From Publishers Weekly
College-educated spouses Sonneman and Steigmeyer rejected conventional careers to work for years as itinerant fruit pickers, beginning in the early 1970s. During that time, Sonneman's romantic notion of migrant life waned, but her respect for pickers' dignity and independence lasted, and this valuable book is the result. She terms "Okies" those pickers whose parents left Oklahoma and nearby states to follow the crops in the 1930s; she first relates that history. Though she sometimes weaves in her personal experiences awkwardly, Sonneman offers detailed accounts of migrants' lives, including their search for work and the rich but not-so-private sense of community in their trailer camps. Bosses still hold the cards, since legal and illegal immigrants will work for lower wages and ornery Okies resist organizing themselves into groups. Sonneman does not ignore the roles of sexism and fundamentalist religion, but she also defends migrants: her experiences lead her to argue against child labor laws with her liberal friends, and to explain how migrants feel stigmatized by shopkeepers and police. Steigmeyer's black-and-white photographs honestly and intimately portray the rugged existence of these people who self-mockingly call themselves "fruit tramps."
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Migrant farm workers are generally portrayed as an abused and exploited minority living under intolerable conditions. This book tells the other side of the story. Sonneman and Steigmeyer spent 15 years documenting and photographing the lives of white "Okie" migrant fruit pickers and their families, many of whom have been migrants for several generations. Okie migrants are a proud people who believe in the work ethic and enjoy the independence of not being tied down to one employer. In their own words, they express their views about labor, religion, raising children, life in the migrant camps, relationships with labor contractors and farmers, and prejudices encountered in the communities where they work. Lower-paid migrants from Mexico forced most of them out of agriculture into other occupations. Yet some return periodically to pick fruit and reminisce about earlier times. The well-deserved winner of the 1992 Western States Book Award Citation for Merit, this book is a real eye-opener. Recommended.
- Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Libs., Piscataway, N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Libs., Piscataway, N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
