distracción: notes on cultural citizenship, visual ethnography, and mexican migration to...

Distraccion: Notes on Cultural Citizenship,Visual Ethnography, and Mexican Migration

to Pennsylvania

MIGUEL DIAZ-BARRIGA

As part of his effort to organize Mexican workers in the mushroom industry of southeastern Pennsylvania, Luis Tlasecahas made and shown videos on a variety of topics, including Mexican migrants’ participation in the annual MushroomFestival. In this article, I describe Tlaseca’s understandings of this video project as well as the video’s reception by agroup of migrant workers. I argue that at both levels, production and reception, the video has been interpreted both as areflection on class and race relations as well as cultural citizenship. In doing so, I contextualize understandings ofcultural citizenship in terms of what I call ‘‘structures of belonging.’’ [Key words: agricultural festivals, cultural citi-zenship, distraction, Mexican migration, transnationalism, visual anthropology]

Introduction

On September 14, 1994, in a small town insoutheastern Pennsylvania, a giant mushroomand the newly crowned Mushroom Queen pre-

sided over a mushroom-picking competition. On thestreet below them, a group of male Mexican workersstood alongside mushroom beds set up for the contest,patiently listening to an announcer who proclaimed thesuccess of the Mushroom Festival. Mushroom farmersorganized the Festival, which included a parade, tours ofmushroom farms, a street fair, a beauty contest, anddinners for civic leaders, to educate the wider commu-nity about the importance of mushroom production inthe region. In a ritual closing that an anthropologistcould not have more perfectly scripted, male Mexicanmigrant workers were featured in the Festival only at theclose picking mushrooms with the giant mushroom andan Anglo Queen presiding over them.

Luis Tlaseca,1 who stood beside me videotaping thecontest, had just participated with a group of maleworkers in the Festival’s main parade to protest the Fes-tival and demonstrate the workers’ growing power as alabor movement.2 The group of 25 blue jeans–clad maleworkers carrying a shrine to La Virgen de Guadalupe(Our Lady of Guadalupe)3 was out of place among themushroom floats, beauty queens, and high school

marching bands. After marching in and videotaping theparade, Tlaseca set out to do interviews and produce hisown video on Mexican participation in the Festival.

Tlaseca migrated to Pennsylvania from the state ofPuebla, Mexico, in 1978 and worked as a mushroompicker for 15 years before becoming president of theKaolin Worker’s Union (KWU).4 Like many migrants whoarrived during the 1970s and 1980s, he was learningEnglish but spoke mainly Spanish (his children were bi-lingual). As part of his organizing efforts, he has soughtto document the plight of Mexican migrants and Mexi-can American workers in the region. His videos havefocused mainly on the experiences of men because themembership of the KWU is comprised of mushroompickers, a job that until recently was held only by males.5

Tlaseca filmed the Mushroom Festival with a PanasonicVHS camera. He did not have formal training in videoproduction.

In 1994, I was uninterested in visual ethnography.I did not find anything particularly interesting aboutTlaseca’s attempts to film the Festival. I made a copy ofhis footage to write about the participation of Mexicanworkers in the Mushroom Festival. I also used clips of hisvideos in my classes. As I became more interested in vi-deo production, partially due to Tlaseca’s influence,I began to view Tlaseca’s videos as more than an audio-visual aid.6 In what follows, using Tlaseca’s 1998 video

Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 24, Issue 2, pp. 133–147, ISSN 1058-7187, online ISSN 1548-7458. & 2008 by the American Anthropological Association. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-7458.2008.00010.x.

project as a starting point, I untangle the various per-sonal, practical, and theoretical issues that have led meto reflect upon the possibilities of video for representingMexican migration to the United States. In particular, Iam interested in how notions of cultural citizenship caninform the theory and politics of such representations.

In doing so, I take as a point of departure Jay Ruby’s(2007:5) and Sarah Pink’s (2006:15) call for new formsof theorizing visual ethnography and bringing the anal-ysis of visual representation into greater dialog with thewider discipline.7 Specifically, I show how the concept ofcultural citizenship can provide a point of departure forsuch dialogue. Here, I am especially taken by how Tla-seca interpreted the video as showing that workers didnot feel as if they fully belonged at the Festival, but ra-ther saw it as mere entertainment, fun, a distraccion.8

Mexican Migration and the Politics ofBelonging

The first group of Mexican farmworkers arrived inChester County in 1964 from Michigan, where theyworked as braceros.9 With the end of the braceroprogram,10 a group of four Mexicans, ironically on theadvice of Puerto Rican farm laborers, set out for Penn-sylvania. I say ironically because this was the beginningof the Mexican migrant pipeline and the displacement ofPuerto Rican laborers by Mexican migrants (Smith1988:14). Estimating the current size of the Mexicanpopulation within this area is difficult. Most of the pop-ulation in Chester County resides on the Route 1corridor, in the towns of Kennett Square, Toughkena-mon, Avondale, and West Grove. Chester County, whichis located in southeastern Pennsylvania about an houreast of Philadelphia, is a mixed region of high-incomehousing developments, small towns, and farms. Accord-ing to U.S. Census statistics, between 1980 and 1990, the‘‘Hispanic’’11 population in Chester County rose 49.3percent to about 8,500 residents. Current (2007) esti-mates place the number of ‘‘Hispanics’’ in ChesterCounty at 20,000.12 This figure is no doubt low and doesnot take into account the large number of mushroomworkers who live in the city of Wilmington, Delaware,where low-income housing is more readily available.

By all accounts the Mexican population has shiftedfrom mainly young males who lived in barracks in the

1970s and 1980s to families in the 1990s. With the 1986passage of IRCA (the Immigration Reform and ControlAct) and the legalization of many migrants in the 1980s,many workers left the barracks to search for betterhousing.13 And, as more workers have left the mush-room camps, a major issue has become providinghousing for workers. On the one hand, this has includedcommunities openly protesting that they do not wantMexicans living in their neighborhoods. On the other,mushroom company owners have sought ways to main-tain a loyal workforce that will not leave the area. Thisattempt to maintain loyalty has included fostering asense of belonging among the workers by encouragingthe expression of Mexican cultural traditions. TheJournal of the American Mushroom Institute emphasizesthe importance of using culture to instill a sense ofbelonging:

Because many of your immigrant workers are faraway from their families and friends, it is importantthat a sense of belonging be developed for them.Recreational activities should be set up that incor-porate their culture and give them a sense ofcommunity. Examples of this are Mexican Christ-mas parties, Saint’s Day celebrations, and picnics orparties utilizing Mexican customs. As most workersdon’t have families to go home to after work themore programs to occupy their recreational timeyou develop the better and more loyal your em-ployees will be. Since many workers are now legalfor the first time it also is a good idea to assist themwith as much life skills assistance as you can. Byassisting your employees in learning about suchissues as banking, health care, and housing, theybecome adjusted quicker toward the community.The big advantage is that they become more com-fortable in the area and are less likely to migrate toother locations because they have no connections inthe area they live. Also, as in other situations, if youas an employer don’t address these problems yourworkers will go to other sources for solutions thatmay not be sympathetic to the grower. [Neu 1988:9]

In the late 1980s, this politics of belonging wasreflected in a number of ways, including hiring a‘‘Hispanic’’ ombudsman14 to facilitate communicationwith workers and placing shrines of La Virgen de Gua-dalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) in mushroom farms.15

Miguel Dıaz-Barriga, Department of Anthropology at Swarthmore College, has extensive research experience on social movements inLatin America, Latin American news coverage, and Chicano/a culture and politics. Dıaz-Barriga’s essays on Mexican and MexicanAmerican culture focus on major concepts that define class, gender, and race relations, including verguenza (shame), La Virgen deGuadalupe, necesidad (need), and relajo (joking). Diaz-Barriga is currently working with Margaret E. Dorsey on the impact of theconstruction of the border wall in south Texas on Mexican American culture and politics.

