Producer Rachel Anne Goodman does a Herculean job of looking at the history of California farm workers. In this last part of her series, Goodman focuses on the current influx of Mexican migrant workers and how their future is tied to ours.
With recent anti-immigrant sentiments and attempts to reform immigration laws, Goodman has the perfect peg for her story.
She does a good job of bringing in the voices of the laborers, who just want to make a living wage. As one of the workers states,"Everyone has the right to eat." She also peppers her program with experts such as historian Sandy Lyon and former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower. But the most interesting and least predictable observation comes from Photographer Richard Stevens Street, who informs how workers from Oaxaca, Mexico live in camps at the bottom of canyons. His description of their lives is moving."It's Grapes of Wrath all over," he says.
The freshest stories are at the end which explore best practices by organic farmers --those who treat their workers as human beings in an environment that's free from pesticides. The final story is about Alba Farms, a place that teaches farms workers how to start their own farms.
To my ears there are two weaknesses. One's a small hole in the narrative of worker Jackie Olivares, daughter of an immigrant worker who also is a college graduate. You hear her say how good it is to be working side by side with immigrant men, but you never hear why this is preferable to do after she graduates from college. The other problem is synching up the English translations of the Spanish-speaking workers. Some don't match up, plus depending on the translator, some accuracy may be blurred. Perhaps some re-scripting could help.
Nevertheless, I appreciate her production and welcome her series that contextualizes current farm labor issues witin its painful historical precedents. Regretfully the same conditions seem to happen over and over again.
Review of Pastures of Plenty: The Future of Farm Labor
Yolette Garcia
Posted on April 02, 2007 at 07:01 PM
Producer Rachel Anne Goodman does a Herculean job of looking at the history of California farm workers. In this last part of her series, Goodman focuses on the current influx of Mexican migrant workers and how their future is tied to ours.
With recent anti-immigrant sentiments and attempts to reform immigration laws, Goodman has the perfect peg for her story.
She does a good job of bringing in the voices of the laborers, who just want to make a living wage. As one of the workers states,"Everyone has the right to eat." She also peppers her program with experts such as historian Sandy Lyon and former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower. But the most interesting and least predictable observation comes from Photographer Richard Stevens Street, who informs how workers from Oaxaca, Mexico live in camps at the bottom of canyons. His description of their lives is moving."It's Grapes of Wrath all over," he says.
The freshest stories are at the end which explore best practices by organic farmers --those who treat their workers as human beings in an environment that's free from pesticides. The final story is about Alba Farms, a place that teaches farms workers how to start their own farms.
To my ears there are two weaknesses. One's a small hole in the narrative of worker Jackie Olivares, daughter of an immigrant worker who also is a college graduate. You hear her say how good it is to be working side by side with immigrant men, but you never hear why this is preferable to do after she graduates from college. The other problem is synching up the English translations of the Spanish-speaking workers. Some don't match up, plus depending on the translator, some accuracy may be blurred. Perhaps some re-scripting could help.
Nevertheless, I appreciate her production and welcome her series that contextualizes current farm labor issues witin its painful historical precedents. Regretfully the same conditions seem to happen over and over again.