The Death of Ramon Gonzalez and the 21st Century Dilemma

eductions, and, in any case, the main advantage Culiacan vegetable growers have is not a
price advantage but their ability to produce crops in months when they cannot be grown
outdoors in most of the United States. Vegetable exports to the United States from
Mexico have continued to grow in volume and value but more from simple market
expansion than from NAFTA. However, the increasing pressure on rural communities
throughout Mexico and Central America has meant that Culiacan growers have not faced
any serious problems in continuing to acquire new, highly exploitable labor. (As
discussed below, other international trade liberalization agreements have encouraged
regions around the world to develop their own agro-export vegetable and fruit regions
resembling the Culiacan Valley.)
However, people from San Jeronimo Progreso and much of the rest of the Mixtec
and Zapotec territories travel in fewer numbers to Culiacan now. Mixtecs and Zapotecs
on both sides of the border have been more able to find their way to easier and better paid
work, much of it in urban occupations. While avoiding Culiacan when possible, Mixtecs
continue to make up a large share of the California and West Coast farm labor force in
the United States, and have even entered the East Coast and Upper Midwest migrant
streams in much greater numbers. In the early 1980’s, the Oaxacan indigenous presence
was just making itself felt on the U.S. West Coast; in recent years, without any searching,
I have encountered Mixtec and Zapotec groups in central Kansas, New York City,
Chicago, Denver, North Carolina, and Florida. xix
Ramon Gonzalez’s sisters, at last report, were settled in Tucson where they made
their living buying and selling in flea markets and engaging in other urban-based
activities. An intriguing new study, Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and