134 VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW Volume 24 Number 2 Fall 2008

At the same time, the sponsors of the Mushroom Festival,which included the American Mushroom Institute (AMI),began to develop ways to integrate the Mexican com-munity into the Festival. Indeed, belonging is also ahegemonic project.

The Mushroom Festival

Chester County civic leaders organized the MushroomFestival in 1980 to emphasize and educate the publicabout the importance of mushroom production in the re-gion (Philadelphia Inquirer 1981, 1985). In 1986, the AMI,the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce, andlocal growers incorporated a new organization, the Ches-ter County Mushroom Festival. According to one grower,‘‘Last fall, a few of us got together and realized that therewere plenty of other kinds of festivals around, like applesand tomatoes . . . . We figured we should be able to educatepeople about this unique industry and introduce them toall that this area offers’’ (Philadelphia Inquirer 1986a,1986b). The Festival became a ten-day event, which in-cluded the annual Mushroom Recipe Cookoff, a seminaron cooking with mushrooms, a dinner dance, and thecrowning of the Mushroom Queen. As part of the 1986Festival, a social service agency, La Comunidad Hispana(The Hispanic Community), sponsored a Caribbean Festi-val. This Festival, which was mainly a dance, was areflection of the history of Puerto Ricans in the region and,at the time, represented the only attempt to integrate‘‘Hispanic’’ culture into the Festival.

In 1989, partially as a result of the growers’ newemphasis on the politics of belonging, the ChesterCounty Mushroom Festival highlighted the role of ‘‘His-panics’’ in mushroom production. Event organizers flewa mariachi band in from Mexico City to perform duringthe street fair (Philadelphia Inquirer 1989). To increase‘‘Hispanic’’ participation, event organizers also held amushroom-picking contest that pitted Mexican crewsfrom different companies against each other. Latino/aleaders in the region immediately criticized the mush-room-picking contest. In a 1989 Philadelphia Inquirerarticle, Sergio Bustos reported that the contest was a slapin the face to Latinos/as because it reinforced the notionthat mexicanos were in the region only to be low-wagelaborers. In the same article, an owner of a mushroomcompany countered: ‘‘The contest was to showcase thehighly skilled capabilities of the farm workers in a publicatmosphere . . . If they are ashamed of these skills, I feelsorry for them’’ (Philadelphia Inquirer 1989).

After 1989, both the Philadelphia Inquirer andKennett Paper provided positive coverage of the beautypageant and mushroom-picking contest as key events in

the Festival. In 1994, when I first attended the event, theFestival ended with the Mushroom Queen being photo-graphed with the winners of the mushroom-pickingcontest. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the eventin the following way:

The public got to pick the mushroom beds after thecontest and fill paper bags with free fungus. . . . [T]he23-year-old Mushroom Queen posed for photo-graphs with the first-, second-, and third-placewinners. She drew applause after she expressed herthanks and wished everyone a good time in perfectSpanish. ‘‘I am developing quite a love for mush-rooms,’’ she told reporters. ‘‘And I’ve already meta few senators and congressmen.’’ [PhiladelphiaInquirer 1994:CC03]

The winner of the mushroom contest told reportersabout his technique, demonstrating how he shaved offthe stems with a knife and selected which mushroomswere ready to be picked. Among the judges of the contestwas a mushroom company supervisor who was knownas the first Mexican immigrant to work in ChesterCounty mushroom farms. For the most part (with theexception of Bustos’s earlier coverage), the press re-ported on the growers’ politics of belonging, whichsupported expressions and integration of Mexican cul-ture. The press made no mention of the workers whomarched with La Virgen de Guadalupe in the main pa-rade. Tlaseca was aware of this lack of press coverage.

The path through which Tlaseca arrived in Pennsyl-vania and became active in union organizing andfilming was circuitous. He grew up in a small village inthe state of Puebla, Mexico, where he left school when hewas 11 in order to work picking tomatoes. In 1978, whenhe was 16, he crossed the border in order to earn moneyworking in Pennsylvania. He would wake at 3:30 a.m.with other workers and walk from his substandardapartment to work at Kaolin Mushroom Farms. In the1990s, Tlaseca became active in union organizing and in1993 was elected president of the Kaolin Worker’s Un-ion. He has regularly used video in his organizing work,including showing video clips at meetings of workersand supporters. He has, for example, an extensive col-lection of videotapes of the 1993 strike at Kaolin. Tlasecaalso developed a keen sense of preserving the history andarchives of this union struggle. In fact, students in one ofmy Chicana/o studies classes helped to organize Tla-seca’s vast collection of photographs, newspaper articles,memos, and videos.

When Tlaseca took his video camera to the Mush-room Festival, he sought to counteract the sense ofbelonging that was being fostered by the mushroom in-dustry as well as to represent the workers’ perceptions of

Distraccion DIAZ-BARRIGA 135

the Festival. When I asked him why he filmed theMushroom Festival, he emphasized that he wanted toshow how workers ‘‘felt’’ about participating:

Dıaz-Barriga: Why did you decide to film the Festi-val?Tlaseca: In reality I did it (made the video)because I wanted to see how the workers wereparticipating in the Festival, how they felt, for thereason that the press widely publicizes the event butdoes not take into account the workers’ participa-tion, how they felt, how they participated.16

In this sense, Tlaseca’s questioning of workers at-tending the Festival, asking how they felt being at theMushroom Festival, is part of this wider politics of be-longingFthe politics of what we now call in theliterature, cultural citizenship.

Belonging and Cultural Citizenship

Understandings of cultural citizenship have focusedboth on the politics of difference (Flores and Benmayor1997) and on the performative dimensions of belonging(Holston and Appadurai 1999). In what follows, Idescribe how both these understandings of culturalcitizenship employ ‘‘space’’ as a guiding metaphor forunderstanding the political dimensions of citizenship.This understanding of social space has led researchersto focus on how space (e.g., a plaza or a worksite) iscontested, redefined, and/or maintained. In contrast, Iargue for greater attention to the ways in which culturalcitizenship is a visceral experience by focusing on‘‘structures of belonging.’’ These ‘‘structures of belong-ing,’’ I will show, are part of wider structures of feelingthat are conditioned by modes of production and power.Structures of feeling, as described by Raymond Williams(1977), are implicated in and express both hegemonicand emergent discourses and practices. I will elucidateWilliams’s concept below. For now, I want to emphasizethat the growers’ attempts to foster a sense of belongingis a hegemonic practice that implicates, at the level ofeveryday experience, structures of feeling.

