From Library Journal
Valle, a journalist on assignment for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, lived, worked, and traveled with a Hispanic migrant farm family in the Northwest for one year. This book is a compilation of her columns on the lives of Raul and Elena Martinez and their 13 children as they traveled from their winter home in La Grulla, Texas, to the fruit and vegetable farms in Oregon and Washington during growing and harvest seasons. Valle portrays a working-class family that believes in the work ethic and family values but must cope with the frustrations and helplessness of migrant life. She describes the hardships of constant travel, low pay, child labor, poor housing, lack of adequate healthcare and of educational opportunities for the children, and cultural and language barriers that the Martinezes face daily. The assistance and caring provided by government and private agencies in Oregon and Washington helped to ease the burden. Readers will be impressed by the determination and endurance of the Martinez family, who have spent their lives in the field. Recommended for both lay readers and scholars.
Irwin Weintraub, Rugters Univ. Libs., Piscataway, N.J.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Irwin Weintraub, Rugters Univ. Libs., Piscataway, N.J.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, with a circulation of not much more than 15,000, did an extraordinary thing: they hired bilingual Isabel Valle to live a year with and write about one Texas migrant family, that of Raul and Maria Elena Martinez. The Martinez family represents a typical pattern: they own a home in Texas but spend much of the year on the road, and one of their principal destinations is Walla Walla. Valle is an ordinary stylist, but she effectively shows what migrants face in terms of housing, education, health care, and wages, demonstrating that conditions have improved little over the years. Farm safety has improved, she shows, but housing and medical care are always worsening and improving at the same time. Valle doesn't blame growers or governments; only when consumers are willing to pay more for their food can conditions improve, she says. As for the Martinez family, Valle gets to know them almost too well--raised in a middle-class environment, she is distressed by having to sleep on the floor and share the bathroom; she finds the adult Martinezes to be noble but infuriating, too. Their children become her brothers and sisters. The authenticity of the Martinez family is unmistakable, and Valle's unsentimental, nonideological approach is refreshing. John Mort
