Immokalee's Fields of Hope is a story of Mexican, Haitian, and Guatemalan immigrants told by a businesswoman who regained her soul through volunteering with children. With compassion and understanding, Carlene Thissen shares the personal stories the immigrants told her, framed with the political and social histories of their countries. Beginning with family memories of her own German and Irish grandparents, she captures the struggles, hopes, and dreams of people who just want to work and make a better life. Carlene offers the opportunity to stretch out and truly visualize the plights of the people being described and their motivation for coming to America. They left horrible poverty, violence, and persecution and risked everything they had to come to Immokalee in Southwest Florida as word spread across our borders that, "There is work in Immokalee." More than just the vivid story of the immigrants, Carlene explains the frustrations and fears of the rural community that struggled to absorb them and the dedicated people who came to help. The immigrants' dreams of a better life and the Carlene's own journey back to the garden all began in Immokalee's Fields of Hope.

I Am Not a Tractor! celebrates the courage, vision, and creativity of the farmworkers and community leaders who have transformed one of the worst agricultural situations in the United States into one of the best. Susan L. Marquis highlights past abuses workers suffered in Florida’s tomato fields: toxic pesticide exposure, beatings, sexual assault, rampant wage theft, and even, astonishingly, modern-day slavery. Marquis unveils how, even without new legislation, regulation, or government participation, these farmworkers have dramatically improved their work conditions. Marquis credits this success to the immigrants from Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala who formed the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a neuroscience major who takes great pride in the watermelon crew he runs, a leading farmer/grower who was once homeless, and a retired New York State judge who volunteered to stuff envelopes and ended up building a groundbreaking institution. Through the Fair Food Program that they have developed, fought for, and implemented, these people have changed the lives of more than thirty thousand field workers. I Am Not a Tractor! offers a range of solutions to a problem that is rooted in our nation’s slave history and that is worsened by ongoing conflict over immigration.

2012 IACP Award Winner in the Food Matters category Supermarket produce sections bulging with a year-round supply of perfectly round, bright red-orange tomatoes have become all but a national birthright. But in Tomatoland, which is based on his James Beard Award-winning article, "The Price of Tomatoes," investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry. Fields are sprayed with more than one hundred different herbicides and pesticides. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and artificially gassed until their skins acquire a marketable hue. Modern plant breeding has tripled yields, but has also produced fruits with dramatically reduced amounts of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C, and tomatoes that have fourteen times more sodium than the tomatoes our parents enjoyed. The relentless drive for low costs has fostered a thriving modern-day slave trade in the United States. How have we come to this point? Estabrook traces the supermarket tomato from its birthplace in the deserts of Peru to the impoverished town of Immokalee, Florida, a.k.a. the tomato capital of the United States. He visits the laboratories of seedsmen trying to develop varieties that can withstand the rigors of agribusiness and still taste like a garden tomato, and then moves on to commercial growers who operate on tens of thousands of acres, and eventually to a hillside field in Pennsylvania, where he meets an obsessed farmer who produces delectable tomatoes for the nation's top restaurants. Throughout Tomatoland, Estabrook presents a who's who cast of characters in the tomato industry: the avuncular octogenarian whose conglomerate grows one out of every eight tomatoes eaten in the United States; the ex-Marine who heads the group that dictates the size, color, and shape of every tomato shipped out of Florida; the U.S. attorney who has doggedly prosecuted human traffickers for the past decade; and the Guatemalan peasant who came north to earn money for his parents' medical bills and found himself enslaved for two years. Tomatoland reads like a suspenseful whodunit as well as an expose of today's agribusiness systems and the price we pay as a society when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases.