Cultural citizenship has become a central concept inanthropological studies of Latino identity in the UnitedStates. In his Culture and Truth: The Remaking of SocialAnalysis (1989), Renato Rosaldo first introduced theconcept to highlight notions of cultural difference andvisibility. In devising the notion of cultural citizenship,Rosaldo sought to transcend legalistic notions of citi-zenship, as sets of rights, by also drawing attention to thecomplex perceptions behind the meaning of being a cit-izen. Following Rosaldo’s lead, subsequent writing on

cultural citizenship has focused on ‘‘space’’ (transna-tional, deterritorialized, etc.) as an allegory for exploringhow cultural citizenship is articulated and negotiated. InLatino Cultural Citizenship: Claiming Identity, Space,and Rights, William Flores and Rina Benmayor empha-size:

Cultural citizenship can be thought of as a broadrange of activities of everyday life through whichLatinos and other groups claim space in societyand eventually claim rights. Although it involvesdifference, it is not as if Latinos seek out suchdifference. Rather, the motivation is simply to createspace where the people feel ‘‘safe’’ and ‘‘at home,’’where they feel a sense of belonging and member-ship. Typically, claimed space is not perceived byLatinos as ‘‘different.’’ The difference is perceived bythe dominant society, which finds such space ‘‘for-eign’’ and even threatening. [Flores and Benmayor1997:15]

This understanding of difference is evident in theworkers’ participation in the Festival because, as I pointout in another paper, their marching with La Virgen deGuadalupe is not to express difference but rather is astatement about respect and belonging (Dıaz-Barriga2000). Likewise, Tlaseca’s videotaping of the Festivalis not about expressing mexicanos’ culturally encodedperspectives on the Festival but showing how ownersand the press are articulating and fostering a false senseof belonging among workers.

James Holston and Arjun Appadurai define theconcept of cultural citizenship as the ‘‘moral and per-formative dimensions of membership that define themeanings and practices of belonging in society’’ (Hol-ston and Appadurai 1999:14). These ‘‘dimensions ofmembership,’’ according to the authors, are expressedthrough the uses and forms of public space that serve asarenas for (a) performances of citizenship, (b) the con-flicts of transnationalism, and (c) the breakdowns ofcivility and nationality. At a general level, Holston andAppadurai’s understandings of cultural citizenship areapplicable to the workers’ protest at the Mushroom Fes-tival. For one, the Mushroom Festival, which occurs onMain Street in downtown Kennett Square, can be read asa performance of citizenship in that its events enact so-cial relations and reconstitute the growers’ vision ofcommunity. For another, the workers’ 1994 protest at theFestival reflects conflicts of transnationalism by chal-lenging the ways in which migrant labor is integratedinto and (mis)represented in the Festival. Finally, theFestival’s organizers viewed the workers’ protest as un-civil because it introduced ‘‘politics’’ into a ‘‘social’’event. Indeed, the Kaolin Worker’s Union’s initial


attempt to participate in the Festival was denied by theFestival’s sponsors on the grounds that workers werepoliticizing the parade.

The concept of ‘‘space’’ in these understandings ofcultural citizenship plays a key role in identifying pointsof conflict and contestation. Underlying these intersec-tions is a sense of belonging which folds feelings andcultural practices into the dynamics of how ‘‘space’’ iscontested and transformed into place. Belonging, there-fore, plays a central role in understandings of culturalcitizenship because it links everyday experience to placeand the politics of being a citizen. These ‘‘structures ofbelonging,’’ as I suggested earlier, engage wider struc-tures of feeling. I employ Raymond Williams’s notion ofstructures of feeling because it emphasizes how emo-tions shape, reflect, and transform social relations. Assuch, ‘‘structures of feeling’’ interweave thought andfeeling, ‘‘not feeling against thought, but thought as feltand feeling as thought: practical consciousness of apresent kind, in a living and inter-relating community’’(Williams 1977:132). They represent the experience ofbelonging, not simply as an individual experience, but asa collective experience that reinforces and expressesstructures and relations of power. These structures offeeling emerge from productive forces and are implicatedin cultural hegemony, resistance, and accommodation.For example, as I mentioned above, the ways in which theAMI has sought to maintain worker loyalty represent ahegemonic element in these structures of belonging.Based on these considerations, I can offer the following:

Cultural citizenship refers to the meanings andpractices associated with structures of belonging inlocal, national, and global cultures. Structures ofbelonging engage a wider set of structures of feel-ingFat the level of lived experienceFand as suchare embedded in hegemonic and emergent social re-lations and practices. These practices are intertwinedwith legal struggles over citizenship, attempts totransform space into place, and class conflict.

By placing ‘‘structures of belonging’’ at the center ofthe analysis, I explore how belonging is ‘‘felt’’ in every-day life and the ways that its meaning is articulated andcontested. This definition is derived from Tlaseca’s pro-ject of representing the ‘‘feeling of being an immigrant,’’and, as I will now argue, can be part of a rethinking oftraditional genres of video production.

Genres of Video Production?

Within visual anthropology, traditional analysis of Tla-seca’s video project would include questions of genre,

reception and distribution, and the politics of represen-tation.17 At the outset I should note that Tlaseca’s projectdoes not fit easily into received notions of genre withinvisual ethnography (i.e., realist, indigenous, reflexive,autoethnography, etc.). Tlaseca’s project roughly ap-proximates notions of indigenous ethnography because heis making a video about members of his ‘‘own’’ group.However, because Tlaseca is not filming in his ‘‘own’’community (because he is a migrant), his work is nottechnically indigenous ethnography. The question thenbecomes how do we conceptualize video production bymigrants, and in this case, how do migrants representidentity politics in the United States? The answer to thisquestion, of course, must partially rely on an understand-ing of the intentions of the filmmaker as well as thereception of her or his videos within migrant communities.

One way of rethinking these conceptions is to notethat traditional understandings of indigenous ethnog-raphy do not capture the multiplex ways that migrantsreconfigure identity and politics (Smith and Guarnizo1998:20). For many visual anthropologists, indigenousvideo production means the production of culturallyunique forms (i.e., non-Western) of visual representationbased on indigenous peoples gaining access to videoequipment and training (see Ruby 2007:236–238). Forthe most part, discussion of indigenous filmmaking hasexplored issues of cultural authenticity, the influenceof Western production standards, and control overthe production process. For example, studies of videoproduction by the Kayapo have focused on the abilityof indigenous filmmakers to produce a distinctive non-Western aesthetic, cultural authenticity, and the powerdynamics behind video production (Conklin 1995;Crawford 1996; Moore 1994). Yet, as Hanne Veber(1998) argues, and Terrence Turner’s work suggests(1991, 1995), indigenous activism is not so much aboutescaping or playing into Western ideals and standards asit is about how social actors have transformed them-selves into political actors (Veber 1998:385). Thisreorientation of analysis, as Veber emphasizes, raises themore pertinent issue of ‘‘how we can recognize anddescribe the muddy waters of intercultural intrusioninvolving differently positioned groups vying for con-trol of the socioeconomic and territorial spaces wheretheir lives are lived and cultures forged’’ (Veber1998:389).

