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They Saved the Crops: Labor, Landscape, and the Struggle over Industrial Farming in Bracero-Era California
At the outset of World War II, California agriculture seemed to be on the cusp of change. Many Californians, reacting to the ravages of the Great Depression, called for a radical reorientation of the highly exploitative labor relations that had allowed the state to become such a productive farming frontier. But with the importation of the first braceros―“guest workers” from Mexico hired on an “emergency” basis after the United States entered the war―an even more intense struggle ensued over how agriculture would be conducted in the state. Esteemed geographer Don Mitchell argues that by delineating the need for cheap, flexible farm labor as a problem and solving it via the importation of relatively disempowered migrant workers, an alliance of growers and government actors committed the United States to an agricultural system that is, in important respects, still with us.
They Saved the Crops is a theoretically rich and stylistically innovative account of grower rapaciousness, worker militancy, rampant corruption, and bureaucratic bias. Mitchell shows that growers, workers, and officials confronted a series of problems that shaped―and were shaped by―the landscape itself. For growers, the problem was finding the right kind of labor at the right price at the right time. Workers struggled for survival and attempted to win power in the face of economic exploitation and unremitting violence. Bureaucrats tried to harness political power to meet the demands of, as one put it, “the people whom we serve.”
Drawing on a deep well of empirical materials from archives up and down the state, Mitchell’s account promises to be the definitive book about California agriculture in the turbulent decades of the mid-twentieth century.
They Saved the Crops is a theoretically rich and stylistically innovative account of grower rapaciousness, worker militancy, rampant corruption, and bureaucratic bias. Mitchell shows that growers, workers, and officials confronted a series of problems that shaped―and were shaped by―the landscape itself. For growers, the problem was finding the right kind of labor at the right price at the right time. Workers struggled for survival and attempted to win power in the face of economic exploitation and unremitting violence. Bureaucrats tried to harness political power to meet the demands of, as one put it, “the people whom we serve.”
Drawing on a deep well of empirical materials from archives up and down the state, Mitchell’s account promises to be the definitive book about California agriculture in the turbulent decades of the mid-twentieth century.
576 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2012
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May 1, 2021i just don’t think we spend enough time talking about how capitalism is the root of all failure
January 14, 2022
Lechugas y zanahorias y una parcela ¿Que tiene de interesante? Muchísimo, la lectura se desarrolla en El valle agricola de California una lucha entre campesinos.
La producción social del paisaje, en este caso el paisaje es material y no solo es lo que vemos, si no lo que está ahí es lo que sirve para producirlo. En este caso el tipo de cultivos nos otorga la producción del trabajo migrante.
El cementerio de los inmigrantes ilegales tiene un costo en California que no se ve. ¿Y porque invertir en un cementerio donde tienen que pagar los gastos de los migrantes ilegales?. Dónde aparentemente no se tiene ningún compromiso legalmente. por el hecho de que no se puede permitir una realidad existente, es decir ocultarlo y no visibilizar el problema. Cómo se dice ojos que no ven corazón que no siente. El sueño americano no lo han pintado a través de un medio de comunicación y no de los muertos de la frontera. Es decir para que todo el valle agrícola siga funcionando. El paisaje del panteón cumple una función ideologíca y simbólica "aquí eres" "y esto necesitas", nos dicta a dónde pertenecemos socialmente.
El autor nos cuenta una a través de tres importantes puntos uno es: la inversión, ideológia y por último a través de las parcelas como ejemplo de lo anterior.
La crítica del posmodernismo la establece a través de las metanarrativas. En la forma que el capital crea el paisaje acompañado de la arquitectura. Este autor nos dice que el paisaje no es local si no global para poder entender completamente su organización social del paisaje.
En medida que la globalización se va acelerando es más difícil hacer una acotación de un caso de estudio a escala local
No leí todo el libro solo algunos capítulos para mí licenciatura "para entender lo local debemos entender lo global". Pero pasa a unos de mis capitulos de cabecera lo malo? Es que este capítulo está planteado desde lo materialismo histórico.
La producción social del paisaje, en este caso el paisaje es material y no solo es lo que vemos, si no lo que está ahí es lo que sirve para producirlo. En este caso el tipo de cultivos nos otorga la producción del trabajo migrante.
