including farmworkers, and opponents as hundreds of incidents of violence erupted between the UFWOC and Teamsters Union during the strike's initial weeks. It also explores the various tactics employed by growers in response to the strike, the racial violence that erupted, the involvement of women such as Ethel Kennedy and Coretta Scott King, and the unprecedented cooperation seen between Mexican Americans and Mexicans.Less
This chapter examines the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee's (UFWOC) 1970 strike in the Salinas Valley and the various groups of UFWOC allies and detractors involved. It first considers the circumstances that led to the strike before discussing the strike in more detail. In particular, it analyzes the battle between Cesar Chavez's supporters, including farmworkers, and opponents as hundreds of incidents of violence erupted between the UFWOC and Teamsters Union during the strike's initial weeks. It also explores the various tactics employed by growers in response to the strike, the racial violence that erupted, the involvement of women such as Ethel Kennedy and Coretta Scott King, and the unprecedented cooperation seen between Mexican Americans and Mexicans.
Thomas M. Painter, Kurt C. Organista, Scott D. Rhodes, and Fernando M. Sañudo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199764303
- eISBN:
- 9780199950232
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199764303.003.0018
- Subject:
- Social Work, Health and Mental Health
This chapter reviews sociodemographic characteristics of Latino migrants in the United States, features of their mobile livelihoods related to vulnerability to infection by HIV and other sexually ...
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This chapter reviews sociodemographic characteristics of Latino migrants in the United States, features of their mobile livelihoods related to vulnerability to infection by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and their access to prevention and treatment services. Findings from studies of HIV/STD risk factors and infection among Latino migrants are summarized, emphasizing the need for appropriate prevention interventions. Two approaches for developing HIV/STD prevention interventions for Latino migrants are described: adapting evidence-based interventions, designed for nonmigrants, and developing interventions specifically for Latino migrants. The latter are illustrated by describing three interventions that the chapter co-authors helped to develop, deliver, and evaluate. Fernando Sañudo describes Tres Hombres Sin Fronteras for male Latino farmworkers in San Diego County, California; Kurt Organista describes a pilot intervention for male migrant Latino day laborers in Berkeley, California; and Scott Rhodes describes HoMBReS, an intervention for recent immigrant Latino males in central rural North Carolina.Less
This chapter reviews sociodemographic characteristics of Latino migrants in the United States, features of their mobile livelihoods related to vulnerability to infection by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and their access to prevention and treatment services. Findings from studies of HIV/STD risk factors and infection among Latino migrants are summarized, emphasizing the need for appropriate prevention interventions. Two approaches for developing HIV/STD prevention interventions for Latino migrants are described: adapting evidence-based interventions, designed for nonmigrants, and developing interventions specifically for Latino migrants. The latter are illustrated by describing three interventions that the chapter co-authors helped to develop, deliver, and evaluate. Fernando Sañudo describes Tres Hombres Sin Fronteras for male Latino farmworkers in San Diego County, California; Kurt Organista describes a pilot intervention for male migrant Latino day laborers in Berkeley, California; and Scott Rhodes describes HoMBReS, an intervention for recent immigrant Latino males in central rural North Carolina.
Sarah Bronwen Horton
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520283268
- eISBN:
- 9780520962545
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520283268.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in California’s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers die at work each ...
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They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in California’s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers die at work each summer. Laden with captivating detail of farmworkers’ daily work and home lives, this book examines uses ethnography to show how U.S. immigration and labor policies have made migrant farmworkers “exceptional workers.” It explores the deeply intertwined political, legal, and social factors that place Latino migrants at particular risk of illness and injury in the fields, and that saddle them with a higher burden of chronic disease at home. It examines the patchwork of health care, disability, and Social Security policies that provide them little succor when they become sick or grow old. The book takes an in-depth look at the work risks faced by migrants at all stages of the life-course: as teens, in their middle-age, and ultimately as elderly workers. By following the lives of a core group of farmworkers over nearly a decade, this book provides a searing portrait of how their precarious immigration and work statuses get under their skin, culminating in preventable morbidity and premature death.Less
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in California’s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers die at work each summer. Laden with captivating detail of farmworkers’ daily work and home lives, this book examines uses ethnography to show how U.S. immigration and labor policies have made migrant farmworkers “exceptional workers.” It explores the deeply intertwined political, legal, and social factors that place Latino migrants at particular risk of illness and injury in the fields, and that saddle them with a higher burden of chronic disease at home. It examines the patchwork of health care, disability, and Social Security policies that provide them little succor when they become sick or grow old. The book takes an in-depth look at the work risks faced by migrants at all stages of the life-course: as teens, in their middle-age, and ultimately as elderly workers. By following the lives of a core group of farmworkers over nearly a decade, this book provides a searing portrait of how their precarious immigration and work statuses get under their skin, culminating in preventable morbidity and premature death.