The problem, and here I agree with Faye Ginsburg’sanalysis (1994:6), is viewing the filmmaker as a repre-sentative and/or spokesperson for her or his larger groupor culture. As Renato Rosaldo has succinctly argued forsocial analysis in general, we now live in a world ofcrisscrossing cultures where individuals are no longerrepositories of self-contained culture but rather multi-


plex and creative (1989:217). For ‘‘indigenous’’ film-making, MacDougal makes a similar point:

Its producers are increasingly addressing interna-tional audiences and situating themselves at thecultural crossroads, where there is a constant fluxand interpenetration of cultural forces. Indigenousmedia is also entering the mass media, and viceversa. The indigenous person, along with the ethnicand diaspora person, is no longer contained within asocial enclave, nor necessarily considers himself orherself a bonded representative of a cultural andpolitical group.

All of these factors place indigenous mediaproducers and artists in an intercultural and inter-textual position. Their work is both a product of, andcommentary on, contesting cultural identities.[MacDougall 1994:284–285]

Indeed, Tlaseca’s video project represents a con-testing of power relations and culture and not arepresentation of a community by an individual whosees himself or herself as a ‘‘bonded representative’’ ofthe group. Rather, Tlaseca’s video is an attempt to chal-lenge everyday understandings and to counter thepress’s (dominant) representation of the Festival. In aca-demic terms, Tlaseca’s video seeks not to allegorizeworkers’ understanding of the event but rather, as I willshow, disrupt their collective reading of participatingand belonging in the Festival. As such, Tlaseca’s video isnot so much about representing the ‘‘natives’ ’’ point ofview but rather about jarring the links between visceralexperience and these wider structures of belonging andpower. This is Tlaseca’s style of filmmaking.18

Structures of Belonging and Luis Tlaseca’sVideo

Tlaseca’s video of the 1994 Mushroom Festival isroughly divided into three parts. The first focuses onthe mushroom workers’ protest. In the second, Tlasecarandomly interviews migrant workers observing theMushroom Festival Street Fair, and in the third, themushroom-picking contest, he interviews contest par-ticipants. In the first part, the filming starts at the stagingarea of the parade where a small group of mushroomworkers are gathered with a banner of Emiliano Zapata,the Mexican revolutionary leader, and a shrine to OurLady of Guadalupe. Because Tlaseca was active in orga-nizing and participating in the protest he asked a friendto film.19 The cameraperson took special delight in con-trasting the blue jeans–clad workers engaged in politicalprotest with a group of Anglo men dressed as U.S. revo-

lutionary war soldiers. As the workers waited for theirturn to enter the parade, Marıa Martınez talked abouthow the workers, who were responsible for producingthe wealth of the region, have been excluded both fromthe Festival and the larger community. Behind her agroup of Anglo baton twirlers, dressed in tights and se-quins, practiced their routine.

Marıa, who had recently graduated from a localcollege, played a key role in organizing workers’ partici-pation in the Mushroom Festival. She proved invaluablein providing me with more background on the organi-zation of the protest. Her comments are importantbecause they were made both to the workers and to thetwo video cameras that were being used to record theevent. In her comments, she portrays the protest as a callfor demanding that workers be respected and that theirrole in producing the wealth of the community be rec-ognized.

For all of you who are accompanying us today (the17th of September, a Saturday, for the festivities ofthe mushroom parade) we want to tell you that all ofthe people gathered here today are participating, forthe first time in the history of these festivities, in themushroom parade. We demand that the contributionof Mexicans to the functioning of this industry berecognized. The workers are the backbone, the oneswho pick the harvest, and the ones that bring in themillions of dollars to the owners that make possiblethese types of festivals. For the first time they havegiven us the opportunity to participate in this pa-rade. We know that the place of the [workers] shouldbe recognized, this is only just. However, we areparticipating here today so that this becomes part ofthe historical record. We do not participate in sup-port of the Mushroom Festival, where we havealways been excluded. We participate to protest anddemand to be recognized and that the work of theworkers for the mushroom industry be respected.20

As the workers begin to march in the parade thecamera follows them, focusing mainly on a group of fourmen carrying the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Asthe marchers pass through downtown Kennett Square apan of the parade observers shows a number of peoplewith puzzled expressions on their faces while a loneAnglo middle-aged bearded man claps enthusiastically.

In the next part of the video Tlaseca, now filming,walks around the street festival interviewing workersabout the Mushroom Festival. Tlaseca first focuses on ayoung Mexican man and his two children, dressed inpink dresses, standing at the edge of a crowd watching ajuggler. The man seems timid about bringing his chil-dren to the front of the Anglo crowd and takes turns


picking them up so that they can see the performance. Inanother sequence, a group of workers stands silently andpassively against a building watching the crowd. LuisTlaseca, as he films, questions a young mexicano abouthow he feels being at the Festival, as the Rolling Stones’‘‘Brown Sugar’’ blares in the background.

L.T.: I wanted to ask you, how do you feel being atthe Mushroom Festival?

FWell, at times, we feel fine, right? Becausehappiness is when everyone is together and thewhole gang is here. It is the one time each year . . . itis when the gabachos (whites) and our countrymenjoin together.

L.T.: Do you think that (pause) they take you intoaccount in the Festival?

FWe are the ones who do the work in the mush-room farms. I would like them to do it [the Festival]more often. They are probably realizing that thework we do is very difficult for us.21

These answers are ironic. For one, the intervieweeexpresses a degree of uncertainty over whether or not‘‘they . . . are realizing’’ how difficult the work is onmushroom farms. For another, the use of the wordgabacho, a playful and sometimes derogatory word forwhites, adds ambiguity to his emphasis on togetherness.Finally, his position standing on the edge of the Festival,with slumped shoulders against a wall, and his knowinggrin while speaking to Tlaseca highlight the ambiguityof his participation. When Tlaseca asks two other youngmen about how they like the Festival, they shrug theirshoulders and say fine while grinning at the camera. Anolder man leaning against a wall, passively observingthe Anglo crowd participating in the street fair, answersTlaseca straight away that he feels fine at the Festival.

In the last sequence, Tlaseca films the mushroom-picking contest, including preparations for the contest,the welcoming speech by the Mushroom Queen, and thepresentation of the winners to the Mushroom Queen.Throughout the contest, Tlaseca changes camera angles,trying to get shots of the crowd (about 200 people,mainly mexicanos) and contestants. Unfortunately, thezoom function in his camera was broken so he could notget a close-up shot of the stage where the giant walkingmushroom, mushroom queen, and contest winners hadgathered. After the contest he sought out the winners forinterviews. The third-place winner, a young man, re-sponds to Tlaseca’s question while grinning, ‘‘It feelsgood to be here. Nobody wanted to come.’’22 The youngman says this non sequitur with a large grin while notingthat the bosses required workers to participate.

Because Tlaseca was attempting to show that work-ers did not feel that they belonged at the Festival, Iquestioned him about the workers’ responses:

D.-B.: Why did you ask the workers who werestanding watching the Festival if they felt comfort-able?

L.T.: (pause) What I wanted was to show the otherside of the farmers’ publicity. In these Festivalsmany participate out of distraccion, because thereare no other activities in this county, no Mexicancultural events . . . I asked them how they felt toparticipate and what you see in the video is that theyare participating for entertainment (distraerse), be-cause this is like a party.

D.-B.: But they said they felt comfortable, did theynot?

