The United Farm Workers Association Improve The Conditions Of Farmworkers

MAS 10B (also known as Mexican-American 10B) is a course that helps students’ become exposed to a different perspective by using a historical, cultural, and political approach within readings, discussions, and group work regarding about the ongoing Mexican struggle and how it affects us. The course examines this in a chronological order of the Mexican struggle with the capitalist in 1848 to the May Day 2006 marches. Overall, the course presented through a different perspective and provided us with tools to analyze each event, whether it would be the strike of the local-890 mill to the 1992 Los Angeles riots that all these events are linked to the present day and the impacts it has had for Mexicans.

The book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States illustrates the fieldwork of the author Seth M. Holmes by explaining the myriad aspects of migrant workers’ lives in the U.S.—from the politics to the social environments to the physical body. By not only studying, but living, the lives of these migrant workers, Holmes brings the reader a view unseen by the vast majority and provides the opportunity for greater understanding through the intense details of his work. The voices of vastly different characters—real people—are captured and expounded on without judgment but with deep consideration for all factors that contribute to each person’s life, opinions, and knowledge. Ultimately, a picture of intersectionality is painted in the colors of migrants, mothers, fathers, children, doctors, soldiers, executives, the poor, the rich, and more.

Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos were all brought in to work, but their low standard of living and attempts to organize caused race riots by the white labor force and subsequent removal of foreign workers from the agricultural industry. The need for cheap labor therefore remained. To fill this void, many Mexican workers were brought in;so many that the white worker could not even live in southern California anymore because the wages were so low. Eventually the Mexican worker population grew so massive that they too began to organize, causing the growers to take action against them with "vigilante terrorism and savagery unbelievable in a civilized state" (pg 54). Eventually Mexican labor was withdrawn as well.

As depicted in John Steinbeck's novel Grapes of Wrath the 1930's was a time when migrant workers like the story's Joad family had to leave their homes, cross a perilous desert, live through the social injustices of the time, and work at jobs with low insufficient pay just to have a better life (Steinbeck). Seventy years later, the situations and experiences stay the same but the people are no longer native-born Americans but illegal immigrants who sacrifice everything to come to the United States to live a better life, as a result of that the 500,000 immigrants that illegally enter the United States through the Mexican border annually and stay in the country are the Joads of today (Aizenman).

     The working conditions for these immigrants at the meat packing plants were appalling and displayed how badly in need of a change they were. Workers in the factory that did unskilled labor would be paid only somewhere between a mere fifteen to twenty-five cents an hour. They would have to work from early in the morning until it was dark at night, with only a half hour break for lunch. They had no choice but to accept whatever position

Imagine your parents died at work when you were a young child, and your family was in poverty. This happened all of the time in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s because of the lack of rights for workers. It was the job of many early labor unions of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s make working conditions for workers better. Early labor unions such as the Knights of Columbus, the American Federation of Labor, and the National Labor Union were all successful in creating rights for workers and making working conditions better. There are many ways that labor unions have affected modern day society.

In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, labor was anything but easy. Factory workers faced long hours, low pay, high unemployment fears, and poor working conditions during this time. Life today is much easier in comparison to the late 1800s. Americans have shorter days, bigger pay and easier working conditions. Not comparable to how life is today, many riots sparked, and citizens began to fight for equal treatment. Along with other important events, the Haymarket Riot, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead strike all play a vital role in illustrating labor’s struggle to gain fair and equitable treatment during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

United Farm Workers: The United Farm workers are a labor union that was created solely for the farmworkers in the United States. The origins of this labor union came about from two different existing organizations known as the “Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Larry Itliong and the National Farm Workers Association led by Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta. These two organizations decided to work together to fight stronger together for their rights. This term relates to our reading because they are known for the “grape strike” that took place in 1965 in Delano, California. The labor union wanted to fight for their rights against the social injustices between the owners, and the farmers. In our text’s we have seen this constant mistreatment of owners, and their workers, through poor pay, rights, and belittlement because of their cultural ethnicity.

The farm workers’ rights issues were also a major matter that the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement dealt with along with the other issues. Mexican-American migrant farm workers had to endure the harsh working conditions while traveling from farm to farm in the United States in search for work. While working, the farm workers tended to be exploited by farm owners while also receiving low wages that kept them below the poverty level (Ramirez). Due to certain

Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s, Labor and Legality is a book written on the Mexican immigrant network in the U.S. She centers it on the Lions, a group of Mexican men from Leon, Mexico that all share their lives and help explain the many networks and strategies that are used in order to excel and gain happiness. There have been many different sorts of misconceptions about immigrants, and in recent years about undocumented immigrants from Mexico. The U.S. has made a sort of war on illegal immigrants and has made it a seemingly high priority in the media and in politics. Therefore, many Americans have been mislead and ill-informed about the history of immigrants/undocumented immigrants. Gomberg-Muñoz’s Labor and Legality helps set us straight. She unveils undocumented immigrants for the people that they are instead of the criminals that the media leads many to believe. Although she doesn’t have a wide range of participants for her study, I believe that she addresses many of the misconceptions and just plain ignorance that American people have of people that are undocumented; why stereotypes are supported by the people themselves, why politicians include stronger illegal immigration laws, and everything in between. Many of her topics reveal a sort of colonialism that the U.S. practices on Mexico; the exploitation of undocumented peoples to the benefit of the U.S. through economics, hypocritical laws and campaigns, and the racist and prejudice consequences.

The “Struggle in the Fields” has always been a controversial issue. In the PBS series, we get to learn how many obstacles came along, when many Filipino farm workers along with Mexican American workers began to demand a change in the fields.

The factory jobs were controlled by owners and bosses, who showed little regard for workers and their wellbeing. Workers forced themselves into work during even extreme illnesses; one absence or mistake and they might be replaced without question. These low wage jobs came with few benefits and no rights; there was nothing in place that protected the livelihood of the worker. Immigrant’s willingness to work all the time created these conditions.

Not until the workers decided to go on strike and demand that they got treated better and got paid more. The farm workers

The topic that I have chosen to write about is the vast mistreatment and inhumane treatment that the migrant workers in southern Florida are exposed to every single day. There are countless instances in which the migrant workers are treated like a modern day slave. For example they are paid nearly forty five cents for each 32 pound bucket of tomatoes that they haul. Not to mention all the ways in which there pay is docked and subsequently they are paid less and less. The migrant workers of southern Florida get docked pay for taking a shower using the restroom on the job and things along the lines of what a normal human being should be provisioned by the employer. They are offered all sorts of things by the recruiting members of the tomato companies.

Over the past couple decades the number of undocumented immigrants involved in American agriculture has increased by the hundreds. They have dominated the fields on the west coast and have been put to work in some very harsh conditions. Many people in the US believe that these men, women, and even children are occupying jobs that legal citizens could have. We realize that even though much of our agriculture these days is harvested by modern technologies, a big part of the agriculture’s economy is made up of labor intensive from people, such as harvesting grapes, strawberries, pistachios, raspberries, etcetera. As we dig deeper into this topic we will realize why our agricultural