Theo J. Majka

Decline of the Farm Labor Movement in California: Organizational Crisis and Political Change

This paper interprets the reversal of the farm labor movement in California during the 1980s as part of an overall decline in a general cycle of protest as well as a reversal of opportunities for changes in class relations that this movement stimulated. More specifically, three factors account for the failure of collective bargaining to become fully established in Californias agribusiness. The United Farm Workers union (UFW) experienced a serious internal crisis during the late 1970s that resulted in the departure of key officials and staff members. A change in administration in the governors office led to the appointment of officials antagonistic to farm labor unionization. In this climate, grower tactics to prevent or delay unionization became more effective.

Becoming Welcoming: Organizational Collaboration and Immigrant Integration in Dayton, Ohio

Coinciding with a national trend toward the localization of immigration law and policy, the city of Dayton, Ohio, passed the “Welcome Dayton—Immigrant Friendly City” resolution in 2011. This article focuses on the central role played by a coalition of local organizations, staffed by or advocating on behalf of immigrants and refugees, that led up to the initiative’s passage and during its implementation. Characterized by collaboration, such efforts laid the groundwork for a policy that is attentive to the needs of immigrants and refugees. When they subsequently worked alongside city officials, local organizations also managed to affect meaningful local-level institutional changes. Dayton, as a result, became a leader in regional and national efforts to create more welcoming cities. Drawing mostly on several years of participant observation, the article adds to the literature on immigrant integration a rich description of the role local organizations play in the process of becoming welcoming. It also shows how an approach rooted in the humanitarian concerns of immigrants/refugees and their allies can pose a meaningful challenge to the exclusionary rhetoric and inaction that currently plague immigration law and policy.

The Nature of California: Race, Citizenship and Farming Since the Dust Bowl

For almost 150 years, California’s agriculture and its large-scale “farm factories” have provided continuous examples of labor exploitation, marginalization, racialization and subordination of the mostly immigrant farm worker populations. With the exception of Dust Bowl migrants from the 1930s, they have been primarily from Latin America and Asia. Beginning with the Chinese, many of whom were initially brought to the US as contract laborers to build railroads, Japanese, Mexicans, Asian Indians, Filipinos, and since World War II, Mexicans have either dominated or comprised sizeable proportions of California’s agricultural labor force. Throughout this history, new and recent immigrants periodically have been used to replace an increasingly organized labor force, in some cases even if both were of the same national origins, e.g. Mexico. State and federal policies contributed to farm worker subordination and at times facilitated labor force transitions. Anti-union actions by large growers and their supporters, combined with the exclusion of agricultural labor from most national labor legislation, especially the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, have resulted in low-wage farm worker populations typically with little job security or benefits and ironically high rates of food insecurity. Even the decades-long organizing efforts by the United Farm Workers (UFW) and their successes at signing labor contracts could not be sustained at the level of their earlier victories. This excellent study by a professor of English and environmental studies describes the cultural dimensions of these patterns. Wald analyzes the ways in which marginalization and racialization have been manifested in literary works since the Great Depression. While coverage is mostly on novels, other works of fiction, and journalistic accounts, the study is well informed by scholarly research on immigration. Wald examines the consequences of the fact that some immigrant populations, while legal residents of the US, either could not obtain citizenship (immigrants from Asian nations until 1952) or even when citizens were not accorded full citizenship rights. How the various farm labor populations have been portrayed and the underlying implications, e.g. their “unworthiness,” is a consistent theme of Wald’s study. She contrasts this to the ideal of “American

Review Essays: Democratic Politics and Legitimation Crises: The Limits of Legitimacy: Political Contradictions of Contemporary Capitalism, by Alan Wohe, New York: The Free Press, 1977

The Limits of Legitimacv by Alan Wolfe represents an indication f rapid advancement during the past five years in developing Marxist theories of politics and the state. Hi-c ’s a very impressive and learned work, 4rawirg from and synthesizing several approaches tc analyzing the state. Wolfe is among a large number of contemporary Marxist writers who at about the same time &dquo;discovered&dquo;