L.T.: Yes, they felt comfortable but there is a wayof interpreting this, that they said they felt com-fortable. As I just said they understood this activity,as we say in our culture, as a fiesta, a get together(convivio), no, not as a get together (convivio)23 butas a distraction (distraccion).24

The distinction that Tlaseca draws between the Fes-tival being a convivio and a distraccion is an attempt tocharacterize workers’ halfhearted participation in theFestival. Both words imply ways of enjoying oneself. AsTlaseca uses the terms, however, they have differentmeanings. For Tlaseca, distraccion implies participationbecause there are no other alternatives. By saying theevent is not a convivio, he stresses that while the Festivalis a form of entertainment, it does not promote commu-nity and togetherness. In doing so he moves the meaningof distraccion to a more general understanding of dis-traction as ambivalent participation in public events andspectacles.

In this sense, for Tlaseca, distraccion is a centralexpression of participation in public events and festi-vals, especially among members of marginalized groups.Such a theoretical move on Tlaseca’s part makes dis-traccion not only a way for understanding workers’participation in the Festival but also a lens for interpret-ing the Festival itself. It is worth dwelling on this pointfor a moment. Research on distraction has either focusedon it as a mode through which we experience modernity(Taussig 1990) or as a mode of resistance (see Wagner-Pacifici 2000). Michael Taussig focuses on rerouting so-cial analysis away from an allegorical mode that treatsrituals, films, etcetera, as surface events that require de-ciphering for deeper meanings. Such decoding, Taussigargues, assumes a ‘‘contemplative individual when itshould instead, assume a distracted collective reading ofwhat I call, by way of shorthand, a tactile eye’’ (Taussig


1990:151–152). Such a reading can probably be appliedto both Anglos and Mexicans attending the MushroomFestival because their experience of the parade and streetfair is for the most part tactile and distracted. In thislarger sense, one could argue that the Festival as a wholeserves as a distraction for the entire community. How-ever, as Tlaseca’s discussion reminds us, distraction is aconcept that is culturally embedded and the experienceof modernity for different social actors, such as mi-grants, can take on different meanings. Indeed, themeanings of distraccion and distraerse are associatedwith entertainment and amusing oneself. The opposite ofdistraction that Tlaseca proposes is not contemplationbut rather entertainment that builds community. Thechallenge, then, is not to return entirely to an allegoricalmode by emphasizing culturally distinct understandingsof distraction but rather to engage a double visionthrough which allegory and distraction are configuredthrough specific social experiences.

The other challenge is not to view distraction simplyas a point of resistance but also to understand its role inundermining hermeneutically sealed explanations andrepresentations of events. Robin Wagner-Pacifici (2000)has examined representations of surrender which, inpaintings such as Velazquez’s ‘‘The Surrender of Breda,’’include distracted participants who are staring intospace or back at the viewer of the painting. Wagner-Pacifici suggests that such distraction makes the vieweraware of the multiple meanings of surrender and its‘‘existential unfixability’’ (2000:17).

Many of the soldiers seem distracted, looking out atus, talking to each other, looking back towards thescene of the anachronistically ongoing war. Many ofthese witnesses somehow resist their total involve-ment and alignment toward that neutralizing, flat,center space where the two generals meet. And it isprecisely here, in the noticing of all the distractionand dis-alignment, that it is necessary not to lookaway ourselves, not to get distracted away from thedistraction. For in the distractionsFthe turns of thehead, eyes, and trunk, lies a secret of surrender and,perhaps, of its existential unfixability.

Such a reading of the Mushroom Festival, if one canimagine a painting of the Festival which would includedistracted workers in the background as well as staringback at the viewer, would serve a similar purpose inmaking ‘‘us’’ contemplate the existential unfixability ofcultural citizenship. The point is worth making becausethe specific meanings of cultural citizenship can bevague and malleable.

Editing and Screening the Mushroom FestivalVideo

In 1997, I started to learn basic editing. Through mydiscussions with Tlaseca we began to imagine the possi-bilities of making a film together. I obtained and madecopies of Tlaseca’s tapes and offered to make a shortedited version of the workers’ participation in theMushroom Festival. Part of the reason that Tlaseca wasinterested in having this video made was that he wantedto use it in presentations that he was giving on a regularbasis (including at Swarthmore College). The overridingconcern for producing this video, however, was to edu-cate workers about the organizing efforts started in 1993and 1994. This project was especially important giventhat Kaolin management had legally challenged the va-lidity of the Union elections. The process of workingthrough the court system, including various appeals thatlanded the case in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,would take five years, from 1993 to 1998.25 Manage-ment not only challenged the election results but alsobegan to dismiss or refuse to rehire workers who hadsupported the Union (Kennett Paper 1997, PhiladelphiaInquirer 1998, Unidad Latina 1996). Management alsoincreased wages five percent and provided basic healthcare benefits.26 Many of the new workers at the plantneither knew the history of the Union’s struggle nor thatthe strike started because management had attempted toincrease productivity by giving workers more tasks, suchas cleaning mushroom beds in addition to pickingmushrooms. For Tlaseca, and other members of theUnion, it was important to make a video in order todemonstrate the strength of and support for the Unionand to educate others about its historical development,aims, and strategies.

In addition to these goals, I also wanted to produce aversion that could interest workers in participating in alarger video project. To this end I invited Marıa Martınezto return to Kennett Square for a few weeks. With thehelp of a graduate student in visual anthropology atTemple University, we produced a short edited version ofthe video that included Martınez’s explanation of whyworkers were participating in the march. On July 1,1997, Tlaseca organized a screening of the video for anumber of workers who were among the strongest par-ticipants in the Union. At the time, the Union was usingworkshops as a means to engage and educate workersabout their rights. We also made copies of the video,which we distributed with the hope that workers wouldshow these videos to family members and friends. Theediting was very basic, reflecting our skills. The videostarted with Martınez giving a speech about the workers’participation in the Festival. It then showed the workers


at the beginning of the parade and later marchingthrough downtown Kennett Square.

During the video, workers talked about friends andfamily who participated in the march, many of whomwere now living in Mexico. They also talked about theUnion and how workers who were active had been fired.After viewing the video, the group of 15 workers,encouraged by Tlaseca, talked about the workers’ par-ticipation in the march. The workers discussed a varietyof issues, including the fear that many workers have ofparticipating in the Union. One worker wanted to knowwhy they did not participate in the Festival every year,which led to a discussion of how celebrations are con-trolled by those in power. Another union member spokein a passionate tone about the need for more organizing,emphasizing that workers should stop thinking thatthey will not gain anything by union organizing.The discussion also focused on the two major issuesfacing workers: (1) measuring the quantity of mush-rooms picked, and (2) rehiring policies when a workerreturns from Mexico. The first issue centers on the dis-crepancy over how the quantity of mushrooms picked ismeasured because workers are paid a flat rate for the firsteight boxes picked in an hour and then paid more forevery box picked over this amount. The problem is thateach box should hold ten pounds of mushrooms butworkers argue that the boxes often contain 12–15pounds of mushrooms. Indeed, one of the major de-mands of the Union is to change how the quantity ofmushrooms picked is measured.27 The second issue, be-ing able to return to Mexico to visit family, has been apoint of contention between workers and mushroomgrowers. On the one hand, many workers funnel theirearnings back to their families in Mexico. Often thismoney is used not only to provide for family membersin Mexico but also to start a business and/or to constructa home.28

At the time, I did not imagine this presentation ofthe video as an opportunity to engage in a receptionstudy because our aim was primarily to provide a work-shop for workers. Reception studies within anthropologyhave focused on whether or not ethnographic films re-inforce or challenge racism (such as studies of Asch’sand Chagnon’s films on the Yanomamo, see Martınez1990; Pack 1997) and on how film and video has beenreceived among the urban poor in India (Dickey 1993)and indigenous communities in Australia (Michaels1987). Certainly, as Ruby notes, reception studies shouldbe guided by the notion that although ‘‘the producers’intentions and the way in which they construct the textare important, it is the conditions of exhibition andthe viewers that ultimately determine the meaning ofthe film’’ (Ruby 2007:192). In the case of Tlaseca’s video,

the meanings given by viewers of the video point to thecomplex intersections of class, transnational identity,and cultural citizenship.

