Agriculture

"The migrant worker's year is a string of beads - a week of employment here, another there, uncertainly tied together with travel in search of work" - Farm Labor Fact Book (Shotwell 1961, 13).

Agricultural labor has a long history within the United States of taking advantage of foreign and marginalized communities. This history began with the arrival of the British colonists and consequent forced removal of indigenous people from their lands. With the introduction of slavery in 1526, agricultural labor was performed by Africans stolen from their homeland. Due to the annexation of Texas and the results of the Mexican American War in the late 1840s, Mexican Americans (“ranchos”) further replaced indigenous farmers (Martin 2014, 21). About 20 years later, with the abolition of slavery, came the implementation of sharecropping and the introduction of tenant farming in the 1870s (Schwartz, 1945). Chinese labor was introduced to the United States due to the formation of the railroad, but they soon entered a version of seasonal migration until the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese agricultural labor appeared briefly in 1885 and from 1901 to 1907 (Martin 2014, 23). The Japanese engaged in “quickie’ harvest time strikes to put pressure on farmers to increase wages and labor conditions. Mexican agricultural labor grew again in 1917 but returned home during the Depression and the Dust Bowl due to a lack of jobs. Poor whites and blacks from Oklahoma and Arizona became a large agricultural labor force in the south and west. World War II shipped American men off to war and pushed the United States to make an accord with Mexico regarding seasonal labor: the Bracero Program. This prompted an influx of documented and undocumented Mexican and Latinx workers. The United States attempted to stem the flow by increasing immigration reform and then ending the program in 1964 due to the increase in mechanization. Lastly, in the 1960s, the main agricultural labor force was described as “green-card commuters” (Martin 2014, 36). All of these regulatory and policy-centered actions were happening behind the scenes of the agriculture industry.

Due to the diversification of produce harvest seasons, seasonal workers travel in a circulatory or triangular pattern, usually starting in the south, then moving north, and returning back to the south. Journalist Harry Schwartz discerned three different general circulatory routes within the United States: the central Mississippi valley, West Coast and along the East Coast (Schwartz, 1945). The Mississippi valley primarily follows the seasonal harvest of wheat and corn. The West Coast generally starts in Mexico and goes through California or Texas and travels to and up the Pacific Coast through Oregon to Washington and back down to where the workers started their harvest season. Lastly, the east coast has more stops and varying destinations along the way, but generally starts in Florida and ends in New England (whether that be New York, New Jersey or even Maine). Outside of these three geographic patterns, there are other pathways to the more central states and overlap from one circle to another. Seasonal migration is a revolving door: new (and younger) workers move rurally to fill seasonal farm jobs, while the older workers eventually turn to year-round farm and non-farm jobs (Martin 2014, 42).

The agriculture industry employs a variety of workers from farm owners to full-time workers to contractual and seasonal labor. For some low-income, undocumented, or visa-holding workers, migration offers the only evident alternative to unemployment (Shotwell, 1961). Transient families are pushed to migrate due to environmental and economic factors and further encouraged by the mythical land of plenty as descripted within newspaper advertisements and pamphlets (Weisiger, 1995). Seasonal workers can migrate as singles, families, or within cohorts. In her book, The Harvesters: The Story of the Migrant People, Shotwell notes that, rather than seen as individuals, seasonal workers are categorized as a “necessary cog in the agricultural machine” (Shotwell 1961, 36). They are incredibly important to the production process as many crops are highly perishable and must be gathered in short period (Schwartz, 1945). Despite the introduction of mechanization to agriculture, farmers depend on seasonal workers during the harvest time as most fruits and vegetables must be hand-picked individually (Schwartz, 1945). In this aspect, individual farmers are in competition with another for their cheap labor source (Guan et al., 2018). Seasonal workers are paid by the day, hour or amount of produce picked rather than monthly (Schwartz, 1945). A migrant worker experiences the most discrimination within the workplace, does the hardest work for the least amount of pay, typically received low formal schooling and has no or very few legal protections (Shotwell, 1961).

Due to the diversification of produce harvest seasons, seasonal workers travel in a circulatory or triangular pattern, usually starting in the south, then moving north, and returning back to the south. Journalist Harry Schwartz discerned three different general circulatory routes within the United States: the central Mississippi valley, West Coast and along the East Coast (Schwartz, 1945). The Mississippi valley primarily follows the seasonal harvest of wheat and corn. The West Coast generally starts in Mexico and goes through California or Texas and travels to and up the Pacific Coast through Oregon to Washington and back down to where the workers started their harvest season. Lastly, the east coast has more stops and varying destinations along the way, but generally starts in Florida and ends in New England (whether that be New York, New Jersey or even Maine). Outside of these three geographic patterns, there are other pathways to the more central states and overlap from one circle to another. Seasonal migration is a revolving door: new (and younger) workers move rurally to fill seasonal farm jobs, while the older workers eventually turn to year-round farm and non-farm jobs (Martin 2014, 42).

