Migrant Citizenship

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda about her book Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). Migrant Citizenship exams the Farm Security Administration’s Migratory Labor Camp Program, and its role in the daily lives of a diverse number of farmworker families. Martínez-Matsuda thoroughly investigates the way public policy was used to intervene in the lives of migrant workers, and how these workers sought to transform their own lives and the country around them through appealing to American democratic principles and forming movements to pursue social justice and civil rights. Martínez-Matsuda’s study showcase the many ways that the FAS’s history, and these migrant workers, is integral to understanding both historical and modern struggles in farm labor relations. Verónica Martínez-Matsuda is an Associate Professor at Cornell University’s ILR School.

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Derek Litvak is a Ph.D. student in the department of history at the University of Maryland.