Philip Martin
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300139174
- eISBN:
- 9780300156003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300139174.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
Federal migrant assistance programs were first launched in the 1960s to serve migrant farmworkers and their children. This chapter discusses the evolution of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) ...
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Federal migrant assistance programs were first launched in the 1960s to serve migrant farmworkers and their children. This chapter discusses the evolution of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) programs in the United States and major justifications for these programs. The four major MSFW programs discussed are the following: Migrant Education Program (MEP), High School Equivalency Program (HEP), College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) and Migrant Education Even Start Program (MEES).Less
Federal migrant assistance programs were first launched in the 1960s to serve migrant farmworkers and their children. This chapter discusses the evolution of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) programs in the United States and major justifications for these programs. The four major MSFW programs discussed are the following: Migrant Education Program (MEP), High School Equivalency Program (HEP), College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) and Migrant Education Even Start Program (MEES).
Julie M. Weise
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624969
- eISBN:
- 9781469624983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624969.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
From the 1960s through the 1990s, millions of Mexican immigrants, Tejanos, and Mexican Americans journeyed through the rural U.S. South as agricultural migrant workers and tens of thousands settled ...
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From the 1960s through the 1990s, millions of Mexican immigrants, Tejanos, and Mexican Americans journeyed through the rural U.S. South as agricultural migrant workers and tens of thousands settled there. Chapter Four argues that Mexicanos of this generation arrived to southern Georgia’s agricultural areas with diminished expectations of citizenship in the Americas’ neoliberal era. Though locals initially treated them as objects of curiosity or hostility, soon influential white employers and church leaders both Catholic and Evangelical framed Mexican migrants’ lifestyles as archetypical examples of upright working poor who merited the opportunity to stay in town, earn wages, attend school, and receive charity despite their foreign accents and racial difference. Mexicanos reciprocated the interest, and did not become involved in labor or political organizing, albeit for their own reasons. In this way, a fragile peace around immigration issues settled over southern Georgia and much of the rural agricultural South through the end of the 1990s, even as farmworker organizing and populist anti-immigrant backlash took hold elsewhere in the country during the same period.Less
From the 1960s through the 1990s, millions of Mexican immigrants, Tejanos, and Mexican Americans journeyed through the rural U.S. South as agricultural migrant workers and tens of thousands settled there. Chapter Four argues that Mexicanos of this generation arrived to southern Georgia’s agricultural areas with diminished expectations of citizenship in the Americas’ neoliberal era. Though locals initially treated them as objects of curiosity or hostility, soon influential white employers and church leaders both Catholic and Evangelical framed Mexican migrants’ lifestyles as archetypical examples of upright working poor who merited the opportunity to stay in town, earn wages, attend school, and receive charity despite their foreign accents and racial difference. Mexicanos reciprocated the interest, and did not become involved in labor or political organizing, albeit for their own reasons. In this way, a fragile peace around immigration issues settled over southern Georgia and much of the rural agricultural South through the end of the 1990s, even as farmworker organizing and populist anti-immigrant backlash took hold elsewhere in the country during the same period.
Adam Tompkins
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801456688
- eISBN:
- 9781501704215
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801456688.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This book examines the cooperative efforts between farmworkers and environmentalists to campaign for pesticide reform. It charts the development of chemically intensive, industrial-style agriculture ...
