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The myth of the protected worker: Southeast Asian micro-farmers in California agriculture

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  • Jennifer Sowerwine
  • Christy Getz
  • Nancy Peluso

Abstract

In this paper we highlight the racialized effects of agricultural labor laws on Southeast Asian family farmers in California’s Central Valley. We show how agricultural labor laws intended to protect farmworkers on industrial farms discriminate against and challenge small Southeast Asian refugee farmers. Hmong, Iu-Mien and Lao family farmers rely on cultural practices of labor reciprocity and unpaid help from extended family and clan networks to sustain the economic viability of their farms. This kind of labor sharing, a central tenet of their customary farming practices, and a cornerstone of the American family farm ideal, is illegal in California agriculture. We examine the historical context that gave rise to agricultural labor regulations in California and the ways in which these regulations are both under-enforced and unevenly enforced, differentially impacting immigrant family farms, while failing to protect those for whom the laws were originally intended. In highlighting how employment and labor laws and their enforcement or lack thereof discriminate against Southeast Asia farms, this study illustrates how other “small family farms” reliant on volunteerism or labor-sharing arrangements, part of the emergent “sharing economy,” may be confronting similar legal conundrums to those faced by Southeast Asian farms. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Sowerwine & Christy Getz & Nancy Peluso, 2015. "The myth of the protected worker: Southeast Asian micro-farmers in California agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(4), pages 579-595, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:32:y:2015:i:4:p:579-595
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-014-9578-3
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ganz, Marshall Louis, 2000. "Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959-1966," Scholarly Articles 12641805, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    2. AfDB AfDB, . "Annual Report 2012," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 461.
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    Cited by:

    1. Emily Reid-Musson & Ellen MacEachen & Mary Beckie & Lars Hallström, 2022. "Work without workers: legal geographies of family farm exclusions from labour laws in Alberta, Canada," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(3), pages 1027-1038, September.
    2. Jonathan K. London & Bethany B. Cutts & Kirsten Schwarz & Li Schmidt & Mary L. Cadenasso, 2021. "Unearthing the entangled roots of urban agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 205-220, February.
    3. Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern & Sea Sloat, 2017. "A new era of civil rights? Latino immigrant farmers and exclusion at the United States Department of Agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 631-643, September.

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