Ricky is an 11-year-old migrant worker. During the summer, he travels with his family from their home in Rio Grande City, Texas, to farms farther north. There they spend 10-12 hours a day in the hot sun picking fruit and vegetables and packing the harvest for market. Ricky is not protected by the federal laws that govern the hours, wages, and…

Based on over 250 interviews across North America, this book portrays the farm labor system through the stories of migrant workers, the growers and contractors that hire them, and those on the front lines of immigration policy. The first two chapters describe the life of migrant workers and tell the history of the structural inequities that define…

Journalist Isabel Valle lived and traveled for 1 year with the family of Raul and Maria Elena Martinez, migrant farmworkers who make their permanent home in south Texas. Her reports appeared every Sunday in the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin's award-winning series "Fields of Toil." This book compiles those weekly reports, which reveal the…

In 1970 about a fourth of the country's farm workers were underage, working and living in conditions which are "sub-sub-substandard" in most parts of the country. These workers are often swindled or exploited by labor contractors or crew men. Since the work is seasonal, families are forced to travel great distances, under difficult circumstances,…