The agriculture industry employs a variety of workers from farm owners to full-time workers to contractual and seasonal labor. For some low-income, undocumented, or visa-holding workers, migration offers the only evident alternative to unemployment (Shotwell, 1961). Transient families are pushed to migrate due to environmental and economic factors and further encouraged by the mythical land of plenty as descripted within newspaper advertisements and pamphlets (Weisiger, 1995). Seasonal workers can migrate as singles, families, or within cohorts. In her book, The Harvesters: The Story of the Migrant People, Shotwell notes that, rather than seen as individuals, seasonal workers are categorized as a “necessary cog in the agricultural machine” (Shotwell 1961, 36). They are incredibly important to the production process as many crops are highly perishable and must be gathered in short period (Schwartz, 1945). Despite the introduction of mechanization to agriculture, farmers depend on seasonal workers during the harvest time as most fruits and vegetables must be hand-picked individually (Schwartz, 1945). In this aspect, individual farmers are in competition with another for their cheap labor source (Guan et al., 2018). Seasonal workers are paid by the day, hour or amount of produce picked rather than monthly (Schwartz, 1945). A migrant worker experiences the most discrimination within the workplace, does the hardest work for the least amount of pay, typically received low formal schooling and has no or very few legal protections (Shotwell, 1961).

In the section below are a series of primary sources mined from the Library of Congress stemming from the Dust Bowl to the Bracero Program and from north to south and east to west. These sources are meant to give a face and words to the people within the agricultural industry. Please click through to gain an appreciation for the plight of these seasonal workers.

For primary source citations, please click on the image.

Sources

“The Bracero Program.” UCLA Labor Center, 2014. https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/the-bracero-program/.

Cohen, Deborah. “Caught in the Middle: The Mexican State’s Relationship with the United States and Its Own Citizen-Workers, 1942–1954.” Journal of American Ethnic History 20, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 110–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/27502714.

Guan, Zhengfei, Berdikul Qushim, Feng Wu, and Alicia J. Whidden. “The Migration Pattern of Florida Seasonal Farmworkers.” EDIS 2018, no. 3 (June 5, 2018): 1–4. https://doi.org/10.32473/edis-fe1040-2018.

“H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers.” US Citizen and Immigration Services, November 8, 2023. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-2a-temporary-agricultural-workers.

Martin, Philip L. “Agriculture and Migrants.” Chapter. In Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America, 19–40. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.

Martin, Philip L. “The Changing Face of Rural America.” Part Two Introduction. In Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America, 41–43. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.

Martin, Philip L. “Seasonal Worker Mobility.” Chapter. In Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America, 105–18. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.

Nepal, Sadikshya. “Primer: Evolution of the H-2A Visa Program.” Bipartisan Policy Center, September 15, 2021. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/primer-h2a-visa/.

“Research Guides: A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States: 1942: Bracero Program.” 1942: Bracero Program - A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States - Research Guides at Library of Congress. Accessed December 13, 2023. https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program.

Rodriguez, Marc S. “Activism across the Diaspora the Tejano Farmworker Movement in Wisconsin.” Chapter. In The Tejano Diaspora Mexican Americanism and Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin, 60–97. Chapel Hill, NC: Published in association with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, by the University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

Schwartz, Harry. “Seasonal Farm Laborers.” Chapter. In Seasonal Farm Labor in the United States: Columbia University Studies in the History of American Agriculture, 11:1–27. New York, NY: Columbia University, 1945.

Schwartz, Harry. “Fruit and Vegetable Workers.” Chapter. In Seasonal Farm Labor in the United States: Columbia University Studies in the History of American Agriculture, 11:28–66. New York, NY: Columbia University, 1945.

Shotwell, Louisa Rossiter. “The Citizen Worker.” Part 1. In The Harvesters: The Story of the Migrant People, 1^st ed., 13–48. Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1961.

Weisiger, Marsha L. “Prologue.” Chapter. In Land of Plenty Oklahomans in the Cotton Fields of Arizona, 1933-1942, 3–6. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

Weisiger, Marsha L. “Exodus.” Chapter. In Land of Plenty Oklahomans in the Cotton Fields of Arizona, 1933-1942, 7–31. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.