Saints, peaches and wine: Mexican migrants and the transformation of Los Haro, Zacatecas and Napa, California

This is a case study of the making of a transnational migrant community. It describes the small agricultural village of Los Haro, in the municipality of Jerez, in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, and the evolution of its relationship with California's Napa Valley over fifty years. It is also about how the two places have changed from the 1950s, when four migrant farmworkers from Los Haro first found employment in St. Helena, to 2000 when hundreds of Los Haro families were living and working throughout the Napa Valley. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in both locations, the material is grounded in place and time.; The first three chapters examine life and the environment in Los Haro at twenty year intervals: in the 1950s, 1970s and again in the 1990s. Within each of these decade-chapters the annual cycle of the seasons is the framework for discussing agricultural practices, patterns of migration, everyday household activities, gender relations as well as rituals and celebrations. Woven into these accounts are the broader historical, political and economic forces that helped shape Los Haro in each of the decades. Taken together, these chapters describe the community's transition from peasant agriculture to commercial peach farming, and finally to a community in demographic, economic and environmental decline, its survival dependent on its migrants' remittances, and its annual rhythms driven by the demands of life and work in Napa.; The fourth and final chapter is set in the Napa Valley. As the growth of the Valley's wine industry accelerated in the 1970s, increasing numbers of migrants from Los Haro found year-round work in the vineyards and wineries, and families began to settle. Set in the context of the challenges facing Napa's rapidly growing Mexican population, it describes the process by which the Los Haro community struggled to create a place for itself, while at the same time maintaining ties to its community of origin.