Douglas Verney
Duke University Press, 1986
By Leigh Binford
University of Texas Press, 2013
From its inception in 1966, the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) has grown to employ approximately 20,000 workers annually, the majority from Mexico. The program has been hailed as a model that alleviates human rights concerns because, under contract, SAWP workers travel legally, receive health benefits, contribute to pensions, are represented by Canadian consular officials, and rate the program favorably. Tomorrow We’re All Going to the Harvest takes us behind the ideology and examines the daily lives of SAWP workers from Tlaxcala, Mexico (one of the leading sending states), observing the great personal and family price paid in order to experience a temporary rise in a standard of living. The book also observes the disparities of a gutted Mexican countryside versus the flourishing agriculture in Canada, where farm labor demand remains high.
Drawn from extensive surveys and nearly two hundred interviews, ethnographic work in Ontario (destination of over 77 percent of migrants in the author’s sample), and quantitative data, this is much more than a case study; it situates the Tlaxcala-Canada exchange within the broader issues of migration, economics, and cultural currents. Bringing to light the historical genesis of “complementary” labor markets and the contradictory positioning of Mexican government representatives, Leigh Binford also explores the language barriers and nonexistent worker networks in Canada, as well as the physical realities of the work itself, making this book a complete portrait of a provocative segment of migrant labor.
Robert Wardhaugh
University of Manitoba Press, 2001

Edited by Robert M. Stern
University of Chicago Press, 1989
Robin Ridington
University of Iowa Press, 1992
Stephen Brooks
Michigan State University Press, 2018
Edited by R. Aída Hernández Castillo, Suzi Hutchings, and Brian Noble
University of Arizona Press, 2019
Travis Tomchuk
University of Manitoba Press, 2015
Henry Kisor and Christine Goodier
University of Illinois Press, 2019
Renate Eigenbrod
University of Manitoba Press, 2005

Andrew Taylor
University of Manitoba Press, 2017