Observations about Lettuce Wars
Counterfire Magazine -- A review of Lettuce Wars by Adam Tomes http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/book-reviews/16542-lettuce-wars-ten-years-of-work-and-struggle-in-the-fields-of-california
Z Magazine (pg 50) -- A review of Lettuce Wars by Seth Sandronskyy
The Resolute Reader, England
The Santa Cruz Sentinel 7/20/13
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/watsonville/ci_23701124/books-detail-struggles-farmworkers
The Indypendent
http://www.indypendent.org/2013/07/16/bumper-crop-new-books
Voxxi
http://voxxi.com/2014/01/09/
The Huffington Post
http://voces.huffingtonpost.
In Lettuce Wars: Ten Years of
Work and Struggle in the Fields of California, Bruce Neuburger explores a
central question: “Isn’t there something seriously wrong with a society that
treats the people who produce our food as inferior?” And in a highly effective
combination of stark images, compelling personal narratives and historical and
political data, Neuburger answers this query with an irrevocable, Yes! A
society is inherently wrong when it places corporations and profits above
people. The Lettuce Wars gives voice to the struggles of the
“agachados”—workers in the vegetable fields of California physically and
socio-economically bent down by a system of human exploitation which, according
to Neuburger, “is the very beating heart of capitalism.” In the noble tradition
of narratives of protest and witness, this historical work is relevant and timely.
It forces us to cast a critical eye on our American democracy, where the rights
of countless workers are trampled upon by those with political and economic
power and where the interests of the few carry much more weight and value than
the interest and well-being of those most vulnerable among us.
—Alba Cruz-Hacker, author of No Honey for Wild Beasts
In these stirring
pages you will find exquisite descriptions of the work, lovely accounts of the
people who do it, and a unique view of farm worker politics, all delivered in a
straight forward, good humored prose.
Most of all, Neuburger reminds us of what it felt like to be young and
believe in Revolution.
---Frank Bardacke, author of Trampling
Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the UFW
It is not easy today
to find a memoir with a such sharp sense of social justice and an appreciation
of manual labor. This is exactly what you find in the memoir written by Bruce
Neuburger who spent 10 long years of his life working and living in the Lettuce
Fields of the 1970's. Bruce lives what he is preaching -- social justice,
equality, and brotherhood, and he is such a talented, humorous, sophisticated
storyteller. I read this book in two sittings unable to put it down because I
got deeply involved in the heavily populated narrative. By the way, you cannot
help but learn a great deal while enjoying this book. Actually the book could
serve as a valuable reference for any researcher or novelist interested in its
subject.
---Elena Kanevsky, Author of a book of poetry, The Devious Route
Bruce Neuburger has
given us an extraordinary book. On one level, it is a political memoir of
a young radical's decade of immersion in farmworkers' world -- their work,
their lives, and their struggles for union representation. On another
level, he offers a history of the successes of the Farm Workers Union and its
later degeneration. Finally, the book offers a case study of the
impossibility of building a progressive movement on the basis of conventional trade
unionism and political parties. Finally, the book is a fascinating story
of a young man successfully adapting to an unfamiliar culture.
---Michael Perelman, Author of Hidden Handcuffs of Capitalism How Market Tyranny Stifles the Economy by Stunting Workers.
---Michael Perelman, Author of Hidden Handcuffs of Capitalism How Market Tyranny Stifles the Economy by Stunting Workers.
Bruce Neuburger's Lettuce
Wars adds a new and carefully observed chapter to the farm labor
saga in Steinbeck country during the Chavez years. The author details the
exhausting work, low pay, strikes, and setbacks as well as his encounters with
key union leaders and the friendships that sustained him. But don't
mistake Lettuce Wars for
an ethnography or regional history. It's the story of Neuburger's real life in
a notoriously hardscrabble labor market, one that seemed like a vestige a
generation ago but now serves as the default model in a new era of global
neoliberalism. If you've ever felt that we're all "casual labor" now,
Lettuce Wars is the book
for you.
