The Worst Job in the World

Reform, Revolution, and the Secret Rebellion in Florida's Cane Fields

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2158277
AutoresCindy Hahamovitch (autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Volume35
Fascículo4
Páginas770-800
Data de publicação2008-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Journal of Peasant Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0306-6150 • E-ISSN: 1743-9361
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03066150802682029
OpenAlexW2070288959
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas13

Governments around the world are embracing guestworkers as a flexible labor force. The untold story of 1960s-era strike wave among Caribbean sugarcane cutters in Florida shows how the longest-running US guestworker program - the H2 Program - has functioned. The program, which began in 1942 and continues today, provided Florida's sugarcane industry with its sole source of harvest field labor, and became all the more important in the 1960s as the Cuban Revolution and the embargo that followed it caused Florida's industry to expand exponentially. Expropriated Cuban sugar moguls adopted the labor practices pioneered by the US Sugar Company, importing mostly Jamaican peasant farmers as temporary workers and deporting those who refused to accept their terms. Federal efforts to mitigate growers' exploitative practices only encouraged worse labor abuses. Cane cutters defended themselves with frequent strikes but deportations made insurgency's gains ephemeral. 'No ebery ting wha got sugar a sweet'. Jamaican proverb 1 1. Frank Cundall 1924 Cundall, Cundall. 1924. Jamaica in 1924: A Handbook for Visitors and Intending Settlers with Some Account of the Colony's History, Kingston, Jamaica: The Institute of Jamaica. [Google Scholar]: 56

Cane · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Peasant · Political science · Sugar · Sugar industry · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · History · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy