Author Description

Product Description California's sprawling San Joaquin Valley is a source of both agricultural abundance and recurring rural poverty. This book examines the socioeconomic links between farm employment, immigration, and welfare use, not only within California's Central Valley but also along the state's central coast and southern regions. Using U.S. Census data and information collected from extensive community-level site visits, the authors find that immigration, largely from rural Mexico, is fueling unprecedented growth in population, poverty, and public service demands in California's agricultural heartland. Their analysis also indicates that upward mobility among these immigrant workers is limited and that recent legislatve changes are reducing public resources available to integrate newcomers just as the number of immigrants is increasing. Review "...a new and systematic treatment of immigrants in rural communities. We are poised at the outset of what appears to be a new migration regime, for which this book not only serves as a key baseline but also provides insight into future prospects. It has quantitative as well as field-method analyses that offer fresh information...The conclusion fulfills the book's promise by walking through a policy analysis of the research implications." -- Lindsey Lowell, U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform "The topic is important and has relevance for several states other than California. The authors are respected people, very competent, and clearly concerned about advancing public understanding of the problems addressed in a manner useful to public policymaking... The conclusions...enhance the meaningfulness of the book." -- Calvin Beale, U.S. Department of Agriculture About the Author J. Edward Taylor is a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis. He has authored or co-authored more than 50 books, monographs, and articles on economic development, labor migration, and U.S. agriculture.