Finding America's Farmworkers

Imagine you are a fit young man with a wife and child and a job that pays just enough to keep your family from going hungry. Then you learn of a job that pays a remarkable ten to twenty times as much. The catch? You must leave your family for most of every year for the rest of your working life. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican men make this sacrifice to plant, cultivate, and harvest crops in the United States on an H-2A visa. Beyond the pain of family separation, many also endure working and living conditions few US workers would ever tolerate. In Finding America's Farmworkers, outreach worker and blogger Michael Durbin introduces us to men and women representing all corners of the H-2A community: Veteran farmworkers and new recruits. The molecular biologist turned outreach master. The grower emerging from bankruptcy. The traumatized migrant housing inspector. And more. Filled with personal stories, some humorous and some tragic, this engaging and informative book paints a vivid portrait of a little known and utterly essential world. It's for anyone who eats food and is curious about where it comes from.