Chasing the Harvest

Migrant Workers in California Agriculture

Voice of Witness

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786632210
• eBook ISBN: 9781786632197
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

More than a million men, women, and children work in American agriculture, and yet their stories are rarely told, their low-wage jobs are not included in minimum-wage ordinances or campaigns, and their work remains unorganized by labor unions. This book of oral histories restores to visibility these workers, by telling stories of hardship but also bravery, solidarity, and improvisation in California's farm fields. The majority of American produce is picked in California, while workers there face wage theft and sexual harassment, pesticide exposure and lack of healthcare, the struggle to find affordable housing, and the special risks endured by the undocumented--as many as half of all farmworkers. The book also tells the story of a new generation of labor activists, who are pressing for a national Bill of Rights for farmworkers.

NOTES

Introduction: “Look at My Hands”

¹ For more on the Bracero Program, see the Glossary, page 283.

Maricruz Ladino

¹ To read an excerpt of the Human Rights Watch report, see Appendix V, page 310–18.

² San Luis Río Colorado is a city of 150,000 on the Arizona-Sonora border. Across the border is the city of San Luis, Arizona, with a population of 30,000.

³ Yuma, Arizona, is a city of 90,000 near the U.S.-Mexico border. In the winter, it is the major lettuce-growing region of the country.

⁴ Tonaláa, Jalisco is a city of 500,000 close to Guadalajara, the capital of the central Pacific state of Jalisco.

⁵ Ixtláan del Rio is a municipality of 30,000 in the state of Nayarit, which is north of Jalisco.

⁶ The Bracero Program was an agreement between the United States and Mexico beginning in 1942 to grant guest-worker visas to Mexican agricultural workers. For more information on the Bracero Program, see the Glossary, page 283.

⁷ Huron, California, is a municipality of 6,000 near Fresno. The population of the town more than doubles during harvest season.

⁸ Cal/OSHA is the agency that enforces workplace safety regulations in California. For more information, see the Glossary, page 283.

⁹ Downey is a suburb 15 miles southeast of Los Angeles with a little more than 100,000 residents.

¹⁰ Coalinga is a municipality of 13,000 located 60 miles southwest of Fresno.

¹¹ Kerman is a small city of 15,000, fifteen miles west of Fresno.

¹² Hanford is a city of over 50,000 in Kings County, approximately 30 miles south of Fresno.

¹³ A mayordoma is a supervisor of a work crew. For more about mayordomos, see the Glossary, page 287.

¹⁴ California Rural Legal Assistance is a fifty-year-old nonprofit that provides free legal services to rural poor throughout the state. Its advocacy work focuses on housing, labor, education, health, and leadership development. For more information, see Appendix IV, page 304–305.

¹⁵ The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces federal employment discrimination laws.

¹⁶ ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. For more on ICE, see the Glossary, page 286.

¹⁷ The U visa, which allows undocumented immigrants to legalize their status, is available to victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity.

¹⁸ Hartnell Community College in Salinas serves more than 16,000 students each year.

¹⁹ The Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan is a seventeenth-century Franciscan sanctuary in downtown Zapopan, a city adjacent to Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco. It is one of the most visited sanctuaries in western Mexico, and includes a wooden Virgin of Zapopan, which was made in the sixteenth century.

Oscar Ramos

¹ Jalisco is a state of 8 million on Mexico’s west coast.

² Lázaro Cárdenas, a town of several hundred people, is named for a general in the Mexican Revolution who was the country’s president from 1934 to 1940.

³ Hollister is a city of 35,000 in San Benito County.

⁴ For more on labor camps, see the Glossary, page 287.

⁵ La migra refers to immigration enforcement agents. Enforcement of immigration law was previously carried out on the federal level by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), but since 2003 has been carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Department of Homeland Security. For more information, see the Glossary, page 287.

⁶ When workers are paid by how much they harvest (piece rate), their output is often tracked by receiving hole punches in their individual work card for each basket or bucket they fill.

⁷ CHISPA, or the Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association, is a nonprofit housing developer based in Monterey County that has built and renovated 2,268 single-family homes and apartments for low and moderate-income people since 1980.

⁸ From about March to October, most of the nation’s lettuce is grown in the Salinas Valley. Each winter, when temperatures drop, the lettuce harvest shifts to Yuma, Arizona. Many workers shuttle between the two regions, though increased immigration enforcement has caused these numbers to drop in recent years.

⁹ In December 2015, PBS aired East of Salinas, an hour-long documentary by the filmmakers Laura Pacheco and Jackie Mow, which focuses on the relationship between Oscar and his student.

¹⁰ Salinas, a city of 155,000, has an estimated 3,500 gang members. In 2015, there were 40 homicides in the city—up from the previous high of 29 in 2009. More than half of the city’s 40 homicides were likely gang-related.

Roberto Valdez

¹ Guanajuato is a state in central Mexico, northwest of Mexico City. Rancho in Mexico often describes small agricultural villages.

² Mexicali is a city of over 800,000 in the Mexican state of Baja, California. The Calexico-Mexicali metropolitan area is a major border crossing between the state of Baja in Mexico and eastern California in the United States.

³ El Centro, California, is a border town of over 40,000 and a major hub of the Imperial Valley.

⁴ The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), passed in 1986, provided permanent legal residence status to undocumented immigrants who had lived in the United States since December 31, 1981. A special provision of IRCA also allowed undocumented immigrants who had performed at least ninety days of farmwork between May 1985 and May 1986 to legalize their status. For more information, see the Glossary, page 286–7.

⁵ The All-American Canal stretches 80 miles along California’s southern border from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley. The canal is a dangerous obstacle for migrants crossing into the United States—many hundreds of drowning deaths have occurred in the canal in the past few decades.

⁶ The Laguna Salada is a basin that is part of the delta of the Colorado River, located southwest of Mexicali and near the U.S.-Mexico border.

⁷ Coyote refers to a guide who helps migrants illegally cross into the United States. For more information, see the Glossary, page 284.

⁸ Bimbo, headquartered in Mexico City, is the world’s largest baking company, with 165 manufacturing plants in Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Spain.

⁹ Salvadore Giumarra was the longtime President of Giumarra Vineyards, one of the largest table-grape companies in California. Today Giumarra has grown into one of the largest farming and distribution corporations in California, with additional farms in Washington and Mexico. Bakersfield is a large city in the San Joaquin Valley and a major agricultural corporate hub.

¹⁰ Lamont is an unincorporated town of 15,000 located about ten miles south of Bakersfield. For more on labor camps, see the Glossary, page 287.

¹¹ This type of system, called an evaporative cooler or swamp cooler, adds water vapor to the air and is a cheaper alternative to air conditioning.

¹² For more on agricultural workers exposure to pesticides, see Appendix III, page 296–300.

¹³ The route Roberto de...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction: “Look at My Hands”
• Executive Editor’s Note
• Maricruz Ladino
• Oscar Ramos
• Roberto Valdez
• Heraclio Astete
• Rosario Pelayo
• Fausto Sanchez
• Jose Saldivar
• Maria Ayala Arroyo, 46 Pedro Ayala Hernandez, 55 Guadalupe Ayala Arroyo, 21
• Ismael Moreno
• Silvia Correra
• Harold Mcclarty
• Maria Elena Durazo
• Rafael Gonzalez Meraz
• Jim Cochran
• Beatriz Machiche
• Appendices
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Editor Biography