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This book examines the cooperative efforts between farmworkers and environmentalists to campaign for pesticide reform. It charts the development of chemically intensive, industrial-style agriculture in the United States and shows how environmental and farmworker groups found a common ground to battle the indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture and acted as important knowledge brokers advocating for reform of pesticide use practices in order to make agricultural pest control safer and thus protect human health. It considers how cooperation between farmworker groups and the environmental movement often depended upon the work of bridge-builders within one or more of the organizations. It argues that these bridge-builders transcended differences among diverse movements and ably negotiated their cultural terrain to foster working relationships. The book also discusses pesticide politics from the local to international levels, with particular emphasis on the long struggle to halt the usage of methyl bromide.Less
This book examines the cooperative efforts between farmworkers and environmentalists to campaign for pesticide reform. It charts the development of chemically intensive, industrial-style agriculture in the United States and shows how environmental and farmworker groups found a common ground to battle the indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture and acted as important knowledge brokers advocating for reform of pesticide use practices in order to make agricultural pest control safer and thus protect human health. It considers how cooperation between farmworker groups and the environmental movement often depended upon the work of bridge-builders within one or more of the organizations. It argues that these bridge-builders transcended differences among diverse movements and ably negotiated their cultural terrain to foster working relationships. The book also discusses pesticide politics from the local to international levels, with particular emphasis on the long struggle to halt the usage of methyl bromide.
Adam Tompkins
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801456688
- eISBN:
- 9781501704215
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801456688.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This chapter examines the growth of a large marginalized, often migratory, workforce that was systematically disempowered by growers and government: the farmworkers. The modernization and ...
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This chapter examines the growth of a large marginalized, often migratory, workforce that was systematically disempowered by growers and government: the farmworkers. The modernization and professionalization of agriculture reshaped many farm owners’ thinking about labor and production. Beginning in the twentieth century, multitudes of migrant laborers shouldered the burden of work on large farms that used to be handled by families and local hired hands. This chapter considers how farm owners, acting in concert with the government, denied farmworkers political power in order to maintain a cheap and plentiful supply of agricultural labor. It argues that farmworkers, who acted as the “hidden” hands of the harvest, fell out of view of the public eye and did not benefit from the protection of the growing body of labor laws introduced in the mid-twentieth century. It shows how farmworkers sought allies outside of the agricultural industry in their pesticide reform campaigns.Less
This chapter examines the growth of a large marginalized, often migratory, workforce that was systematically disempowered by growers and government: the farmworkers. The modernization and professionalization of agriculture reshaped many farm owners’ thinking about labor and production. Beginning in the twentieth century, multitudes of migrant laborers shouldered the burden of work on large farms that used to be handled by families and local hired hands. This chapter considers how farm owners, acting in concert with the government, denied farmworkers political power in order to maintain a cheap and plentiful supply of agricultural labor. It argues that farmworkers, who acted as the “hidden” hands of the harvest, fell out of view of the public eye and did not benefit from the protection of the growing body of labor laws introduced in the mid-twentieth century. It shows how farmworkers sought allies outside of the agricultural industry in their pesticide reform campaigns.
Adam Tompkins
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801456688
- eISBN:
- 9781501704215
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801456688.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This chapter focuses on the pesticide reform efforts of farmworkers, led by the United Farm Workers (UFW), in cooperation with the mainstream environmental movement in the years immediately following ...
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This chapter focuses on the pesticide reform efforts of farmworkers, led by the United Farm Workers (UFW), in cooperation with the mainstream environmental movement in the years immediately following the DDT ban. It shows how environmental groups such as the Sierra Club expanded their lobbying efforts in Congress for the passage of a stronger regulatory law on pesticides. It also considers the Environmental Defense Fund’s attempts to get the Environmental Protection Agency to cancel all uses of aldrin and dieldrin. Finally, it discusses the UFW’s union battles with the Teamsters between 1972 and 1976 that affected its focus on agricultural chemicals, even as it continued to collaborate with some environmental groups on related issues.Less
This chapter focuses on the pesticide reform efforts of farmworkers, led by the United Farm Workers (UFW), in cooperation with the mainstream environmental movement in the years immediately following the DDT ban. It shows how environmental groups such as the Sierra Club expanded their lobbying efforts in Congress for the passage of a stronger regulatory law on pesticides. It also considers the Environmental Defense Fund’s attempts to get the Environmental Protection Agency to cancel all uses of aldrin and dieldrin. Finally, it discusses the UFW’s union battles with the Teamsters between 1972 and 1976 that affected its focus on agricultural chemicals, even as it continued to collaborate with some environmental groups on related issues.
