further discussion

[Guest guest]

My comments provide additional material on prior discussions of Life

Expectancy (December 2001), and Maps and Streams (January 2002).

Israel. You present a strong hypothesis (3-15-02 15:08:40) for situating a

time period for the generation of " 49 " as farm worker life expectancy. The

book you cited, Autobiography of La Causa, authored by Jacques L. Levy, was

published in 1975; the quote appears on page 75. Message #18 (12-21-01

14:02:52) in the original discussion suggested that " 49 " was among " the

litany of problems faced by farmworkers, " mentioned by Morrow in 1960

Harvest of Shame. Two other contributions commented on a time frame, which

were close to each other but at odds with the suggestion that " 49 "

originated with Harvest of Shame. Message #17 (12-21-01 10:39:40): " I have

been trying to find the source for this ‘allegation' for at least 25

years. " Message #20 (12-21-01 21:01:29): " I know it was regularly quoted as

originating from a Congressional hearing on migrant issues in the 1970s. "

For my 12-28-01 (08:38:36) comment a few days after the question and

contributions of 12-21, I followed the Harvest of Shame lead on the origin

of " 49. " I hedged my 12-28 response with a capitalized " IF. " A few days

AFTER posting my response, I twice reviewed Harvest of Shame and could not

find any reference to life expectancy. Thus, your alternate hypothesis and

two comments from the 12-21 discussion (Message #17, Message #20) suggest

we should look for the " origin " in the 1970s, rather than 1960. If the

quotation you cite is the source, question remains how " before they're 50 "

(Autobiography of La Causa, p. 75) was transformed into the often-repeated

" 49 " (the issue under scrutiny in the list-serve). It is unclear at what

point in the late 1960s or 1970s during the six-year period that Levy

worked with La Causa that he collected the quote from Chavez that you

provided for us 3-15-02. Or whether the quote was disclosed prior to its

publication in 1975...

Don. No one proposed an origin for the three-stream concept. A few folks

provided information on the development and application of the concept in

human services delivery, particularly in relation to migrant students. Your

suggestion that the three-stream concept stems from Harvest of Shame is the

only hypothesis to date.

Like Don, I too find Harvest of Shame illuminating. Don is correct, Harvest

of Shame focuses on the path taken by migrants from FL to the Northeast.

Four towns in FL are identified specifically; near the end, there's a

comment " and hundreds of other communities. " A similar approach of tracing

migrants-in-transit is found in the early chapters of Truman , The

Slaves We Rent (1965), even duplicating some of the same route shown in

Harvest of Shame. credits this approach to a report from the National

Council of Churches from the late 1950s. Harvest, as Don indicates, does

not spend much time on the issue of offshore workers. In fact, non-minority

farm workers are presented like other Americans (e.g., former military

service; two-parent families), except those in Harvest are poor and outside

employment protections of other Americans. 1960 (date of broadcast) was

close to the cessation of the Bracero Program in 1964.

Map in the inside cover of the hardbound edition of Carey Mc, Ill

Fares the Land (1942), emphasizes links among crops and seasons rather than

human migration.

Israel. Your inclusion of the quotation from Chavez resonates well with

discussion on impact of farm labor. Metaphoric death is an appropriate

strategy in argumentation, and, under these circumstances, it's removed

from scientific calculations of life expectancy. An issue arises when it's

transformed by someone other than the speaker and elevated to " fact. "

V Bletzer. Post-Doc. Dep of Anthropology, Arizona State Univ.