To help educators quickly grasp demographic information and social and economic issues facing migrant farmworkers, this digest summarizes several recent federal reports. These reports are the National Agricultural Workers Survey, conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor in 1997-98; Current Population Survey data, from the Census Bureau; and the…

Conveys the importance of teaching students about child labor, and the history surrounding it, through the use of literature; students learn about the problems of poverty and develop empathy for the children's plight. Gives a variety of examples along with summaries of each book and a list of class activities. (CMK)

In 1970, many Americans are examining anew the costs of achieving efficiency in agriculture through bigness. The exodus of small farmers continues--more than 2.7 million farmers have abandoned farming or sold out to bigger competitors since 1950--while Government agricultural policy remains attuned to the interests of large farmers. All small…

Until recently, American farmworkers have been poor and unorganized. As a result, they have been powerless to protect themselves from different forms of discrimination and exploitation. The rights of farmworkers have been traded off by social reformers in State legislatures as well as the Congress. In the last few years, this has begun to change…

Partly because of mobility, but mostly because of poverty, migrant children are systematically denied their right to equal educational opportunity. This review covers migrant families' immigration and illegal immigration, migration patterns, poor living conditions, impact of migrant workers on the U.S. economy, children as migrant workers, impact…

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…

THERE ARE SEVERAL FACETS TO THE PROBLEMS FACING FARM WORKERS AND SMALL FARMERS. THE AVERAGE RATE OF FARM RESIDENT DECLINE SINCE 1960 IS ABOUT 4 PERCENT FOR WHITE AND 10 PERCENT FOR NEGRO FARM PEOPLE, ALTHOUGH FROM 1959 TO 1964, EIGHT SOUTHERN STATES HAD A NEGRO FARMER DECLINE RATE OF 32.4 PERCENT. THESE PEOPLE LEAVE TO ESCAPE THE POVERTY WHICH IS…

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,…