Much has been written about Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers' heyday in the 1960s and '70s, but the story of their profound, ongoing influence on 21st century social justice movements has until now been left untold. This book unearths this legacy.
In her timely new book, Teresa M. Mares explores the intersections of structural vulnerability and food insecurity experienced by migrant farmworkers in the northeastern borderlands of the United States. Through ethnographic portraits of Latinx farmworkers who labor in Vermont’s dairy industry, Mares powerfully illuminates the complex and resilient ways workers sustain themselves and their families while also serving as the backbone of the state’s agricultural economy. In doing so, Life on the Other Border exposes how broader movements for food justice and labor rights play out in the agricultural sector, and powerfully points to the misaligned agriculture and immigration policies impacting our food system today.
Scholars working for communities' rights in California's Central Valley In the Struggle tells the story of the persistent engagement of eight public scholars spanning generations of sustained endeavor, a dogged war in which workers and scholars together repeatedly took on the powerful agricultural industry, the political machines, and even the universities. The stories begin in the 1930s with Paul Taylor, a professor of economics at University of California, Berkeley, who pioneered field research and activism as he travelled through the areas marked by the Great Depression, together with his wife, photographer Dorothea Lange. Working in the heart of California's agricultural Central Valley, Taylor was the first of a succession of scholars who shared the dual commitment to research and engagement, to making problems visible and to effecting change through strategic action. Taylor and Lange intentionally wove their political engagement into their identities and work as researchers, as they conducted studies, led strikes, organized underserved communities, founded community development programs, created nonprofit institutions, and more. This book documents a tradition of politically engaged scholarship in one of the world's most dramatic contexts, full of disparities and contradictions, but also ripe with opportunities to make a difference. It covers a struggle that continues undiminished in the present.
Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are largely Latinx men, women, and children. They work in crop, dairy, and livestock production, and are essential to the U.S. agricultural economy—one of the most hazardous and least regulated industries in the United States. Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the eastern United States experience high rates of illness, injury, and death, indicating widespread occupational injustice. This second edition takes a social justice stance and integrates the past ten years of research and intervention to address health, safety, and justice issues for farmworkers. Contributors cover all major areas of health and safety research for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families, explore the factors that affect the health and safety of farmworkers and their families, and suggest approaches for further research and educational and policy intervention needed to improve the health and safety of Latinx farmworkers and their families. Among the chapter topics are: Occupational injury and illness in Latinx farmworkers in the eastern United States Mental health among Latinx farmworkers in the eastern United States The health of women farmworkers and women in farmworker families in the eastern United States The health of children in the Latinx farmworker community in the eastern United States Community-based participatory research with Latinx farmworker communities in the eastern United States Farm labor and the struggle for justice in the eastern United States Accessibly written and comprehensive in its scope, this second edition of Latinx Farmworkers in the Eastern United States: Health, Safety, and Justice will find an engaged audience among researchers, students, and practitioners in public health, occupational health, public policy, and social and behavioral sciences, as well as labor advocates and healthcare providers.
Lives from an invisible community—the migrant farmworkers of the United States The Grapes of Wrath brought national attention to the condition of California’s migrant farmworkers in the 1930s. Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers’ grape and lettuce boycotts captured the imagination of the United States in the 1960s and ’70s. Yet today, the stories of the more than 800,000 men, women, and children working in California’s fields—one third of the nation’s agricultural work force—are rarely heard, despite the persistence of wage theft, dangerous working conditions, and uncertain futures. This book of oral histories makes the reality of farm work visible in accounts of hardship, bravery, solidarity, and creativity in California’s fields, as real people struggle to win new opportunities for future generations. Among the narrators: Maricruz, a single mother fired from a packing plant after filing a sexual assault complaint against her supervisor. Roberto, a vineyard laborer in the scorching Coachella Valley who became an advocate for more humane working conditions after his teenage son almost died of heatstroke. Oscar, an elementary school teacher in Salinas who wants to free his students from a life in the fields, the fate that once awaited him as a child.
This important, interdisciplinary contribution to the 'greening' business debate looks at one of the most environmentally controversial industries - the chemical pesticide industry. If that sector can be put on to an environmentally sustainable footing, then the same may be possible for virtually all of industry. As business and environmental trends turn the pesticide industry's focus to biotechnology and seed engineering, this book examines the extent to which the industry is prepared to exploit new business opportunities in a more regenerative agriculture and draws attention to the industry's economic, environmental and social responsibilities.