Sentenced for the season: Jamaican migrant farmworkers on Okanagan orchards

Despite perfunctory characterisation of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) as a ‘triple win’, scholars and activists have long admonished its lack of government oversight, disrespect for migrant rights and indentureship of foreign workers. This article contends that the SAWP is predicated upon naturalised, deeply engrained and degrading beliefs that devalue Black lives and labour. Based on twenty months’ ethnographic fieldwork in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, it reveals the extent to which anti-Black racism permeates, organises and frustrates workers’ lives on farms and in local communities. It situates such experiences, which workers characterise as ‘prison life’, in the context of anti-Black immigration policy and the workings of racial capitalism. This ethnography of Caribbean migrants not only adds perspective to scholarship hitherto focused on the experiences of Latino workers, but it also reinforces critical work on anti-Black racism in contemporary Canada.

Latino Workers

Since the U.S. acquisition of Northern Mexico in the 19th century, Latinas and Latinos have played an ever-growing role as workers in the United States. The continued migration from Latin American countries has increased the importance of Latinas and Latinos across various economic sectors. As diverse as the Latina/o community itself, the array of jobs Latinas/os/xs have held has been enormously varied. As an increasing demographic of workers, Latina and Latino workers have also played a pivotal role in the labor movement in the United States. Their labor activism has been a response to the persistence of oppression and marginalization in the workplace. The presence of Latinas/os/xs in a variety of occupations offers a glimpse into the overall transitions of the U.S. economy, from agricultural to manufacturing to service work. Their movement from farm to factory to service work is of course not universal, as Latinas/os/xs still have a considerable presence in agricultural and industrial employment. Yet the transition from one kind of work to another remains a useful way of understanding the history of Latina/o/x labor over time. Latinas/os/xs have often stood at the forefront of shifts in the economy as they have followed the need for workers into new industries, which has placed them among some of the most vulnerable workers in American society.

Worlds Apart

This chapter brings readers further into the workplace by examining how coworker dynamics reinforce the extant social organization of higher-end restaurants, and ultimately how workers themselves understand their differences. The author details how educated white servers and working-class Latino cooks enact symbolic boundaries against the other that close off two distinct worlds of work by race, class, and gender. The racialized and classed boundaries that employees enact lead to strained and distant interactions, and can disrupt the flow of service in very real ways. More importantly, symbolic barriers decrease the likelihood that workers themselves feel they are able to access jobs for which they do not fit. This disproportionately affects Latino workers by further miring them in the lowest-paying and least visible jobs in the workplace.

Introduction

This book explores the reproduction of social inequality within everyday service settings. Wilson analyzes everyday relations among different types of workers, managers, and, to a lesser extent, customers in restaurants. Seen from the ground level, workers negotiate their surroundings by finding ways to make their labor conditions more palatable using the resources available to them. Amid compounded forces that pull workers into divided worlds of work, class-privileged whites and working-class Latinos derive meaningful forms of identity and community from their respective roles in restaurants. This nuances the workplace in unexpected ways: while immigrant Latino workers struggle to contend with their structural disadvantages in marginal jobs, later-generation workers have been able to leverage some of these very conditions to their advantage.

Mobility Pathways and Closed Doors

This chapter compares instances of worker mobility and marginalization in the workplace. Wilson examines the mechanisms by which some Latino workers have been able to access better-quality jobs while others have not. Specifically, he argues that later-generation Latinos leverage their “in-betweenness” to gain more prominent roles in a socially and culturally divided workplace. By contrast, those who remain stuck in the lowest-rung restaurant jobs are hampered by compounded disadvantages that cut them off from not only their fellow coworkers but also relatively better job opportunities that are available to the latter. Confined to the “back closet” of restaurant employment, undocumented Latina workers bear the brunt of a socially segregated workplace that has no place for them but at the bottom and out of the way.

Brown-Collar Careers in the Back of the House

This chapter turns to the back of the house, where many first- and second-generation Latino workers work long hours that they view with a complex mixture of loyalty to mentors, masculinity, and an ethos of craftsmanship. While back-of-the-house and support workers endure more structurally marginalized work conditions than their front-of-the-house colleagues, many are also more committed to building “brown-collar” work careers within restaurants.

Association of occupational exposures with cardiovascular disease among US Hispanics/Latinos

ObjectiveCardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the USA. The role of occupational exposures to chemicals in the development of CVD has rarely been studied even though many agents possess cardiotoxic properties. We therefore evaluated associations of self-reported exposures to organic solvents, metals and pesticides in relation to CVD prevalence among diverse Hispanic/Latino workers.MethodsCross-sectional data from 7404 employed individuals, aged 18–74 years, enrolled in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) were analysed. Participants from four US cities provided questionnaire data and underwent clinical examinations, including ECGs. CVD was defined as the presence of at least one of the following: coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation, heart failure or cerebrovascular disease. Prevalence ratios reflecting the relationship between each occupational exposure and CVD as well as CVD subtypes were calculated using Poisson regression models.ResultsHispanic/Latino workers reported exposures to organic solvents (6.5%), metals (8.5%) and pesticides (4.7%) at their current jobs. Overall, 6.1% of participants had some form of CVD, with coronary heart disease as the most common (4.3%) followed by cerebrovascular disease (1.0%), heart failure (0.8%) and atrial fibrillation (0.7%). For individuals who reported working with pesticides, the prevalence ratios for any CVD were 2.18 (95% CI 1.34 to 3.55), coronary heart disease 2.20 (95% CI 1.31 to 3.71), cerebrovascular disease 1.38 (95% CI 0.62 3.03), heart failure 0.91 (95% CI 0.23 to 3.54) and atrial fibrillation 5.92 (95% CI 1.89 to 18.61) after adjustment for sociodemographic, acculturation, lifestyle and occupational characteristics. Metal exposures were associated with an almost fourfold (3.78, 95% CI 1.24 to 11.46) greater prevalence of atrial fibrillation. Null associations were observed for organic solvent exposures.ConclusionsOur results suggest that working with metals and pesticides could be risk factors for CVD among Hispanic/Latino workers. Further work is needed to evaluate these relationships prospectively.

Who does the dishes? Precarious employment and ethnic solidarity among restaurant workers in Los Angeles’ Chinese enclave

Large-scale immigration to the US from Asian and Latin American countries has garnered much scholarly attention on immigrants’ economic integration. To enhance their economic prospects, newly arrived immigrants with limited English skills who face discrimination may rely on other immigrants with shared national origins to form businesses and find jobs. Ethnic enclave economy model describes a mutually beneficial relationship between coethnic employers and employees that relies on shared ethnicity and ethnic solidarity. However, employers are increasingly hiring non-coethnics, indicating a change in the ethnic economy and questions the role of ethnic solidarity. This study examines the consequences of hiring non-coethnic labor by focusing on Chinese and Latino employees in Chinese-owned restaurants in Los Angeles. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this study examines the reasons for hiring Latinos, the role of ethnic solidarity in job allocation and pay practices, and how Chinese employers manage the two groups of workers. In general, this study finds that despite sharing ethnic solidarity with employers, Chinese workers experience worse treatment than non-coethnics via complaint management, off-the-clock violations, and wage theft. In contrast, Latino workers do not share ethnic solidarity with their employers, but still receive more favorable treatment because Chinese employers are concerned that Latino workers will use institutional means to file formal complaints and report labor violations. This study’s findings contribute to a larger discussion about whether the obligations associated with ethnic solidarity outweigh the benefits and whether ethnic enclave employment provides pathways for upward mobility among coethnics.