Consuming Mexican labor : from the Bracero Program to NAFTA /

Mize (Latino studies, Cornell) and Swords (sociology, Ithaca College) explore the long history of the Bracero guest worker program with an eye to the economic relationships that drive the near constant flow of Mexican labor north to the US. In an insightful study that links Mexican immigrant and domestic Mexican American and Tejano laborers, the authors tie the various organizing efforts of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) and the Midwest-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) together in their telling of a history that is not confined to the traditional region of the Southwest or the state of California. Their transnational study also explores Mexican labor within Mexico and in Canada amidst the changes brought on by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This provocative, readable history of transnational and translocal Mexican labor from the 1940s to the present also explores contemporary issues such as day laborers, English-only legislation, and the immigrant backlash of the late 20th century. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. M. S. Rodriguez University of Notre Dame