After viewing the video, neither the workers norTlaseca raised the issue of distraccion. Instead, workersfocused on the difficult issues confronting union orga-nizing and their attempts to participate not in theFestival but rather in transnational migrant flows. At ageneral level, the ability to return to Mexico for a fewweeks every year speaks to the notion of flexible citi-zenship but places it within a class dynamic. Aihwa Ong(1997) coined the term ‘‘flexible citizenship’’ to refer ‘‘tothe strategies and effects of mobile managers, techno-crats, and professionals seeking to both circumvent andbenefit from different nation–state regimes by selectingdifferent sites for investments, work, and family reloca-tion’’ (1999:112). Her study is clearly about elites who arefluidly responding to economic and cultural globaliza-tion. Jonathan Inda has sought to expand the conceptto include the ways in which working-class migrantshave sought to strategize in transcultural zones (Inda2000:93). Inda’s study focuses on individuals who havecrossed the U.S.–Mexico border on a number of occa-sions (both legally and illegally) and who are attemptingto maintain fluency in both Spanish and English. Indeed,the students he interviewed see being bilingual as animportant cultural and economic tool.

In this context, the changes in work rules that wouldallow workers more time to remain in Mexico, for eco-nomic and social reasons, speak to this attempt toarticulate a notion of cultural citizenship not simply in anational but a transnational social space. Here, class dy-namicsFthe fact that workers cannot return to Mexicowith the security of having a job when they returnFare a major stumbling block to the articulation of suchcitizenship. Indeed, workers’ discussion of being ableto return to Mexico is contextualized in their ‘‘fear’’ ofchallenging the owners’ policies and their understandingof the risks of union organizing. When I asked Tlasecaabout the screening, he emphasized that it was importantthat new workers see that it is possible for them to orga-nize and demand that rules for rehiring workersreturning from Mexico be changed.

Finally, I should note that I cannot make any claimsthat this video project and screening made any differ-ence in terms of the power dynamics between workersand owners. We did, however, have a good discussion ofthe exclusion of workers from the Mushroom Festival,the challenges that workers face in changing rehiringpractices, and the risks of union organizing. In general,Tlaseca has found the video to be useful in rallying sup-port for the Kaolin Worker’s Union and expressing the‘‘feeling’’ of being a migrant:


D.-B.: Whom have you shown the video to?L.T.: I have shown it at universities, to Professor

Dıaz-Barriga, to students, and to the workers them-selves with the goal of showing them the other sideof the coin . . . There is no communication betweenthe owner and worker. Because of this I have shownthis [video] to various persons who are looking foralternatives, to teach them with this video the reality,the ‘‘feeling’’ of being a worker.29

At the end of the interview, when I asked Tlaseca ifhe had any questions for me, he mentioned that hewanted to make one thing clear, that even though manyMexicans were migrating and had like himself becomelegal citizens, they were still being discriminatedagainst.30 ‘‘We seek equality as Americans, equality ofcommunication and an end to discrimination.’’31 Indeed,for Tlaseca, the struggle for not only legal but also cul-tural citizenship continues.

Conclusions: The Possibilities ofVideo Production

Tlaseca’s filming of the 1994 Mushroom Festival andsubsequent projects dovetail with theoretical concernsover cultural citizenship and what I have termed morewidely, structures of belonging. As I began to take upvideo production in 1997, Tlaseca encouraged me to de-velop video projects with him. In 1997, I edited a shortsegment of the 1994 Festival protest tape and showed itat a meeting of KWU workers. I also worked with Tlasecaand two Swarthmore students on a short piece on thehistory of labor organizing in the region that we alsoshared with members of the KWU. Tlaseca and I are nowlooking at ways to collaborate on a film about the his-tory of migration to the region that will take belongingas its major theme. This perspective has also influenced afilm that I am now completing, ‘‘La Virgen de Guadalupein Pennsylvania.’’ The film looks at how the Mexicancommunity has celebrated La Virgen (Our Lady), andhow, and why, mushroom growers have encourageddevotion to Her, even constructing shrines to Her inmushroom houses and labor camps.

Tlaseca’s project does not fit accepted visual an-thropological genres because video production bymigrants remains undertheorized. On the one hand, hisvideo represents an attempt to engage a larger politics ofending discrimination and union organizing. On theother, his video is not so much about representingthe ‘‘natives’’’ point of view as it is about jarring thelinks between visceral experience and wider structuresof belonging and power. Tlaseca’s interpretation ofdistraccion with respect to the workers’ participation in

the Festival, that it is not a get-together (convivio), isa subtle attempt to interpret workers’ leaning againstwalls, lifting children at the edges of crowds, andparticipating half-heartedly in a mushroom-pickingcontest. In viewing the film, workers focused not ondistraccion in any sense but on the difficulties of unionorganizing and of crossing the U.S.–Mexico border.These perspectives, while certainly not contradictory,point to the video as being a complex intersection ofunderstandings of Mushroom Festivals, class relations,transnational identities, and structures of belonging.

Tlaseca’s use of video in engaging structures of be-longing also speaks to the need for theorists of culturalcitizenship to take into account visual representation.This is true not only because migrants are using video inconstructing transnational identities32 but also becauserepresentations of gestures, the body, and distracted ga-zes subtly communicate structures of belonging. Suchrepresentations provide insight into those moments inwhich distraccion (the workers leaning against walls)and allegory (the Festival as reproducing class and racerelations) are configured through specific social experi-ences. In short, understandings of cultural citizenshipcan benefit both from paying attention to modes of par-ticipation in public events and, when possible, exploringvisual representations of such events.

