Fields of Toil

In popular memory the California farmworker brings to mind César Chavez and the United Farmworkers’ Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps the striking black-and-white image of a Dorothea Lange photograph, or Henry Fonda playing the role of Tom Joad in the film of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Richard Steven Street, a documentary photographer and historian, has produced a remarkable record of farmworkers and their history in Beasts of the Field and Photographing Farmworkers in California. These two volumes broaden our vision of agricultural labourers in California in unexpected ways. At a time when academic writing is dominated by the need to ‘theorize’ just about everything in sight, Street demonstrates the interpretive and analytical value of a thoughtful and carefully constructed narrative history. In Beasts of the Field, he synthesizes thirty years of research into a compelling and highly readable account written with insight and empathy. He skilfully traces the historical trajectory of farmworkers and their contributions to California agriculture over nearly one hundred and fifty years by weaving together a variety of narratives that reconstruct the experiences of particular groups. The textual account of Beasts of the Field is enhanced by more than fifty carefully chosen images drawn from diverse sources. This emphasis on visual images is further developed in Photographing Farmworkers in California, which at once provides a history of the photography of agricultural labour in California and reflects on photography as a source of documentary evidence.

Faced with the harsh realities of farmworkers’ experience, Street neither exaggerates their oppression nor glorifies their resistance. He portrays physically hard lives of unremitting toil, uncertainty and instability of employment, constant movement from job to job, and precarious conditions of existence. In this world, gambling-houses, bars, and brothels provide the only diversions, even as they eat up meager paychecks. Permanent outsiders, California farmworkers were subject to discrimination, repression, and racialization. The gains of their bitter and hard-fought struggles could, and too often did, quickly dissolve. For most the promised land of California yielded shattered hopes and lives with few expectations while a fortunate few found success, occasionally spectacular. Despite the difficult and degrading conditions farmworkers confronted, Street emphasizes their achievements in creating California agriculture. But for their contribution, California could not have fed itself at crucial junctures, let alone become an agricultural colossus. Yet, despite the continuous achievement of California farmworkers, they represent a succession of distinct ethnic groups that followed one another at different stages in the development of California agriculture. The reconstruction of this history in its scope and complexity represents a remarkable accomplishment.

In Street's account, the constant demand for cheap agricultural labour throughout the course of California's modern history has generated deep historical discontinuities and social diversity. He picks up the thread of the history of California farmworkers surprisingly early. In 1769 Padre Junípero Serra, the iconic figure of the California missions, and José de Gálvez, a Spanish official, brought Indians from Baja California to build and work the string of missions that were intended to secure the Spanish Empire along the entire Pacific Coast. In order to survive agricultural settlements needed the labour of Christianized campesinos already accustomed to the agricultural practices of the missions of Lower California. Under difficult pioneer conditions, these campesinos from Baja California cleared land and constructed buildings, irrigation and drainage systems and the rest of the infrastructure of mission agriculture. However, Lower California provided an insufficient supply of labour. If the missions were to survive, it was necessary to convert and acculturate the indigenous population of Upper California.

Street carefully documents the atrocities committed in converting the Indians to Christianity, but gives greater weight to the role of voluntary conversions. The problem for the padres was not attracting Indians to the missions, but...