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Environmental Justice and Farm Labor

Author : Rebecca E. Berkey

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 214 pages

File Size : 23,75 MB

Release : 2017-02-17

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1317293673

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Book Description

Utilizing a model derived from literature on environmental justice overlaid with multiple scales of agriculture, Environmental Justice and Farm Labor provides key insights about laborers in agriculture in the United States. It addresses three main topics: (1) justice-related issues facing farmers and laborers on farms; (2) how history and policy have impacted them; and (3) the opportunities and leverage points for change in improving justice outcomes. It explores who labors in US agriculture and the justice-related issues facing these workers, including occupational injury and illness, lack of access to healthcare, substandard housing, hunger, low wages, issues pertaining to immigration, and the inability to organize. In addition, it assesses the impacts of labor safety, immigration and international policy, and in particular the effects of organic and fair trade certification. Two detailed case studies, one based on conventional agriculture in Florida and the other on organic agriculture in the Northeast, highlight the interrelated but unique challenges facing those who labor in the different sectors of this complex agricultural system. Finally, it touches on justice claims and the role of grassroots activism in improving justice outcomes by highlighting organizations operating at multiple scales to contribute to the livelihood of farmers and laborers in the different areas of agriculture.



The Devil's Fruit

Author : Dvera I. Saxton

Publisher : Rutgers University Press

Page : 186 pages

File Size : 19,75 MB

Release : 2021-02-12

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 081359863X

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Book Description

The Devil's Fruit describes the facets of the strawberry industry as a harm industry, and explores author Dvera Saxton’s activist ethnographic work with farmworkers in response to health and environmental injustices. She argues that dealing with devilish—as in deadly, depressing, disabling, and toxic—problems requires intersecting ecosocial, emotional, ethnographic, and activist labors. Through her work as an activist medical anthropologist, she found the caring labors of engaged ethnography take on many forms that go in many different directions. Through chapters that examine farmworkers’ embodiment of toxic pesticides and social and workplace relationships, Saxton critically and reflexively describes and analyzes the ways that engaged and activist ethnographic methods, frameworks, and ethics aligned and conflicted, and in various ways helped support still ongoing struggles for farmworker health and environmental justice in California. These are problems shared by other agricultural communities in the U.S. and throughout the world.



Making a Living

Author : Chad Montrie

Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press

Page : 190 pages

File Size : 27,93 MB

Release : 2009-01-05

Category : History

ISBN : 0807877646

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Book Description

In an innovative fusion of labor and environmental history, Making a Living examines work as a central part of Americans' evolving relationship with nature, revealing the unexpected connections between the fight for workers' rights and the rise of the modern environmental movement. Chad Montrie offers six case studies: textile "mill girls" in antebellum New England, plantation slaves and newly freed sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, homesteading women in the Kansas and Nebraska grasslands, native-born coal miners in southern Appalachia, autoworkers in Detroit, and Mexican and Mexican American farm workers in southern California. Montrie shows how increasingly organized and mechanized production drove a wedge between workers and nature--and how workers fought back. Workers' resistance not only addressed wages and conditions, he argues, but also planted the seeds of environmental reform and environmental justice activism. Workers played a critical role in raising popular consciousness, pioneering strategies for enacting environmental regulatory policy, and initiating militant local protest. Filled with poignant and illuminating vignettes, Making a Living provides new insights into the intersection of the labor movement and environmentalism in America.



Finding Latinx

Author : Paola Ramos

Publisher : Vintage

Page : 336 pages

File Size : 42,55 MB

Release : 2020-10-20

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1984899104

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Book Description

Latinos across the United States are redefining identities, pushing boundaries, and awakening politically in powerful and surprising ways. Many—Afrolatino, indigenous, Muslim, queer and undocumented, living in large cities and small towns—are voices who have been chronically overlooked in how the diverse population of almost sixty million Latinos in the U.S. has been represented. No longer. In this empowering cross-country travelogue, journalist and activist Paola Ramos embarks on a journey to find the communities of people defining the controversial term, “Latinx.” She introduces us to the indigenous Oaxacans who rebuilt the main street in a post-industrial town in upstate New York, the “Las Poderosas” who fight for reproductive rights in Texas, the musicians in Milwaukee whose beats reassure others of their belonging, as well as drag queens, environmental activists, farmworkers, and the migrants detained at our border. Drawing on intensive field research as well as her own personal story, Ramos chronicles how “Latinx” has given rise to a sense of collectivity and solidarity among Latinos unseen in this country for decades. A vital and inspiring work of reportage, Finding Latinx calls on all of us to expand our understanding of what it means to be Latino and what it means to be American. The first step towards change, writes Ramos, is for us to recognize who we are.



In the Struggle

Author : Daniel J. O'Connell

Publisher : New Village Press

Page : 364 pages

File Size : 19,86 MB

Release : 2021-07-13

Category : History

ISBN : 1613321228

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Book Description

Scholars working for communities' rights in California's Central Valley In the Struggle tells the story of the persistent engagement of eight public scholars spanning generations of sustained endeavor, a dogged war in which workers and scholars together repeatedly took on the powerful agricultural industry, the political machines, and even the universities. The stories begin in the 1930s with Paul Taylor, a professor of economics at University of California, Berkeley, who pioneered field research and activism as he travelled through the areas marked by the Great Depression, together with his wife, photographer Dorothea Lange. Working in the heart of California's agricultural Central Valley, Taylor was the first of a succession of scholars who shared the dual commitment to research and engagement, to making problems visible and to effecting change through strategic action. Taylor and Lange intentionally wove their political engagement into their identities and work as researchers, as they conducted studies, led strikes, organized underserved communities, founded community development programs, created nonprofit institutions, and more. This book documents a tradition of politically engaged scholarship in one of the world's most dramatic contexts, full of disparities and contradictions, but also ripe with opportunities to make a difference. It covers a struggle that continues undiminished in the present.



