| In this study I examine the knowledge, perceptions, and experiences of immigrant farmworkers with regard to labor rights, with the goal of examining the effect of documentation status on each of these. I examined these questions using in-depth interviews with immigrant grape workers, documented and undocumented, in the Napa Valley, as well as interviews with farmworker advocates and service providers in Napa. Ultimately, I sought to answer the question, "Is there a relationship between formal legal rights and actual access to labor rights?" What I found indicates that while there are some relationships between legal rights and labor rights access, these ties may be incidental rather than causal. Documentation status may affect workers' ability to get hired, but state categories are mediated by workers' personal networks. The racialization of farm work also affects workers' experiences of work more than documentation status. |
