Migrant Farm Labor
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Migrant farm labor has been the seamy underside to American capitalism for centuries. However, the size and color of the agricultural workforce has changed over the past fifty years in the United States, shifting from family and local community members to predominately Hispanic seasonal migrant workers. Since the 1990s, Mexicans can be found picking citrus fruit in Florida, harvesting tobacco in North Carolina, collecting mushrooms in Pennsylvania, tending poultry in Maine, packing orchard crops in Washington, cleaning fish in Alaska, and working in the slaughterhouses in Iowa, while continuing their longstanding tradition of engaging in all forms of farmwork in California. The winners in the migrant farming world are clearly the farm-owners, who are able to pay below-market wages to their undocumented workforce precisely because they are illegal immigrants. The clearest losers are the legal domestic workers, who cannot afford the cut-rate jobs that are available and who in many cases will not get hired anyway. The migrant workers themselves are often the losers as well, forming a 21st century class of indentured servitude: they provide back-breaking labor for a pittance, work in unsanitary conditions, live in squalid camps, and are at the mercy of their employers' every whim and can be dismissed out-of-hand.Before analyzing the state of migrant farming in California, we will take a look at the industry generally. The Census of Agriculture defines a migrant farmworker
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The type and condition of the housing provided vary widely by region. This is typically a function of the regulation or enforcement of housing codes in the area. While in the beginning of the twentieth century migrant farmers were often housed in dangerous, unsanitary facilities due to the complete lack of housing regulations, today migrant labor camps must adhere to strict housing codes set forth by the Departments of Agriculture and Labor. Nevertheless, poor housing conditions continue to persist in the migrant labor market. The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) discovered that, in the year 2000, 52 percent of farmworkers' housing units were overcrowded by federal regulatory standards. Additionally, 74 percent of the households in these overcrowded units had children and almost a quarter had faulty sanitary conditions due to the lack of working plumbing. Over 26 percent of the units that HAC surveyed were situated directly next to fields that were treated with noxious pesticides, 22 percent featured significant structural damage which posed an immediate threat to occupants, and almost half of the units featured peeling paint or other signs of creeping disrepair (Holden 41). Thus, migrant farmworkers continue to live in sq
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Some common words found in the essay are:
United California, Central American, Census Agriculture, Social Security, Council HAC, North Carolina, Workers' Survey, Farm Workers, Americans Additionally, USDA California, migrant farmers, social services, migrant farmworkers, agricultural workers, living conditions, migrant workers, piece rate, illegal immigrants, migrant farmer, migrant farming, using social services, living conditions migrant, workers survey naws, social service claims, agricultural workers survey,
Approximate Word count = 2651
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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