Latinx Life in North Carolina: Economy and Labor
General Resources
Just the Facts: Hispanics in Alamance County, 2005 (DVD)
Second annual symposium, Sister Cities Inc., 2005
Proceedings of the second annual symposium held at Elon University on October 8, 2005. Community agencies and topics represented include: Hispanics and social services in Alamance County; Hispanics and the legal system; Hispanics and the health system; the economic impact of the Hispanic population; and Hispanics and education, including Alamance-Burlington School Systems and Alamance Community College facts.
Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U. S. South by Call Number: C325 L357uISBN: 9780820329680Publication Date: 2009-04-15This book features the American South, beyond black and white. The Latino population in the South has more than doubled over the past decade. The mass migration of Latin Americans to the U.S. South has led to profound changes in the social, economic, and cultural life of the region and inaugurated a new era in southern history. This multi-disciplinary collection of essays, written by U.S. and Mexican scholars, explores these transformations in rural, urban, and suburban areas of the South. Using a range of different methodologies and approaches, the contributors present in-depth analyses of how immigration from Mexico and Central and South America is changing the South and how immigrants are adapting to the southern context. Among the book's central themes are the social and economic impact of immigration, the resulting shifts in regional culture, new racial dynamics, immigrant incorporation and place-making, and diverse southern responses to Latino newcomers. Various chapters explore ethnic and racial tensions among poultry workers in rural Mississippi and forestry workers in Alabama; the 'Mexicanization' of the urban landscape in Dalton, Georgia; the costs and benefits of Latino labor in North Carolina; the challenges of living in transnational families; immigrant religious practice and community building in metropolitan Atlanta; and the creation of Latino spaces in rural and urban South Carolina and Georgia.
Recruiting Hispanic Labor by Call Number: C331.7 J71rISBN: 1931202664Publication Date: 2003-04-01Johnson-Webb studies the labor recruitment behind the recent surge in immigration to North Carolina. Her qualitative study suggests a strong connection between employer recruitment, a tight labor market, and the growing Hispanic population. Evidence indicates that employers prefer immigrant workers and go to extraordinary lengths to recruit them. However, historical, social, economic and political factors have also contributed to the massive influx of Hispanic immigrants to North Carolina. The policy implications of this study are notable. Policy makers should consider local context when crafting immigration policy, welfare reform policy, and workforce development policy in order for these to be effective.
Immigration's New Frontiers by Call Number: C325 I33cISBN: 9780870785061Publication Date: 2007-01-11Before 1995, about three-fourths of the nation's immigrants settled in just six states: California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, New York, and New Jersey. In the decade since, however, immigrants increasingly have bypassed those traditional gateway states in favor of new frontiers, and twenty-two other states have experienced extremely rapid growth in their immigrant populations. How have these new destination states approached the influx of new immigrants, the lion's share of whom are recent arrivals with limited English skills and low incomes? How have officials in these "laboratories of democracy" faced the new public policy and political challenges? Immigration's New Frontiers examines the experiences of North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, Minnesota, and Nebraska. The book provides readers with a better understanding of the enormous difficulties caused by the absence of a functioning federal system. In many cases, states and localities are attempting to resolve within their jurisdictions problems--mostly concerning undocumented immigration--that can only be adequately addressed at the national level. Such issues have become all the more difficult as a combination of racial tensions, job competition, disruption in particular neighborhoods, and political grandstanding have often impeded problem-solving efforts.
Other Souths by Call Number: C364 C132sISBN: 9780820330525Publication Date: 2008-06-25Other Souths collects fifteen innovative essays that place issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality at the center of the narrative of southern history. Using a range of methodologies and approaches, contributing historians provide a fresh perspective to key events and move long-overlooked episodes into prominence. Pippa Holloway edited the volume using a chronological and event-driven framework with which many students and teachers will be familiar. The book covers well-recognized topics in American history: wars, reform efforts, social movements, and political milestones. Cultural topics are considered as well, including the development of consumer capitalism, the history of rock and roll, and the history of sport. The focus and organization of the essays underscore the value of southern history to the larger national narrative. Other Souths reveals the history of what may strike some as a surprisingly dynamic and nuanced region--a region better understood by paying closer and more careful attention to its diversity.
Agricultural Labor
Nuestras Historias, Nuestros Sueños / Our Stories, Our Dreams.
Edited by Alix Lowrey Blair with Student Action with Farmworkers and the Center for Documentary Studies (in Spanish and English)
This slim volume compiles photographs and interviews with Latino farmworkers in North and South Carolina. Interviews were completed and recorded by college students who spent their summers working with community-based organizations and getting to know farmworkers at their site. Students interviewed and created a documentary project about one of the farmworkers they met. The text includes Spanish and English translations placed side-by-side in columns.
Tobacco Capitalism: Growers, Migrant Workers, and the Changing Face of a Global Industry.
By Peter Benson
Though Benson's book deals with issues of globalization and the wider tobacco industry, his focus is North Carolina. He examines problematic histories as well as the situation of modern laborers and farmers in North Carolina, using Wilson, NC as a focal point. His work includes extensive interviews with Hispanic migrant laborers, and the book is written from an anthropological perspective. Benson deals with the conflicting themes of guilt and innocence that surround tobacco farming. The volume ends with a helpful index.
Levante: Theater for Social Change .
