US Farmworkers

The history of farmworker scholarship is almost entirely focused on the vulnerability of the workforce; the social, economic, and political structures that create farmworker inequality and make it difficult for them to challenge their conditions; and the power dynamics between workers and farm operators, managers, recruiters, and contractors who tend to discipline them into quiescent workers. Farmworkers are a subject of inquiry largely due to the dramatic power disparities between farm owners and farmworkers. The vast majority of farm owners in the United States are white citizens firmly rooted in their communities; the sector is highly organized with general and specialized industry groups. In contrast, farmworkers tend to be nonwhite and often live in communities that consider them to be outsiders. Their organizing efforts are generally undermined by the agricultural industry. Further, there is no agricultural ladder for farmworkers; in other words, very few will become supervisors or managers, thus confining them to jobs without promotion. Finally, farm jobs are precarious, as most are seasonal and without formal job or union contracts. The study of US farmworkers focuses on particular themes: the vulnerable status of workers (generally due to race and immigration status), poor working conditions and their effects, federal and state policies that have hindered or enhanced farmworkers’ situations, and efforts at resistance and organizing, along with agricultural industry backlash. California has generated the majority of the studies on farmworkers, since it is the largest agricultural state in the country and the site of militant organizing in the early twentieth century and again in the 1960s. The exclusion of farmworkers from New Deal labor policies, including the 1935 National Labor Relations Act and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, has led to specific challenges for workers. While industrial workers saw their situations greatly improve through the twentieth century, farmworkers did not. In turn, a significant emphasis in scholarship on farmworkers is on conditions, including working and living conditions, health and safety, environmental risks, sexual assault and harassment, and child labor, as well as the structures and policies that exacerbate these. Another important aspect of research on farmworkers is organizing and advocacy, through union organizing (in the states that permit it), alt-labor organizing, certifications, market-based agreements, and whole worker models that cater to farmworkers’ lives in a more holistic sense. Of course, the strategies of the UFW and the leadership of Cesar Chavez have garnered many publications, with 21st-century studies adopting a more critical analysis of strategic missteps. There has also been an increase of interdisciplinary examinations that evaluate how equitably the risks and benefits of food production affect farmworkers, as well as the promise and problems of alternative agriculture as a vehicle for improving workers’ conditions. This bibliography aims to present sources on the above issues and to guide the reader on reports and other resources that are particularly valuable for teaching.