---Peter Richardson, author of A Bomb in Every Issue: How the
Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America and American
Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams.
Inspired by the worldwide movements of his time, college educated Bruce
Neuburger in concert with his beliefs lived a decade of commitment as an
anti-Vietnam War participant and as a
"lechuguero" in the agricultural fields of the Pajaro and Salinas
valleys ... highly recommend reading his memoir.
---Sid A. Valledor, Author of The Original
Writings of Philip Vera Cruz
A very useful source on the 1970s farm worker movement as seen
from the experience of a revolutionary minded participant. The author casts the
personal stories he encounters against the backdrop of the United Farm Workers’
political and economic activities, as well as the larger struggles of the Viet
Nam War, civil rights movement, and revolutionary upsurges world wide. Over the
ten years he worked in the Salinas and Imperial Valleys in the vegetable crops,
Neuburger and a few others attempted to link the lives of the farm workers to
the struggles of the global oppressed and to clearly point the finger at the
real oppressors, and how we should know them. This book serves as a record of
the many battles that the mass of farm workers waged against the growers, the
police, the immigration patrol, and the UFW itself.
—Mickey Hewitt, political activist and former farm worker in the Salinas and the Imperial Valleys
—Mickey Hewitt, political activist and former farm worker in the Salinas and the Imperial Valleys
Relates an important period in the history of the farm worker
movement in the U.S. in a real and direct fashion. It is written in a lively
and informative way by the author who is also a protagonist in the events
therein. The story that is told will without a doubt be an important reference
point for all those interested in the real history of the farm workers’
movement, in the development of their labor organization as well as an account
of people who in the 1970s threw their lot into bringing about social change
with an eye on building of a society free of oppression—just and equal.
—Francisco Jimenez, immigrant rights and homeless activist
—Francisco Jimenez, immigrant rights and homeless activist
Brings to light the little known history of the vegetable fields
of California in the era of the 1970s. It was an era defined by its political
activism and the struggle for workers’ rights. This book offers a look into a
world little known outside those who have endured the conditions there first
hand. It’s a book that gives voice to the workers of the fields, a voice that
most often goes unheard.
—Mario Ayala, photographer and videographer
—Mario Ayala, photographer and videographer
Having finished
reading the manuscript of Lettuce Wars I was most impressed! It does an outstanding, exceptional job of providing the reader with an
inside, on-the-ground view of the industrial farm labor experience in
California and elsewhere. It speaks to
the struggle during the ten-year time period on at least three different
levels: struggles with relationships, being branded as a “Communist,” etc., the
union struggles with growers, as well as the civil rights’ struggles occurring
all over the country.
The writing is so
lucid and descriptive that the reader has the experience of actually being in
the field with a crew of workers who are physically pained, exhausted and
exploited by the grower or farm labor contractor; with little remuneration as a
result of wage theft and/or low wages. Laborers are thus forced to live a life
circumscribed by poverty.
As a white person
who worked for years in the fields and lived to write about the experience,
this work is surely one of the most important contributions to the social
justice literature exposing farmworker injustice at all levels. The threats
that were faced with and somehow escaped are an indication of courage and
desire to inform farmworkers verbally and with a newspaper about the extent of
their exploitation.
The work is very
well researched, but the manuscript’s greatest strength is its appeal to and
readability by the general reader, and not exclusively by academics. Public education about the labor abuses
inherent in the “factory food system” has to be one of the most important
avenues for fomenting change in the farm labor system; change that is long
overdue.
I looked forward
to reading the manuscript every day and found the content to be compelling and
often spell-binding. I also appreciate the presentation of a very different
Cesar Chavez narrative and overall UFW contribution to the struggles in the
field. Experiences such as yours
probably account for some of the unfortunate waning trust in the UFW; both
among farmworkers and among members of the general public.
-- Ann Aurelia Lopez, author of A Farmworkers Journey, University of California Press, 2007