Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America

American agriculture employs some 2.5 million workers during a typical year, most for fewer than six months. Three fourths of these farm workers are immigrants, half are unauthorized, and most will leave seasonal farm work within a decade. What do these statistics mean for farmers, for laborers, for rural America?

This book addresses the question by reviewing what is happening on farms and in the towns and cities where immigrant farm workers settle with their families. Philip Martin finds th...