Finally, I should note that these arguments, and thepossibilities for collaboration, are historically contin-gent. As I watched the Mushroom Festival in 1994, I hadno way of knowing that both the beauty pageant and thepicking contest would be phased out of the FestivalFthebeauty pageant in 1997 due to a lack of local interest.The last picking contest was also held in 1997, replacedthe following year by a soccer tournament betweenmushroom-growing companies. The year 1994 was alsothe last year that the KWU, now led by Luis Tlaseca,participated in the Mushroom Festival. The rules of theparade were changed later that year to ban (so-called)political organizations. In 1998, the theme of the Festivalwas ‘‘Mushrooms Around the World.’’ The lead float inthis parade was a giant twirling mushroom with a som-brero on top with a woman singing, ‘‘Don’t Cry for MeArgentina.’’ A group of children carried a Mexican flagin a part of the parade representing children aroundthe world. In 1999, the theme of the Festival was‘‘Mushrooms in Outer Space,’’ which had except for‘‘mainstream’’ cultural representations (revolutionarywar soldiers, bagpipe players, etc.) no references to‘‘other’’ ethnic groups. That same year the Kaolin Work-er’s Union had, after a long court battle with the KaolinMushroom Company, begun negotiations for betterwages and benefits. A major issue has become, and thisbrings us back to the notion of belonging, attempts by


mushroom growers to use guest worker visas to providea steady supply of temporary workers to the region (asort of reinvention of the bracero program). Indeed, theuse of guest workers would significantly impact attemptsto organize workers, not to mention attempts by workersto belong in the region. From 2005 to 2007 the regionwas rocked by a number of raids by ICE (Immigrationand Control Enforcement), leading to mushroom ownerspublicly worrying about the stability of their workforce(Philadelphia Inquirer 2007). The 2007 Mushroom Fes-tival did not include any programming directed at theMexican workforce.

Tlaseca has continued leading negotiations withKaolin while making and showing videos to workers.

Notes

1 Names of specific individuals and organizations have beenchanged.

2 The workers were organized by CT (the Committee ofWorkers).

3 La Virgen de Guadalupe is the most important symbol ofMexican nationalism, culture, and identity. After the1519–21 conquest of Mexico by Cortes, indigenous peo-ples were forced to practice Catholicism and leave asidetheir traditional religions. Her appearance to Juan Diego, apoor Indian peasant, on December 12, 1531, has come tosymbolize identity, truth, and hope within Mexican andMexican American culture.

4 Kaolin is the name of the mushroom company where theunion was formed.

5 Indeed, Tlaseca has spoken very enthusiastically about at-tempts to organize women who have mainly worked inpacking and thus would have to become part of an indus-trial and not farmworkers union.

6 Indeed, I held the assumptions about film that Jay Rubyrightly criticizes: ‘‘The implicit assumption represented bythese anthropologists . . . is that the primary function ofethnographic film is as an audiovisual teaching aid thatserves as a supplement for written materials. It is a point ofview guaranteed to relegate film to a minor form of an-thropological expression’’ (Ruby 2007:3).

7 Ruby points out that traditional approaches to ethno-graphic film have focused on ‘‘arguing about whether ornot a particular film is objective, accurate, complete, oreven ethnographic’’ (Ruby 2007:5). In the 1980s and 1990sthese debates widened as anthropologists turned to the‘‘crisis in representation’’; there was a movement to ‘‘framequestions of film and anthropology into a wider whole’’and integrate ‘‘visual anthropology into the mainstream ofcultural anthropology’’ (Ruby 2007:5). Ruby emphasizesthat this will require that anthropology move away fromits logocentric basis for theorizing.

8 In Spanish the word distraccion means amusement orentertainment. The verb distraerse means relaxing and

enjoying oneself as well as, more literally, distracting one-self. Tlaseca, as I will show, contrasts this superficial wayof enjoying the Festival with more meaningful participa-tion and a deeper sense of belonging.

9 The word bracero is derived from brazo, which means arm.Braceros were Mexican guest workers brought to theUnited States, initially for one year, to provide farm andindustrial labor. Although Mexican workers were by lawguaranteed basic rights, there were many abuses by em-ployers, including physical mistreatment, poor food andhousing, and exposure to pesticides.

10 The bracero program was started in August 1942 andended in December 1964.

11 Here, I should add a note about terminology. Throughoutthis article I use ‘‘Hispanic’’ in quotes to denote that I amusing the term in the context of a report or statement by agovernment agency, such as census information, or thefarm owners association. Indeed, ‘‘Hispanic’’ is the favoredterm of these organizations. When referring to the Mexi-can and the wider Puerto Rican community I use Latino/abecause these refer to people of Latin American descentrather than to Spain and Latin America as implied by theterm Hispanic. When referring to specific groups I use spe-cific identity terms, that is, Mexicans or Puerto Ricans.Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the region refer tothemselves as mexicanos.

12 This is an estimate made by Father Frank Depman, Directorof the Mision Santa Marıa; as well as current (October 2007)U.S. Census estimates; see http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ACSSAFFFacts?_event=&geo_id=05000US42029&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US42%7C05000US42029&_street=&_county=chester&_cityTown=chester&_state=04000US42&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=050&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=null&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry=. See Tlaseca (1998) for anexcellent discussion of difficulties in calculating the size ofthe Mexican population and an overview of migrationfrom Guanajuato, Mexico.

13 By all accounts growers supported the legalization of theirworkforce under IRCA. For example, a legalization officerfor the INS noted in 1988: ‘‘Generally the mushroomgrowers have supported the legalization process well byfurnishing past work records needed by their workers toperfect their applications. In addition, the American Mush-room Institute has established an entity to assist the workersthrough all phases of their applications, for a nominal fee,and one major grower has gone further by establishing astaff within the company to shepherd the workers throughthe entire process at no cost’’ (Peterson 1988:6).

14 According to an article in the Mushroom News: ‘‘Withinthis issue you will read an article about the mushroomgrowers’ ombudsman program in which many ChesterCounty growers are involved. This program is designed toimprove relations between employers, employees, and thecommunity. The heartbeat of this program and the basisfor its success lies in its ability to maintain good com-munication between management and labor. Effective


communication is as important to good labor relations as itis to any successful relationship. It is essential in situationswhere language and cultural barriers exist’’ (Pia 1988:12).

15 Smith also notes the changing strategies of the growersaimed at maintaining workers’ loyalty: ‘‘Growers have re-sponded to IRCA and this tight labor market on severallevels, including a new approach to the labor–manage-ment relationship, and suggesting the beginnings of awelfare paternalism reminiscent of that in the 1920s(which was directed toward both natives and immigrants).In the mushroom industry, all growers pushed their work-ers to legalize under the SAW program. The AMI hired aconsulting firm to train personnel and to handle legaliza-tion applications directly. Growers also hired laborconsultants and/or re-allocated personnel to ferry workersto doctor and INS appointments, and generally assisted inthe legalization process. Several of the largest companieshired new personnel specifically to assist in legalization’’(Smith 1992:116).

16 D.-B: „Por que decidio usted filmar el festival del hongo?

L.T.: En realidad yo lo hice, querıa yo ver como estanparticipando los trabajadores en este festival, como sesentıan al participar. Yo lo hice tambien con el intento deque en estos festivales del hongo hay mucha prensa parahacer publicidad, no tomaban en cuenta los trabajadores elproposito de su participacion, como se sentıan, como ellosestaban participando, como ellos querıan participar.

17 When Tlaseca was filming, I neither attempted to imple-ment a video project nor influence his attempts to producea project. Like Eric Michaels, who observed Warlpiri’s pro-duction of local programming, I walked the line betweenactively observing and influencing a project (see Ruby2007:236–237). This line has indeed begun to disappear,especially after I learned video production, and Tlasecaand I started planning to collaborate on a project. Indeed,my own narrative of video production must be historicizedin terms of this changing context and relationship.

