New Immigrants and Labor: The Case Farms Strike in MorgantonAs part of the Southern Oral History Program's "Listening for a Change" initiative, labor historian Leon Fink completed twenty interviews with Guatemalan employees of Case Farms during the summer of 1999. Fink's daughter, Anna, subsequently translated the interviews from the original Spanish and prepared full transcripts. The personal narratives explore the overarching theme of cross-border labor migration, but also explain how these recent immigrants to North Carolina have fought for improved working conditions by building a local labor movement based on their strong church and community networks. Along with the SOHP's "Listening for a Change" project on Latino immigrants and neighborhood change in Durham, Fink's interviews in Morganton help to illuminate an emerging theme in contemporary North Carolina history: the role of the new Hispanic workforce in the Old North State. |
|||||||||
The Southern Oral History Program Center for the Study of the American South Love House and Hutchins Forum 410 East Franklin St., CB# 9127, UNC-CH Chapel Hill, NC 27599-9127 (919) 962-0455 info@sohp.org |