Farm Labor Conditions
(see also Farm Workers' Movements, Corporate Farming, Mexico-US Border, Food Poisoning)
Basics
On the Web: Articles
The Ethics of Eating. Rich Heffern, National Catholic Reporter (5/24/02).
Movement History: Filipinos Build a Movement for Justice in the Asparagus Fields. Larry Salomon, Third Force 2,4 (10/31/94):30.
A Short History of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC).
On the Web: Specialized Sites
Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC).
Northwest Tree Planters & Farmworkers United.
Sin Fronteras Organizing Project.
Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP).
United Farm Workers (UFW).
In the Library: Articles
Bardacke, Frank. "Cesar's ghost: decline & fall of the UFW," Nation (7/26/93):130-35.
Bowe, John. "Nobodies," New Yorker (4/21-28/03):106-133. Farm workers in Florida.
Gordon, Robert. "Poisons in the fields: the United Farm Workers, pesticides, & environmental politics," Pacific Historical Review 68 (1999):51-77.
Grove, Wayne A. "The Mexican Farm Labor Program, 1942-1964: government-administered labor market insurance for farmers," Agricultural History 70 (spr 96):302-20.
Guyette, Curt. "Migrant slums," SN&R (9/16/93):18-20.
Hawley, Ellis W. "The politics of the Mexican labor issue, 1950-1965," Agricultural History 40 (1966):157-76.
Taylor, Paul S. "Handlaborers in the Western sugarbeet industry," Agricultural History 41,1 (1/67):31-36.
__________. "California farm labor: a review," Agricultural History 42,1 (2/68):49-55.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Labor & social conditions of Mexicans in California," Monthly Labor Review 32 (1/31).
In the Library: Non-Fiction Books
Calvo Buesas, Tomás. Los más pobres en el país más rico: clase, raza y etnia en el movimiento campesino chicano (Madrid: Encuentro, 1981).
Ferriss, Susan & Ricardo Sandoval. The Fight in the Fields: Caesar Chavez & the Farmworkers Movement (Orlando FL: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997).
Galarza, Ernesto. Farm Workers & Agribusiness in California, 1947-1960 (Notre Dame, 1977).
Gray, James. The ACLU of Southern California & the Imperial Valley Agricultural Labor Disturbances in 1930 & 1934 (San Francisco, 1977).
Griffith, David Craig. Working Poor: Farmworkers in the US (Philadelphia: Temple, 1995).
Griswold del Castillo, Richard & Richard A. García. Cesar Chávez: A Triumph of Spirit (Norman: U. of Oklahoma, 1995).
Guerin-Gonzales, Camille. Mexican Workers & American Dreams: Immigration, Repatriation & California Farm Labor, 1900-1939 (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers, 1994).
Guilbault, Rose Castillo. Farmworker's Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America (?: Heyday, 2005).
Kushner, Sam. Long Road to Delano (NY: International, 1975).
McWilliams, Carey. Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (Bostn: Little, Brown, 1939; several subsequent editions & Berkeley: U. California, 2000).
__________. Ill Fares the Land: Migrants & Migratory Labor in the US (Boston: Little, Brown, 1942; several subsequent editions).
Meador, Bruce Staffel. "Wetback" Labor in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (San Francisco: R&E Research Associates, 1973).
Reisler, Mark. By the Sweat of their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Labor in the US, 1900-1940 (Westport CT, 1976).vt1
Taylor, Ronald B. Sweatshops in the Sun: Child Labor on the Farm (Boston, 1973).
In the Library: Fiction
Barrio, Raymundo. The Plum Plum Pickers (Binghamton NY: Bilingual, 1971).
Jiménez, Francisco. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico, 1997).
Rivera, Tomás. Y no se lo tragó la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (Houston: Arte Público, 1987).
__________. The Harvest: Short Stories (Houston: Arte Público, 1988).
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath (NY: Viking, 1939).
Viramontes, Helena María. Under the Feet of Jesus (NY: Penguin, 1995).
In the Library: For Young Readers
Jiménez, Francisco. Breaking Through (Senderos fronterizos) (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001).
In the Library: Poetry
In the Library: Drama
In the Library: Photography
CD & Audio
Film & Video
"Earth to Mouth" [2000], dir. Yung Chang, 42m. Mexican farm workers on Chinese truck farm in Ontario.
"The Grapes of Wrath" [1940], dir. John Ford, 128m. In video stores.
"Harvest of Shame" [1960], dir. ?, 54m. Edward R. Murrow TV special on farm labor conditions.
"The Migrants" [1973], dir. Tom Gries, 83m. In video stores.
"Voices from the Fields" [1997], dir. U. Nilsen & S. Jaramillo, 45m. From Cinema Guild. Follows farmworkers from CA's Salinas Valley back to homes in rural Mexico, where life is hard because of NAFTA & globalization of agriculture. Efforts to develop sustainable agricultural model based on people, not profits.
"The Wetback (El mojado)" [1974], dir. Danny Lyon, 14m. From Bleak Beauty Video.