Beyond the Fields

Author : Randy Shaw

Publisher : Univ of California Press

Page : 364 pages

File Size : 17,32 MB

Release : 2008

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0520268040

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Book Description

Much has been written about Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers' heyday in the 1960s and '70s, but the story of their profound, ongoing influence on 21st century social justice movements has until now been left untold. This book unearths this legacy.



Latinx Farmworkers in the Eastern United States

Author : Thomas A. Arcury

Publisher : Springer Nature

Page : 275 pages

File Size : 26,15 MB

Release : 2020-04-07

Category : Medical

ISBN : 303036643X

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Book Description

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are largely Latinx men, women, and children. They work in crop, dairy, and livestock production, and are essential to the U.S. agricultural economy—one of the most hazardous and least regulated industries in the United States. Latinx migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the eastern United States experience high rates of illness, injury, and death, indicating widespread occupational injustice. This second edition takes a social justice stance and integrates the past ten years of research and intervention to address health, safety, and justice issues for farmworkers. Contributors cover all major areas of health and safety research for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families, explore the factors that affect the health and safety of farmworkers and their families, and suggest approaches for further research and educational and policy intervention needed to improve the health and safety of Latinx farmworkers and their families. Among the chapter topics are: Occupational injury and illness in Latinx farmworkers in the eastern United States Mental health among Latinx farmworkers in the eastern United States The health of women farmworkers and women in farmworker families in the eastern United States The health of children in the Latinx farmworker community in the eastern United States Community-based participatory research with Latinx farmworker communities in the eastern United States Farm labor and the struggle for justice in the eastern United States Accessibly written and comprehensive in its scope, this second edition of Latinx Farmworkers in the Eastern United States: Health, Safety, and Justice will find an engaged audience among researchers, students, and practitioners in public health, occupational health, public policy, and social and behavioral sciences, as well as labor advocates and healthcare providers.



The Wrong Complexion for Protection

Author : Robert D. Bullard

Publisher : NYU Press

Page : 319 pages

File Size : 43,36 MB

Release : 2012-07-23

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 0814771939

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Book Description

Uncovers the ways the United States government responds to natural and human-induced disasters in relation to race over the past eight decades When the images of desperate, hungry, thirsty, sick, mostly black people circulated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it became apparent to the whole country that race did indeed matter when it came to government assistance. In The Wrong Complexion for Protection, Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright place the government response to natural and human-induced disasters in historical context over the past eight decades. They compare and contrast how the government responded to emergencies, including environmental and public health emergencies, toxic contamination, industrial accidents, bioterrorism threats and show that African Americans are disproportionately affected. Bullard and Wright argue that uncovering and eliminating disparate disaster response can mean the difference between life and death for those most vulnerable in disastrous times.



Breasts

Author : Florence Williams

Publisher : Text Publishing

Page : 351 pages

File Size : 29,85 MB

Release : 2012-05-23

Category :

ISBN : 1921922648

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Book Description

Feted and fetishised, the breast is an evolutionary masterpiece. But in the modern world, the breast is changing. Breasts are getting bigger, developing earlier and attracting newfangled chemicals. Increasingly, the odds are stacked against us in the struggle against breast cancer—even among men. So what makes breasts so mercurial—and so vulnerable? As part of the research for this book, science journalist Florence Williams underwent tests on her own breasts and breast milk. She was shocked to learn that she was feeding her baby not just milk but also fire retardants and a whole host of other chemicals, all ingested throughout her life and stored in her breast tissue. At its heart, Breasts: a natural and unnatural history is the story of how our breasts went from being honed by the environment to being harmed by it; a revealing and at times alarming look at the way the changes in our environments, diets and lifestyles have altered our breasts, our health and, ultimately, the health of future generations. Accessible and entertaining—part biology, part anthropology and part medical journalism—Breasts is a wake-up call for all women.



The New American Farmer

Author : Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

Publisher : MIT Press

Page : 215 pages

File Size : 26,56 MB

Release : 2019-11-12

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 026235585X

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Book Description

An examination of Latino/a immigrant farmers as they transition from farmworkers to farm owners that offers a new perspective on racial inequity and sustainable farming. Although the majority of farms in the United States have US-born owners who identify as white, a growing number of new farmers are immigrants, many of them from Mexico, who originally came to the United States looking for work in agriculture. In The New American Farmer, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern explores the experiences of Latino/a immigrant farmers as they transition from farmworkers to farm owners, offering a new perspective on racial inequity and sustainable farming. She finds that many of these new farmers rely on farming practices from their home countries—including growing multiple crops simultaneously, using integrated pest management, maintaining small-scale production, and employing family labor—most of which are considered alternative farming techniques in the United States. Drawing on extensive interviews with farmers and organizers, Minkoff-Zern describes the social, economic, and political barriers immigrant farmers must overcome, from navigating USDA bureaucracy to racialized exclusion from opportunities. She discusses, among other topics, the history of discrimination against farm laborers in the United States; the invisibility of Latino/a farmers to government and universities; new farmers' sense of agrarian and racial identity; and the future of the agrarian class system. Minkoff-Zern argues that immigrant farmers, with their knowledge and experience of alternative farming practices, are—despite a range of challenges—actively and substantially contributing to the movement for an ecological and sustainable food system. Scholars and food activists should take notice.