Modern Agricultural Servitude: The Modern Farm Worker Experience in the Salinas Valley

The prevailing narrative in Chicanx studies focuses on the historical labor activism of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in the 1960s and ‘70s. I am particularly interested in examining the contemporary campesino experience in the Salinas Valley by discussing the history behind Mexican cheap labor, low wages, exploitive work conditions with inadequate healthcare, agrochemical exposure, and historical consciousness of farm workers. I will argue that farm workers are in dire need of a migratory reform as an approach to improve the working conditions of farm workers throughout California. This research aims to shed light on how the multi-billion-dollar agribusiness industry uses public policy to its advantage. To support my assertion, I used public policy, communal studies, and environmental analyses to reveal how modern campesino laborers in the valley have not seen significant improvements in their working conditions compared to the farm labor lifestyle since 1960s.