Importing Poverty: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America PDF
Preview Importing Poverty: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America
Importing Poverty? .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U e la Y .9 0 0 2 © th g iryp o C Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. This page intentionally left blank .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U e la Y .9 0 0 2 © th g iryp o C Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. Importing Poverty? Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America .d Philip Martin e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U e la Y .9 0 0 2 © th g iryp o C Yale University Press New Haven & London Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. Copyright © 2009 by Philip Martin. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Set in Adobe Garamond type by Westchester Book Group Printed in the United States of America by Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data Martin, Philip L., 1949– Importing poverty? : immigration and the changing face of rural America / Philip Martin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-13917-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. United States—Emigration and immigration. 2. Immigrants—United States—Economic conditions. 3. Alien labor—United States. 4. Alien labor—Government policy. I. Title. .d JV6456.M36 2009 e vre 331.5'440973—dc22 se r sth 2008045622 g ir llA .sse A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. rP ytisrevin TPahpies rp).a pIte rc omnetaeitns st h3e0 rpeeqruciernetm peonsttsc oonf sAuNmSeIr/ wNaIsStOe ( PZC39W.48) -a1n99d2 i s( Pceerrmtifiaende nbcye tohfe U e Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). la Y .9 00 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 2 © th g iryp o C Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. “Migrants are children of misfortune...We depend on misfortune to build up our force of migratory workers and, when the supply is low because there is not enough misfortune at home, we rely on misfortune abroad to replenish the supply.” —President’s Commission on Migratory Labor, Migratory Labor in American Agriculture(1951), p3. .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U e la Y .9 0 0 2 © th g iryp o C Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. This page intentionally left blank .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U e la Y .9 0 0 2 © th g iryp o C Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. Contents Foreword, by Ray Marshall, ix Preface and Acknowledgments, xiii Prologue: Coming to America, xv .d e vre se r sth Part OneImmigration and Agriculture g ir llA .sse 1 Immigration to the United States, 3 rP ytisre 2 Agriculture and Migrants, 19 vin U e laY Part TwoThe Changing Face of Rural America .9 0 0 2 © 3 California Fruits and Vegetables, 45 th g iryp 4 Florida Sugar, Oranges, and Tomatoes, 68 o C 5 Meat and Poultry, 85 Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. viii Contents Part ThreeMigrant Integration 6 Seasonal Worker Mobility, 105 7 Migrants: The Integration Challenge, 119 Part FourWhither Rural America? 8 Labor Shortages, Mechanization, and Food Costs, 141 9 Reforming U.S. Immigration Policies, 158 10 Regularize and Rationalize Farm Labor, 172 Epilogue: The Great Migration, 185 Appendix 1 Farm Employment, Immigration, and Poverty, 191 Notes, 193 Bibliography, 221 Index, 231 .d e vre se r sth g ir llA .sse rP ytisre vin U e la Y .9 0 0 2 © th g iryp o C Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. Foreword In Importing Poverty? Philip Martin shows how the American farm- ers’ demand for a perpetual supply of low-cost labor transfers poverty from rural Mexico to rural America. He also demonstrates that, as it .d is currently organized, farmwork is sufficiently undesirable that not e vrese even desperate immigrants will continue to do it once they have r sth nonfarm options. This reality causes farmers and their political allies g ir llA to oppose simply legalizing unauthorized workers, which would en- .sse able them to get nonfarm jobs. Instead, farmers agree to legalization rP ytisre only in exchange for large guest-worker programs that give employ- vin ers considerable control of foreign workers. Farmers and their allies U ela likewise often oppose funding for the public services needed to help Y .9 integrate immigrants and their children into the mainstream of 0 0 2 © American life, and have succeeded in weakening legal measures to th giryp protect the working conditions of foreign and domestic workers. oC Martin covers U.S. immigration patterns and farm labor history, as well as the impacts of migrant flows in California, Florida, and the Midwest (meatpacking). The California chapter shows how agricul- ture expanded by assuming that a ready supply of workers would be Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00. x Foreword available, and the ways in which the cities that house many of the farmwork- ers have developed unique economies where ex-farmworkers serve newcom- ers. The Florida chapter shows that the availability of guest workers slowed sugar harvest mechanization, and that farm wages and trade policy are likely to determine how rapidly the orange harvest is mechanized. The meatpacking chapter emphasizes the wage and other incentives that have encouraged pro- duction to shift to rural areas and explores the government’s failure to prevent the employment of unauthorized workers. The two chapters on farmworkers deal with the flows in and out of the farm labor market, emphasizing that a person who is a farmworker one year may not be the next. The chapter on federal assistance programs shows that in most cases, the best way to assist farmworkers is to help them find nonfarm jobs. The book concludes with chapters that deal with mechanizing labor- intensive farm tasks, the struggle for U.S. immigration reform, and a proposal to regularize farmwork and rationalize the farm labor market. Martin’s pro- posal to begin collecting payroll taxes on guest-worker wages to fund labor- saving research and provide incentives for a dwindling number of guest work- ers to return to their home countries could help keep agriculture competitive and promote the development of the migrants’ areas of origin. The U.S. farmers who receive taxpayer subsidies are richer than the average American, while the farmworkers who labor in the fields are among the poor- est. Easy access to immigrant farmworkers has the same subsidy effects in agri- culture as price supports, increasing land prices and explaining why farmers .d have a keen interest in ensuring that the government provide them with “the e vrese workers they need” to harvest crops. Giving in to such demands risks putting r sth a special interest ahead of the national interest. g ir llA AlthoughImporting Povertyfocuses on rural America, its lessons are relevant .sse for other areas that rely heavily on immigrant workers. The most basic of these rP ytisre is the importance of understanding the strong self-reinforcing relationships be- vin tween desperate foreign immigrants and employers seeking low-cost, easily con- U ela trolled labor. This relationship explains why many employers prefer guest work- Y .9 ers to fully empowered legal immigrants, as well as why it is so difficult to test 0 0 2 © the market to determine the availability of domestic workers for the jobs filled th giryp by foreign workers. It is clear, moreover, that employers’ preference for foreign oC workers is not restricted to low-wage farmworkers—it also applies to profes- sional and technical workers brought in under the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. Unlike many economists who ignore the dynamic institutional impacts of foreign worker programs, Martin understands the broader social and economic Martin, P. (2009). Importing poverty? : Immigration and the changing face of rural america. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from sibdilibro-ebooks on 2020-06-05 05:08:00.
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