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On March 17, 2015, tens of thousands of Mexican farmworkers went on strike in San Quintin, Baja California, to protest horrible working conditions on the farms that produce most of the fresh fruits and vegetables you consume. Calling themselves the “slaves of the twenty-first century,” these mostly Indigenous men, women, and children rose up in defiance of the conditions of modern slavery, forced labor, sexual harassment, and “hunger wages.” This ethnography provides an in-depth look into how Indigenous farmworkers organize in the fields and their communities to improve wages and working conditions.

Since the strike, the farmworkers have organized a union to fight for justice in the fields. In this work, author James Daria accompanies these farmworkers as they struggle for dignity. Daria also charts the tensions inside the farmworker movement as women struggle to gain greater power in the home as well as at work. In an era of complex global integration, Daria shows us how what we eat is tied to the suffering of those who produce our food. 

This book highlights and centers the Indigenous workers who struggle for justice in a global food system that connects us all. 

In “These Are Our Roots”,  Allen J. Christenson translates and analyzes historical documents composed by Tamub’ and Ilokab’ nobles of the K’iche’ Maya, who ruled much of the Guatemalan highlands until their lands were invaded by Spanish conquistadors in 1524. Complete original English translations of three Tamub’ texts and a new translation of the “Title of the Ilokab’” reveal how K’iche’ nobility strategically appropriated Christian elements from Dominican missionary texts while maintaining their Indigenous worldview. These documents served multiple purposes: legally establishing land rights, asserting nobility status, preserving cultural identity, and claiming religious legitimacy by positioning themselves as descendants of biblical figures—a sophisticated response to Spanish colonization that balanced accommodation and resistance through literacy, which had become a crucial tool for Indigenous elites navigating the colonial system.

The Tamub’ and Ilokab’ branches of the K’iche’ people have generally been overshadowed by their well-known Kaweq brethren, who wrote such literature masterpieces as the Popol Vuh and the Title of Totonicapán. But it is the voices relegated to the shadows of history that share views of events from different perspectives and whisper about what really happened behind the scenes—family jealousies, political rivalries, and delicious gossip about the great and the good who tend to focus on their own self-aggrandizing stories. “These Are Our Roots” is a valuable scholarly contribution to Maya studies and ethnohistory that makes these important primary sources more accessible to students and scholars.