Archaeology of Agricultural Labor Exploitation and Perpetual Debt; Migrant Labor Camps of Suffolk County, New York (1943-2000)

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Agriculture in the United States is rooted in the exploitation of labor and class and carries a legacy into the present-day agricultural industry. This paper examines migrant labor camps in New York, from 1943-2000, which trapped thousands of migrant farm laborers from the American South and Caribbean into systems of perpetual debt. During this period, 157 migrant labor camps operated through a peonage system that exploited workers and their families. These systems of marginalization included substandard living conditions, abusive crew leaders, and physical and emotional violence. Laborers where often penalized for seeking cheaper alternatives to overinflated camp commissary food and supplies. Camps were intentionally inaccessible by the surrounding communities and journalists hoping to expose these conditions. This contemporary archaeological analysis provides a comparative review of similar archaeological projects, explores potential avenues of resistance through materiality, and investigates the longue durée of anthropological processes affecting workers in the present agricultural industry.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow