Migrant Farm Workers

Overview

Migrant farm workers move from one place to another looking for jobs harvesting seasonal crops. In the 1930s, monoculture crop cultivation devastated land in the American South, creating the Dust Bowl and leading to an influx of displaced families to California. These mostly white farm worker families joined the Mexican and Filipino farm workers who migrated from crop to crop across the West Coast. Children and adults alike labored in the fields and lived in temporary and makeshift housing near the agricultural fields.

Questions

  • What do you notice about the housing conditions for this family?
  • How might regular migration and makeshift living conditions impact children and families?

Farmworker woman holding cigarette sits on machinery processing freshly harvested potatoes.

 

A man with a hat and jacket over his shoulder stands with arm reaching toward branch of a tree near a woman and four children wearing dresses standing in front of a small wooden shack.

Farmworker Woman Holding Cigarette Sits on Machinery Processing Freshly Harvested Potatoes Links to an external site., Henry Pope Anderson Papers, larc.ms.0422, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.

Farmworker Family Stands in Yard in Front of Small Wooden Shacks Links to an external site., Henry Pope Anderson Papers, larc.ms.0422, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.