18 Faye Ginsburg argues that this new type of ‘‘indigenousvideo production,’’ based on multiplex subjects, will dis-place traditional forms and understandings of andinvigorate ethnographic film (Ginsburg 1994:14).

19 The friend was a staff attorney for Friends of Farmworkers.20 Marıa Martınez: Para todos de ustedes acompanandonos

hoy, el dıa 17 de septiembre, el dıa sabado, para estasfestividades del desfile del hongo, les queremos decirque nosotros, la gente que tenemos aquı reunida hoy, estaparticipando por primera vez en la historia de estasfestividades, en este desfile del hongo. Queremos que se re-conozca la contribucion que hace la gente mexicana parahacer que funcione esta industria, los trabajadores son laespalda, son en verdad todos los que levantan la cosecha, yson la gente que les traen los millones de dolares a los patr-ones para poder hacer estos tipos de festividades. Porprimera vez nos han dado la oportunidad de participar eneste desfile. Sabemos que su lugar debe estar reconocido,esto es lo justo. Pero participamos aquı hoy para que estoquede en el record historico. No lo hacemos en apoyo a las

festividades del hongo, que siempre nos han excluido. Perosı lo hacemos en demanda, protestando que se nos de nu-estro lugar y que a los trabajadores se les respete el trabajoque hacen para la industria del hongo.

21 L.T.: „Querıa preguntarle, como se sienten en el Festival delhongo?FPues a la vez, nos sentimos bien, verdad? Porque laalegrıa esta donde esta toda la gente y toda la banda aquı.Es una vez al ano. Es donde se reunen los gabachos y todoslos paisanos.L.T.: „Usted cree que...le toman en cuenta en el Festival delhongo?FSomos los que realizamos el trabajo del hongo. Me gu-starıa que lo hicieran mas veces; a lo mejor ellos se dancuenta del trabajo que uno realiza que es bien difıcil paranosotros.

22 Se siente bien de estar aquı. Nadie querıa venir ahora.23 Convivio comes from the verb convidar, which means to

offer and share an invitation or experience with others, forexample, to dine.

24 D.-B.: „Por que les pregunto a los mexicanos que estabanparados mirando el festival si sentıan comodos?L.T.: Porque, como acabo a decir al principio, lo que querıayo es estar seguro de la otra cara de la publicidad de losfarmers que decıan . . . Que en estos festivales muchos part-icipaban por medio de distracion, por medio de que no hayotras actividades en este condado . . . y lo que les pregunteque se como sintieron al participar y lo cual sı esta en el videode que dicen de que ellos estaban participando por distraerse,porque pues es como una fiesta.D.-B.: Pero dijeron que sı que se sintieron comodos, „no?L.T.: Sı, se sintieron comodos pero hay un modo de inter-pretar eso, diciendo que se sintieron comodos, como leacabo de decir porque entendıan que pues, como un procesode actividad, como nosotros decimos en nuestra cultura defiesta, de convivio y de todo, mas que nada no convivio, sinoque como distraccion . . . .

25 The initial election for forming the labor union occurred inspring 1993 and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisionwas made on December 15, 1998. According to Lavin, ‘‘InMay 1993, Kaolin employees voted by more than 55 percentmajority to have the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Boardcertify their union. They won that right but have remainedparalyzed by the loopholes that pervade our employmentlaw system. Litigious delays have paralyzed labor board andcourt orders that have, without exception, affirmed that theunion deserves legal standing to petition for sanitary hous-ing, to grieve abuses on the job, and to establish a degree ofstability, which their current poverty-level salaries and er-ratic work schedules deny them and their families’’(Philadelphia Inquirer 1998, A23). Also see Anders (1993).

26 During the strike, management pressed charges againstunion leaders and sought to replace Mexican workers withVietnamese and Cambodian immigrants who lived in Phil-adelphia. According to Bussel and Lavin, ‘‘These sternmeasures were also accompanied by liberal doses ofwelfare capitalism. During the strike Kaolin hired aSpanish-speaking labor relations director, granted a 5%


wage increase, and proposed a cafeteria-style health careplan offering workers the choice between benefits orincreased pay’’ (1992:11).

27 The following dialogue between three workers will givethe reader a sense of the conversation:Worker 1: There are many people who are afraid . . . . as wewere just saying when someone goes to Mexico and re-turns, there is no longer a job.Worker 2 (interrupting): This is what is happening rightnow. If someone gets on the boss’s bad side and comesback from Mexico, there is no job.Worker 1: The people are afraid to say anything.Worker 3: Many of us are afraid that we are going to befired . . . in every camp there is this type of problem withthe boss . . . Where I am working we do not have this typeof union so that if we want to talk to the boss, for instance,we might want to talk to him about a problemFthe priceof a box of mushrooms or sodas, all of this. But unfortu-nately we say [to the persons raising these issues], no youshould talk with him [the owner]; we will help you.Trabajador 1: Hay mucha gente que tiene miedo . . . comosi hablamos ahorita, si una va a Mexico y cuando viene nohay trabajo.Trabajador 2 (interumpiendo): Esto es lo que esta sucedi-endo ahorita, si uno le caye mal otra vez que viene no haytrabajo.Trabajador 1: Ya, la gente tiene miedo de hablar de algunacosa.Trabajador 3: Muchos tenemos temor a que vamos a estardespedido del trabajo . . . en cada companıa hay este tipode problema con el patron. En el lugar donde yo estoytrabajando nosotros no tenemos esa union, si queremoshablar con el patron, queremos por decir algo. Decimos ael, ‘sabes que un rato vamos a ponerle al patron este prob-lema, el precio de la caja del hongo o las sodas todo esto,pero desgraciadamente siempre decimos no pues hablas tucon el, nosotros te apoyamos.

28 During a visit to villages in Puebla in Mexico, where manymigrants to Chester County are from, I saw firsthand theextent to which money sent back from migrants had trans-formed villages. On every block there were houses withnew additions, satellite dishes, etcetera. In one rancho,among the one-room houses were a couple of newly con-structed houses, the result of a number of family memberspooling money.

29 Yo les he ensenado a universidades, al Profesor Dıaz-Barriga, a estudiantes, a los propios trabajadores, para queellos vean el proposito de la otra cara de la moneda . . . nohay ninguna comunicacion entre el patrono hacia eltrabajador y por eso es que, le he ensenado a varias perso-nas buscando alternativas para ensenar este video, larealidad, el sentir del trabajador.

30 Indeed, Kaolin was very active in legalizing its workforce. ‘‘Ofthe estimated 2,000 to 2,500 workers who gained legal statusfollowing SAW Kaolin was succesful in assisting 400 of itsown workers to receive documentation’’ (Anders 1993:6).

31 Queremos igualdad como un americano, igualdad de co-municacion, no a la discriminacion.

32 For example, Robert Smith discusses how Mexican mi-grants in New York have used video to confirm that moneythat they have sent back to their villages in the state ofPuebla is being used to fund public works projects. Theyhave also used video to ensure that local governmentofficials in Mexico have recognized their contributions(1998:215). Barbara Wolbert (2001) has a rich discussionof the ways that Turkish migrants to Germany have uti-lized photos to establish transnational communities andvirtual neighborhoods.

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