Mixtec Farmworkers in California

UC Television
Oct 2, 2008

This important interdisciplinary video explores the history; culture, and current social and economic conditions of the Mixtec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico. It examines the factors causing ever increasing numbers of Mixtecs to become migrants, living part of each year in California, where they make up between five and ten percent of all farmworkers. Series: University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources [3/2001] [Humanities] [Agriculture] [Show ID: 5597]

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David Bacon: The People of the Central Valley

Oct 31, 2010

David Bacon: The People of the Central Valley - 2 A Photographic Look at the Diverse Communities of California's Central Valley -- Toolville and its Bad Water

Toolville is a tiny colonia, or unincorporated and informal settlement of about a hundred families, in California's rural San Joaquin Valley just a couple of miles outside the small town of Exeter.

Over recent years, Toolville residents have discovered dangerous concentrations of nitrates in their water supply, which is pumped from the aquifer below the homes. As in many San Joaquin Valley communities, overuse of the water table, especially by giant industrial farms, has led to a growing concentration of fertilizer and other ag chemicals in the water that remains.

Toolville's residents are all working-class people, many of them farm workers. They can use the water from their taps for washing dishes and clothes, but have to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking...