No man's land : Jamaican guestworkers in America and the global history of deportable labor / Cindy Hahamovitch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hahamovitch, Cindy.

Series:

Politics and society in twentieth-century America.

Politics and society in twentieth-century America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Foreign workers--United States.

Foreign workers.

Noncitizens.

Deportation.

Jamaica--Emigration and immigration.

Jamaica.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (350 p.)

Edition:

Core Textbook

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

From South Africa in the nineteenth century to Hong Kong today, nations around the world, including the United States, have turned to guestworker programs to manage migration. These temporary labor recruitment systems represented a state-brokered compromise between employers who wanted foreign workers and those who feared rising numbers of immigrants. Unlike immigrants, guestworkers couldn't settle, bring their families, or become citizens, and they had few rights. Indeed, instead of creating a manageable form of migration, guestworker programs created an especially vulnerable class of labor. Based on a vast array of sources from U.S., Jamaican, and English archives, as well as interviews, No Man's Land tells the history of the American "H2" program, the world's second oldest guestworker program. Since World War II, the H2 program has brought hundreds of thousands of mostly Jamaican men to the United States to do some of the nation's dirtiest and most dangerous farmwork for some of its biggest and most powerful agricultural corporations, companies that had the power to import and deport workers from abroad. Jamaican guestworkers occupied a no man's land between nations, protected neither by their home government nor by the United States. The workers complained, went on strike, and sued their employers in class action lawsuits, but their protests had little impact because they could be repatriated and replaced in a matter of hours. No Man's Land puts Jamaican guestworkers' experiences in the context of the global history of this fast-growing and perilous form of labor migration.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE. Guestworkers of the World, Unite!

CHAPTER TWO. Everything But a Gun to Their Heads

CHAPTER THREE. "Stir It Up"

CHAPTER FOUR. John Bull Meets Jim Crow

CHAPTER FIVE. The Race to the Bottom

CHAPTER SIX. A Riotous Success

CHAPTER SEVEN. The Worst Job in the World

CHAPTER EIGHT. Takin' It to the Courts

CHAPTER NINE. "For All Those Bending Years"

CHAPTER TEN. All the World's a Workplace

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613163844

9781283163842

1283163845

9781400840021

1400840023

OCLC:

744620310