Importing Poverty: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America

264 Pages·2009·1.106 MB·English

by  Philip Martin

Importing Poverty?
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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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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
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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
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r sth 2008045622
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U e Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
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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.
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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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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
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r sth Part OneImmigration and Agriculture
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.sse 1 Immigration to the United States, 3
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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
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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
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r sth nonfarm options. This reality causes farmers and their political allies
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.sse able them to get nonfarm jobs. Instead, farmers agree to legalization
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vin ers considerable control of foreign workers. Farmers and their allies
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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
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r sth a special interest ahead of the national interest.
g
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.sse for other areas that rely heavily on immigrant workers. The most basic of these
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vin tween desperate foreign immigrants and employers seeking low-cost, easily con-
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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.