<i>Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program</i> , by Verónica Martínez-Matsuda

In Migrant Citizenship, Verónica Martínez-Matsuda examines the role of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in improving the lives of migrant farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda argues that though imperfect, the FSA’s farmworker camp program, which operated from 1935 to 1946, acted as an “experiment in democracy” (259), in which the government empowered farmworkers in an unprecedented way. Martínez-Matsuda contends that through providing sanitary housing, medical services, nursery programs, primary education, and lessons in participatory democracy, the FSA camp program serves as a model for upholding migrant workers’ labor and civic rights today.Drawing upon primary sources including public-policy documents, migrant workers’ oral histories, newspaper articles, photographs, and medical records, Martínez-Matsuda uses a social-historiographic framework to document the political history shaping migrant farmworkers’ precarious status and the FSA camp operations. This compelling evidence chronicles federal intervention regarding migrant housing and farmworkers’ rights, migrant communities’ lived experiences within the FSA camps, and tensions regarding migrant citizenship.A key feature of the FSA camps was free medical and dental care provided for migrant families. Notably, the FSA camp’s health programs helped migrant farmworkers achieve better health conditions while simultaneously reinforcing racial, class, and moral biases. On one hand, the FSA health programs significantly reduced disease, malnourishment, and maternal and infant mortality among migrant families. On the other hand, the FSA health programs perpetuated racial, cultural, and moral biases toward migrant communities. For example, some FSA officials blamed the migrants’ traditional healing practices for their poor health while other FSA officials pathologized Black farmworkers’ behavior, linking syphilis not only to poor living conditions but also to the “nightlife and promiscuity of the Negroes” (150). These narratives that depicted migrant workers as antimodern or irresponsible undermined migrants’ efforts for empowerment and full social acceptance within American society. Thus, Martínez-Matsuda highlights the intersection of public health and medical racialization embedded within the FSA camp health program.The FSA camp narrative highlights the relational dynamics between white Dust Bowl refugees and farmworkers of color; racial tensions existed within the camps and some camps were segregated by race. However, the perspectives of farmworkers regarding this matter are missing, thus, it is unclear whether some farmworkers viewed others as allies in the fight for improved living and working conditions regardless of their racial background. These perspectives might shed further light on the social and political dynamics operating within the FSA camps.Migrant Citizenship contributes to the history of labor, immigration, and public health as it highlights a key moment in US history in which migrants’ rights and protections were advanced. Yet today, labor policy ensuring fair conditions and decent wages for migrant farmworkers is still lacking. Persistent, exploitative work conditions within agribusiness raise questions of who is considered worthy of protection and why. Ultimately, Migrant Citizenship asks readers to grapple with who benefits at the expense of disenfranchised communities and why these dynamics continue to operate.