With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today

I require this book in the Ag Labor class that I teach - but everyone who thinks about our food system, about labor issues, about agriculture, or about immigration should read this book. It is an accurate and honest depiction of the world of migrant labor, based on interviews with workers, contractors, employers, organizers, and others. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is well written, moving, and candid. My students - of all political persuasions - have all found it to be an eye-opening and thought provoking book. Many purchase an extra copy so that they can share it with family and friends.

I'm not sure how I even came across this book but what a wonderful find. This book illustrates the complex relationship among the farmworkers, growers, contractors, unionists, advocates, lobbyists, etc. It was extremely well written and readable, alternating between background information/statistics and first person narratives. I also liked the photographs (which were not of the same people who spoke in the book) but would have liked informative captions to go along with them. I am astounded by the enormity of this industry and the agricultural power of the USA. I would certainly pay more for my produce if it would help improve the farmworkers' situation (although the book clearly states that consumer price has little to do with these conditions). I can no longer look at fruits and vegetables the same way.

Read This Book! The book With These Hands, is a very accurate depiction of migrant farmworks today. The author, Daniel Rothenberg, is an anthropologist that spent three years living among workers and getting to know the people who work in the labor camps. He compiled more than 250 interviews to try and gain insight on the numerous hardships that these people face. Many people only hear about migrant workers who get into run-ins with the law, therefore giving these people a stereotypical view of how many of these migrants actually are, and what they go through to make such horrible wages. Every aspect of these farmworkers lives are explored, from wages to the farm labor market to consequences of labor practices. This book is really a reality check to people because of how much these workers have an affect on our lives. People don't stop to think about how all of their fruit products are gathered and how the workers are treated for doing such back breaking work. This book differs from many others that have been written on this same topic because it covers all different angles of migrant farmwork for yesterday and today. A definite two thumbs up!

With These Hands is an excellent book that contains oral histories -- astonishing interviews -- with farmworkers, growers, labor contractors, government officials and labor union officials. These statements are interspersed with excellent but brief summaries of various issues. The full range of the complexity of farmworkers' lives is explored, from wages and benefits to the structure of the farm labor market to the international consequences of agricultural labor practices. As a lawyer for migrant farmworkers, I'm all for books about them but have been disappointed by a lot of what has been written. This book does not disappoint.

"The Poorest of the Invisible Working Poor" could be an alternate title for Daniel Rothenberg's "With These Hands." Most of us know migrant farm workers only when one of them breaks the law and get written up in the newspaper. However, just about every piece of produce we routinely select at the supermarket has passed through their hands. I particularly liked the format of Rothenberg's book, alternating factual explanation with monologues by those involved in farm labor. I appreciated the wide variety of viewpoints exposed, not just those of migrant workers, but also of contractors, farmer employers, government officials and labor organizers. Most migrant farmworkers are Hispanic, many of them in this country legally, and some are U.S. citizens from years back. Many others, out of economic desperation, risk their lives sneaking across the U.S./Mexican border to find honest work doing the most backbreaking labor, under the most inhumane living conditions, for the most miserable wages. Their sheer numbers help keep farmworker wages low, but the power of the agricultural lobby has helped maintain the dismal conditions of farm labor since the Depression. Everyone who eats should read this book. Every politician should read it twice.