Millions of people around the world are forced to work without pay and under threat of violence. These individuals can be found working in brothels, factories, mines, farm fields, restaurants, construction sites and private homes: many have been tricked by human traffickers and lured by false promises of good jobs or education, some are forced to work at gunpoint, while others are trapped by phony debts from unscrupulous moneylenders. The SAGE Handbook of Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and global look at the diverse issues surrounding human trafficking and slavery in the post-1945 environment. Covering everything from history, literature and politics to economics, international law and geography, this Handbook is essential reading for academics and researchers, as well as for policy-makers and non-governmental organisations

Most Americans are shocked to discover that slavery still exists in the United States. Yet 145 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the CIA estimates that 14,500 to17,000 foreigners are “trafficked” annually into the United States, threatened with violence, and forced to work against their will. Modern people unanimously agree that slavery is abhorrent. How, then, can it be making a reappearance on American soil? Award-winning journalist John Bowe examines how outsourcing, subcontracting, immigration fraud, and the relentless pursuit of “everyday low prices” have created an opportunity for modern slavery to regain a toehold in the American economy. Bowe uses thorough and often dangerous research, exclusive interviews, eyewitness accounts, and rigorous economic analysis to examine three illegal workplaces where employees are literally or virtually enslaved. From rural Florida to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the U.S. commonwealth of Saipan in the Western Pacific, he documents coercive and forced labor situations that benefit us all, as consumers and stockholders, fattening the profits of dozens of American food and clothing chains, including Wal-Mart, Kroger, McDonald’s, Burger King, PepsiCo, Del Monte, Gap, Target, JCPenney, J. Crew, Polo Ralph Lauren, and others. In this eye-opening book, set against the everyday American landscape of shopping malls, outlet stores, and Happy Meals, Bowe reveals how humankind’s darker urges remain alive and well, lingering in the background of every transaction–and what we can do to overcome them. Praise for Nobodies: “Investigative, immersion reporting at its best . . . Bowe is a master storyteller whose work is finely tuned and fearless.” –USA Today “A brilliant and readable tour of the modern heart of darkness, Nobodies takes a long, hard look at what our democracy is becoming.” –Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? “Bowe dramatizes in gripping detail these stolen lives.” –O: The Oprah Magazine “The vividness of Bowe’s local stories might make you think twice before reaching for that cheap fruit or pair of discount socks.” –Condé Nast Portfolio NAMED ONE OF THE TWENTY BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE VILLAGE VOICE

"New and exciting forms of food activism are emerging as supporters of sustainable agriculture increasingly recognize the need for a broader, more strategic and more politicized food politics that engages with questions of social, racial, and economic justice. This book highlights examples of campaigns to restrict industrial agriculture's use of pesticides and other harmful technologies, struggles to improve the pay and conditions of workers throughout the food system, and alternative projects that seek to de-emphasize notions of individualism and private ownership. Grounded in over a decade of scholarly critique of food activism, this volume seeks to answer the question of "what next," inspiring scholars, students, and activists toward collective, cooperative, and oppositional struggles for change."--Provided by publisher.

Meet the essential Bernie Sanders—an authentic and uncompromising champion of the people. Independent United States Senator Bernie Sanders—with a thirty-five-year career in public service, first as Burlington, Vermont’s mayor, then as Vermont’s sole representative to Congress, and currently as a United States senator—is now campaigning to become president of the United States. His goal is to build a movement to take back our country from the rich and powerful, and return it to its rightful owners—we, the American people. Sanders’ common sense, populist message is resonating with Democrats, Republicans, independents, as well as ordinary working- and middle-class Americans from all walks of life, including millennials, seniors, veterans, immigrants, environmentalists, union workers, and more. In this short, accessible book, author Jonathan Tasini draws heavily from Sanders’ ample public record of speeches, statements, and interviews, and couples his working-class spirit with specific legislation he has championed on a number of core proposals that comprise a broader people’s agenda for America, including: A national, single-payer health care system; Free public higher education; Taking on wealth and income inequality; Preserving Social Security; Caring for our veterans; Ensuring civil rights for all; Combatting climate change; Reforming Wall Street, and much more. The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America is a must-read for anyone who shares a vision for a forward-looking, sustainable, and more just United States of America, and is eager to change the course of history.