Student Action with Farmworkers; produced, directed, and edited by Erika Simon, 2005
The Levante Theater Group uses drama to initiate dialogue among farmworkers and the community. In 2004, eight SAF interns performed "Gigantes en los campos" ("Giants in the fields") at six migrant farm labor camps in North Carolina. The play, written by Cara Page and based on real farmworkers interviewed by past SAF interns, is a comic depiction of some of the problems farmworkers face under the H2A contracts that bring them legally from Mexico to work in the U.S. with often-unfulfilled and unknown rights and benefits.
Los Derechos Laborales de los Trabajadores del Campo Contratados H2A en Carolina del Norte.
Legal Aid of North Carolina Farmworker Unit, 2005
This publication from Legal Aid of North Carolina is a guide for migrant agricultural laborers under the H2 visa system. Simple lists tell readers how to avoid heat exhaustion, what to do in case of health emergencies, and what kinds of requirements should be followed by their employers in terms of payment and living facilities.
Language and the Migrant Worker Experience in Rural North Carolina Communities.
By Jack G. Dale, Susan Andreatta, and Elizabeth Freeman, 2001
This item is a chapter within Latino Workers in the Contemporary South.
Uprooting Injustice: A Report on Working Conditions for North Carolina Farmworkers.
By Sandy Smith-Nonini, The Institute for Southern Studies, 1999
This magazine, published by the Institute for Southern Studies, documents some of the deep problems plaguing agricultural and corporate practices that shape the working life of immigrant workers in North Carolina. Articles include photographs and are presented in Spanish and English on opposite pages. A graphic novel depiction and lengthy article discusses corporate policy problems in Mt. Olive, one of the largest pickle manufacturers in the nation. Articles also cover problems with health and sanitation for farmworkers and the lack of government oversight on farms.
The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers' Lives, Labor, and Advocacy.
Edited by Charles D. Thompson, Jr., and Melinda F. Wiggins, 2002
Finding fresh fruits and vegetables is as easy as going to the supermarket for most Americans and Western Europeans - which makes it all too easy to forget that our food is cultivated, harvested, and packaged by farmworkers who labor for less pay, fewer benefits, and under more dangerous conditions than workers in almost any other sector of the world economy. Seeking to end the public's ignorance and improve workers' living and working conditions, this book addresses the major factors that affect farmworkers' lives while offering practical strategies for action on farmworker issues. The contributors to this book are all farmworker advocates, student and community activists, and farmworkers themselves. Focusing on workers in the Southeast United States, a previously understudied region, they cover a range of issues, from labor organizing, to the rise of agribusiness, to current health, educational, and legal challenges faced by farmworkers.
The Agricultural Labor System in North Carolina: Recommendations for Change
A Report Submitted to Division of Policy Development, Department of Administration, Raleigh, North Carolina.
By Joshua S. Reichert, 1980
Reichert's report outlines some of the key problems with North Carolina's agricultural labor system and makes suggestions for future policy. Topic covered include wage and hour regulations, workers' compensation, child labor, migrant education, housing, and health services.
Women At Work
Latin American Women's Textiles in North Carolina Project Collection, 1996
Here and There/Aqui y Alla was an exhibit of Latin American women's textiles in North Carolina presented at the 1996 Festival for the Eno in Durham, N.C. Textile work exhibited included crocheted doilies, afghans, table cloths, and baby clothes; embroidered dresses, blouses, and head sashes; cross-stitched tortilla wraps and pillowcases for newlyweds; knitted sweaters; woven skirts from Guatemala; girl's dresses sewn without a pattern; hand hooked bags; and calado. The fieldwork and exhibit material focuses on the work, skills, and life experiences of eight Latin American textile artists: Manuela Avila Morales (Guatemala), Elvira Garcia (Mexico), Nazaria Munoz Joaquin (Mexico), and Ereneida Duarte Ocampo (Mexico) in Siler City, N.C.; Juana Pascual (Guatemala) and Agustina Lopez (Guatemala) in Morganton, N.C.; Octavia Mendoza (Mexico) in Kernersville, N.C.; and Gloria Munoz (Mexico) in Winston-Salem, N.C. Exhibit materials include text for the explanatory panels for the exhibit and copies of the printed publications associated with the exhibit and the Festival for the Eno. Some of this material is in Spanish. Photographs include portraits of artists, examples of their work, and the documentation of the actual exhibit. Audio tapes are fieldwork interviews with the artists conducted in Spanish with the assistance of a translator. Tapelogs are also included.
Student Action with Farmworkers Collection
The Student Action with Farmworkers collection includes material generated by the Into the Fields internship program projects (1999-2002). The documentary fieldwork focuses on farmworkers and their families in North Carolina and South Carolina. The folklife documented includes foodways, traditional dance, art, music, religious beliefs and practices, poetry, storytelling, life stories and experiences, labor camp life, and involvement in the labor movement.
The collection is housed in the Southern Folklife Collection and includes fieldwork documentation, audio tapes, slides, videos, papers analyzing the material collected, and, from 1999-2001, printed publications with articles and photographs highlighting material from projects. The interviews and transcripts are largely in Spanish, with some translation. Fieldwork documentation and analysis includes the fieldworkers' impressions and reactions and are mostly in English. The published material from 2000 and 2001 includes side-by-side text in English and Spanish.
Please see the catalog entry or finding aid for additional information. You can also visit the Student Action with Farmworkers organization website to learn more.
