Jumping The Line - Softcover

Harpold, Michael G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1940598052 ISBN 13: 9781940598055

Publisher: Book Publishers Network, 2020

Synopsis

In 1965, Congress ends the practice of bringing Mexican workers to the United States to Harvest crops, but Miguel Hernandez still needs work. Despite border patrols, taunts, and, "coyotes", Miguel jumps the line. Returning to his country makes little difference. He continues to cross. And farmers continue to hire him, despite American farmworkers being available.Over the years, laws change, but the demand for Mexican workers increases. Ignoring or obeying the rules, farmworkers on all sides--ranch owners, union organizers, immigrants, illegal border crossers, Mexican farmers--do their best to make a living.
With sensitivity and, at times, heartbreaking realism, Harpold presents families caught in the web of migratory farm work spun by demand for cheap labor. Over the decades, paths of the families interweave, break away, and then get caught together again. All struggle to create a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Some find success. Others keep trying. A few never make it.
Like John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, Harpold's Jumping the Line puts a human face to those providing our food. Having seen many sides of the immigration issue through his work with the US Immigration and Naturalization Service along the Mexican border, Harpold presents a realistic view of the experiences of farmers, illegal immigrants, and American farmworkers where complex issues and humane considerations defy simple solutions.

About this title

About the Author

Michael G. Harpold served in the US Border Patrol at Bakersfield, California. There he met Cesar Chavez, and Harpold's involvement with farm workers during the grape strike led to a lifelong interest in their plight. He retired in Ketchikan, Alaska at the end of his thirty-five year career where he lives with his wife, Elaine. He ventures south to visit daughters and grandchildren on the West Coast.

From Kirkus Reviews

A heart-rending novel by a former U.S. Border Patrol agent that explores how Mexican migrant workers are willing to endanger their lives for the prospect of better ones in America.

After legal Mexican migrant labor is discontinued in 1965, Miguel’s first illegal entry into the United States terrifies him. A kindly farmer takes him in, but his Mexican-American farmhand, Ohscar, is so desperate to maintain his own family’s newfound financial stability that he reports Miguel’s presence to the Border Patrol, with disastrous consequences. Meanwhile, Ohscar’s teenage son Javier has few social or education options. In an act of rebellion, he agrees to be the driver for the moronic Chuy, a “coyote” who smuggles undocumented immigrants across the border and who foolishly wants to branch out into drugs. The lives of these three men and their families intersect for the next three decades as they experience successes and frequent misfortunes. They’re complex characters who occasionally do wrong things, but they all realize their errors or pay the price for them (with the exception of the irredeemably evil Chuy). Harpold’s sympathetic account touches on union organizing and Cesar Chavez, but more extensively explicates the naiveté, vulnerability and desperation of workers and the exploitation they still experience despite myriad changes in policy and law—not just from employers, but from “coyotes” as well... (T)his sad but realistic tale challenges its readers to examine the stereotypes of migrant workers and undocumented immigrants and the ultimate costs of cheap labor.

A debut novel about a timely issue elucidated with an insider’s understanding and sensitivity. -- Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Reviews italicized)

About this edition

• Publisher: Book Publishers Network
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1940598052
• ISBN 13: 9781940598055
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288