“A powerful, well-researched survey of the lives of agricultural guest workers” — Kirkus Reviews
What’s it like being an H-2A farmworker? How does it feel to leave your family in Mexico for the better part of every year to work on a North Carolina farm growing tobacco or sweet potatoes or some other crop? And what’s it like running a family farming operation here, facing intense foreign competition, desperate for employees to work your fields?
Finding America’s Farmworkers answers these questions like no other book. Filled with stories about farmworkers, growers, and others who comprise this little known world, it’s the ideal primer for anyone curious about the people who fill our grocery stores with inexpensive produce.
This accessible, non-academic text is both compassionate and balanced. Beyond weaving together accounts of numerous interesting people, author Michael Durbin also provides a succinct history of farm labor in the US, a description of the H-2A “guestworker” visa program, and just enough data to support his facts. And while this long-time volunteer aid worker doesn’t shy away from highlighting problems, he also makes sensible recommendations for solving them.
No matter what readers already know about the world of farmworkers today, they will glean something new from Finding America’s Farmworkers.
Read an extended excerpt here.
CONTENTS
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Three men in Mexico board a bus. Domingo has been doing this for 26 years, missing all his kids birthdays every year. Julio is only on his second journey north, here for a reason he keeps to himself. Arturo has been spending extra time with his kids these past few weeks, explaining why he must ir al norte as he pushes them on a swing.
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The story of Arturo López, who went to school only through grade six, going north on contract so his kids can go at least through high school.
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Why do Mexicans come north to work in our fields and not the other way around?
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How the author learned about farmworkers as a child, and again much later as an outreach volunteer.
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The first outreach excursion of the year does not go according to plan.
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How growers secure workers via the H-2A program, key requirements for employers, and more.
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A look at tobacco, sweet potatoes, and the long list of other crops grown in North Carolina.
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This word for foreman, or team lead, is less common in English than in Spanish and spelled nearly the same in both languages: majordomo vs mayordomo. Domingo is a mayordomo with an amazing talent.
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All about the North Carolina Growers Association, the nation's very largest employer of H-2A farmworkers
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Arturo López goes about his long and unpredictable daily routine, steadfast and resourceful. One day he gets disturbing news from home.
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In the face of foreign competition, many family farming operations around here struggle just to stay in business.
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The Episcopal Farmworker Ministry has been aiding agricultural workers since Jimmy Carter was president. Its very first employee was hired to manag a language barrier. And the language was not Spanish.
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The ministry outreach manager, a one-time molecular biologist, struggles to do his job in a year of great change.
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Cars line up by the hundreds to receive food at the ministry campus. Sometimes there are enough volunteers to make it all work, and sometimes not.
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An unexpected musical performance, an ESL lesson with a descendent of the ancient Maya who still speaks the language, and a poignant family reunion.
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There are nearly 2,000 farm labor camps in North Carolina. They are not easy to find.
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The only union for farmworkers around here made history twenty years ago. Nowadays they are struggling.
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The unique health and safety risks facing the H-2A farmworker, many of them deadly.
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The H-2A program gives some employers an opportunity to cross a disturbing line.
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Not every agricultural worker is here on an H-2A visa. Those without work authorization face daunting challenges too.
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On our last outreach excursion of the year, farmworkers feed us, and the author admits to a mayordomo he is unable to meet a personal challenge.
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With frost on the ground outside, Arturo shivers in his unheated camp, comforted only by the fact he will soon board a bus taking him home.
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How farmworker conditions in North Carolina compare to those in California. In Washington, DC, crop growers and farmworker advocates plead their case.
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The first outreach excursion of a new year turns out to be our last.
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Why conditions are the way they are in this corner of our agricultural economy, and three ideas for improving them.
More from kirkus reviews
“What makes this book stand out is its deeply personal narrative. Readers learn about the rompecabezas de enredo (handmade entanglement puzzles made from wires and cords) that one older migrant makes for the journey; social dynamics that exist inside worker communities (where the mayordomo is ‘the most-senior member of a grower’s crew…who can speak enough English to receive instructions from the grower, or patrón’); and how workers communicate with family via Facebook and WhatsApp messages. While many note how work in the United States has provided them with ‘a better economic situation,’ the workers’ living conditions and tenuous employment, exacerbated by abusive growers, have also bred a culture of ‘fear of retaliation” among many“
Read the full review here.
About
Michael Durbin has been finding farmworkers since 2013, mostly as a volunteer with a number of non-profit organizations in eastern North Carolina. In his day job he is a software engineering manager for the banking industry. His blog and other writing can be found at michaeldurbin.com
Finding America’s Farmworkers: Reaching Out in North Carolina is the property of Box Top Books, a limited liability corporation registered in North Carolina. For more information contact boxtopbooks@gmail.com