1998
Getting to Know the Central Valley (English Version) by Isao Fujimoto with Marilu Carter
(43 pages)
Para Conocer al Valle Central (Spanish Version) by Isao Fujimoto with Marilu Carter (43 pages)
This report provides a great introduction to California's Central Valley. It examines the "front" and "backstage" of the Valley's people, communities, economy and environment.
1997
From Oaxaca to Ontario: Mexican Contract Labor in Canada and the Impact at Home
by Catherine Colby (41 pages)
Each year thousands of Mexican laborers work under contract in agricultural jobs for several months in the province of Ontario, Canada, returning home with thousands of dollars in savings. This report looks in detail at Canada’s Caribbean Commonwealth and Mexican Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, a Canadian guest-worker program. An indigenous community in rural Oaxaca is the focus of a comparative study on the impact of contract labor migration to Canada versus labor migration to the United States and Mexico City.
Immigrants or Transnational Workers? The Settlement Process Among Mexicans in Rural California by Rafael Alarcón (39 pages)
This paper presents the final results of a field study conducted in 1992 in Madera County, California. It is divided into four parts, the first of which offers a theoretical discussion of the concept of settlement. The second section traces the formation of the "transnational community" that links Madera County with Chavinda in Michoacán, Mexico. The third section examines the settlement process of Chavindeños in Madera, and the last section discusses the study's main conclusions.
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1994
Survey of Oaxacan Village Networks in California Agriculture
by David Runsten and Michael Kearney (114 pages)
Results of a survey designed to answer the questions "How many Mixtecs are there in California?", "Where are they located?", and "What regions of Oaxaca are they from?". The report represents a preliminary database of Mixtec demography and migration patterns.
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1989
Latino Political Participation in Rural California
by Paula Cruz Takash and Joaquin Avila (52 pages)
This Working Paper is an attempt to expand our understanding of rural Latino political mobilization. It discusses the development of Chicano/Mexicano non-farm labor politics in rural California, and presents a detailed discussion of political developments in Watsonville, an agriculturally based community located in the California Central Coast region.
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California's Rural Poor: Trends, Correlates, and Policies
by Douglas B. Gwynn, Yoshio Kawamura, Edward Dolber-Smith, and Refugio I. Rochin (102 pages)
This Working Paper, based on the 1980 Census of Population, addresses seven interrelated questions which pertain to California's poverty trends. California's poverty is compared to the nation's, and its rural and urban poverty trends are looked at in detail for several different contexts and variables.
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Anthropological Perspectives on Transnational Communities In Rural California
by Michael Keaney and Carol Nagengast (73 pages)
This paper is one of a series of Working Papers on Farm Labor and Rural Poverty from a 1988 research review conference in Fresno. It addresses current anthropological insights into the relationship of migration and immigration between underdeveloped and developed areas of Latin America, especially Mexico, and parts of rural California. The second paper provides an overview of the role that illegal Mexico-to-U.S. migration plays in the California farm economy and in the Mexican village economy.
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