El cementerio de los inmigrantes ilegales tiene un costo en California que no se ve. ¿Y porque invertir en un cementerio donde tienen que pagar los gastos de los migrantes ilegales?. Dónde aparentemente no se tiene ningún compromiso legalmente. por el hecho de que no se puede permitir una realidad existente, es decir ocultarlo y no visibilizar el problema. Cómo se dice ojos que no ven corazón que no siente. El sueño americano no lo han pintado a través de un medio de comunicación y no de los muertos de la frontera. Es decir para que todo el valle agrícola siga funcionando. El paisaje del panteón cumple una función ideologíca y simbólica "aquí eres" "y esto necesitas", nos dicta a dónde pertenecemos socialmente.
El autor nos cuenta una a través de tres importantes puntos uno es: la inversión, ideológia y por último a través de las parcelas como ejemplo de lo anterior.
La crítica del posmodernismo la establece a través de las metanarrativas. En la forma que el capital crea el paisaje acompañado de la arquitectura. Este autor nos dice que el paisaje no es local si no global para poder entender completamente su organización social del paisaje.
En medida que la globalización se va acelerando es más difícil hacer una acotación de un caso de estudio a escala local
No leí todo el libro solo algunos capítulos para mí licenciatura "para entender lo local debemos entender lo global". Pero pasa a unos de mis capitulos de cabecera lo malo? Es que este capítulo está planteado desde lo materialismo histórico.
November 1, 2012
Wow! What an impressively researched book! This is perhaps the most thorough history of the bracero program that I have encountered. Mitchell focuses on the relationship of the Bracero Program to the Californian landscape which includes an examination at all levels of the program from the voices of braceros to the growers to the officials who negotiated the program.
The chapters on the bracero program are split up by short 2-3 page examinations of Marxist geography. The two parts of the book, the history of the bracero program and the asides, can be read separately but complement each other. The structure reminds me of the intercalary chapters of The Grapes of Wrath.
Mitchell’s text reflects both his training in geography and the depth of research into the program at all the levels. As he describes it, “The bulk of the book – its real meat – is a detailed history of the bracero program in California, in essence the development of a spatially sensitive story about just what happened” (2). The sheer number of sources he consulted is mind-boggling. Yet it is important to remember that the focus on this book is the relationship between labor and landscape. The voices and experiences are individuals are present but they do not dominate the text.
It is also important to understand that Mitchell sees the Bracero program as a struggle. He attempts to explain what was struggled over and why and how that struggle shaped the way the program unfolded (1-2). As he explains, "For each of these players in the struggle over the shape of capitalist agriculture and its labor relations, the bracero program was mostly known, confronted, and especially felt, as a series of problems:how to get selected as a bracero in the first place;how to make enough money to survive the off-season and send some home to family in Mexico; how to assure a reliable and appropriately priced labor force;how to administer a complex and often hugely contradictory program; how to organize extremely poor, highly mobile workers (often in the face of labor establishment condescension); how to protect the interests of property against the perceived threats of violence; and so forth" (2).
As someone who has studied the Bracero Program, I appreciated the points when Mitchell differentiated his analysis from that of Kitty Calavita’s work in Inside the State.
The chapters on the bracero program are split up by short 2-3 page examinations of Marxist geography. The two parts of the book, the history of the bracero program and the asides, can be read separately but complement each other. The structure reminds me of the intercalary chapters of The Grapes of Wrath.
Mitchell’s text reflects both his training in geography and the depth of research into the program at all the levels. As he describes it, “The bulk of the book – its real meat – is a detailed history of the bracero program in California, in essence the development of a spatially sensitive story about just what happened” (2). The sheer number of sources he consulted is mind-boggling. Yet it is important to remember that the focus on this book is the relationship between labor and landscape. The voices and experiences are individuals are present but they do not dominate the text.
It is also important to understand that Mitchell sees the Bracero program as a struggle. He attempts to explain what was struggled over and why and how that struggle shaped the way the program unfolded (1-2). As he explains, "For each of these players in the struggle over the shape of capitalist agriculture and its labor relations, the bracero program was mostly known, confronted, and especially felt, as a series of problems:how to get selected as a bracero in the first place;how to make enough money to survive the off-season and send some home to family in Mexico; how to assure a reliable and appropriately priced labor force;how to administer a complex and often hugely contradictory program; how to organize extremely poor, highly mobile workers (often in the face of labor establishment condescension); how to protect the interests of property against the perceived threats of violence; and so forth" (2).
As someone who has studied the Bracero Program, I appreciated the points when Mitchell differentiated his analysis from that of Kitty Calavita’s work in Inside the State.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews