Phone: 303-556-6083 Address: Department of Anthropology
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
University of Colorado Denver
Campus Box 103 P.O. Box 173364
Denver, CO 80217-3364
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and ... more They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in California’s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers suffer heatstroke at a rate higher than workers in any other industry. Although state officials and the media tend to portray the disproportionate number of heat deaths among farmworkers as a matter mostly of rising temperatures, Horton shows that labor, immigration, health care, disability, and industry food safety policies place Latino migrant farmworkers in harm’s way. Laden with captivating detail of farmworkers’ daily work and home lives, this book examines how U.S. immigration policy and the historic exclusion of farmworkers from the promises of liberalism has forced migrant farmworkers to be what Horton calls “exceptional workers.” She explores the deeply intertwined political, legal, and social factors that place Latino migrants at particular risk of illness and injury in the fields, as well as the patchwork of health care, disability, and Social Security policies that provide them little succor when they become sick or grow old. By following the lives of a core group of farmworkers over nearly a decade, Horton provides a searing portrait of how their precarious immigration and work statuses get under their skin, culminating in preventable morbidity and premature death.
The highly publicized 2008 Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite raid in Postville, Io... more The highly publicized 2008 Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite raid in Postville, Iowa, signaled a new strategy in interior immigration enforcement. Rather than merely deport the unauthorized workers it apprehended, ICE arrested them on charges of working under stolen documents (aggravated identity theft) and invented Social Security numbers (Social Security fraud) and imprisoned them prior to their deportation. Drawing on interviews with forty-five migrant farmworkers and six labor supervisors in a migrant farmworking community in California's Central Valley, this article explores how unauthorized migrants obtain the work documents they must provide to labor supervisors in order to work. This article shows that the poverty and marginalization of migrant communities has led to the mutually beneficial exchange of work authorization documents between donors with legal status and recipients without legal status. Using ethnography to recontextualize these document loans, this article offers an alternative interpretation of the criminal charges levied in Postville. Because voluntary document exchanges may be misrepresented as involuntary theft, labor supervisors use their knowledge of identity loan to suppress identity recipients' workers' compensation claims. This article examines the effect of the criminalization of immigration on labor discipline, suggests that migrant " denounce-ability " has joined migrant " deportability " as a powerful new tool of labor subordination. [illegality, deportability, identity theft, employer sanctions, criminalization of immigration]
Based on interviews and fieldwork in a migrant farmworking community in California's Central Vall... more Based on interviews and fieldwork in a migrant farmworking community in California's Central Valley, this article examines the phenomenon of " identity masking " and its implications for workers' labor conditions. It shows that labor supervisors often take advantage of unauthorized migrants' and minors' legal ineligibility for employment by making their employment contingent upon working a set of loaned identity documents. In doing so, employers render these groups " ghost workers " —that is, they simultaneously obscure their presence from the state and federal governments while benefitting from the wage deductions associated with such prohibited workers' labor. By calling attention to on-the-ground practices of document circulation, this article thus critiques the charges of " identity theft " often levied against unauthorized migrants during worksite raids. Yet the common practice of " identity masking " not only directly benefits supervisors as individuals, but also makes injured " ghost workers " disappear. As employers wield the threat of implicating such workers in " identity theft " to suppress their workers' compensation claims, this article illustrates the implications of the trend towards " governing immigration through crime " (Dowling and Inda 2013) on the migrant labor force.
"Identity loan" is common among U.S. farmworkers. In contrast to “identity theft,” it is a volunt... more "Identity loan" is common among U.S. farmworkers. In contrast to “identity theft,” it is a voluntary exchange in which citizens and legal permanent residents lend unauthorized migrants their identity documents so that the latter may obtain a job. Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 45 migrant farmworkers in California’s Central Valley, I show that federal and state policies have encouraged identity loan as a mode of reciprocal gift-giving in resource- and document-poor migrant communities. Document exchange benefits “identity donors” by increasing their unemployment payments and directly depositing deductions from unauthorized migrants’ wages into their Social Security accounts. While many scholars theorize that unauthorized status serves as a hidden subsidy for the state, this study illuminates the microprocesses through which ordinary citizens and residents agentively vie to divert this “profit reserve” into their own pockets.
Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness, Nov 2012
Because studies of migrants’ ‘medical returns’ have been largely confined to the field of public ... more Because studies of migrants’ ‘medical returns’ have been largely confined to the field of public health, such forms of return migration are rarely contextualized within the rich social scientific literature on transnational migration. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Mexican migrants in an immigrant enclave in central California, I show that migrants’ reasons for returning to their hometowns for care must be understood within the class disjunctures facilitated by migration. While migrants’ Medicaid insurance confined them to public clinics and hospitals in the US, their migrant dollars enabled them to visit private doctors and clinics in Mexico. Yet medical returns were not mere medical arbitrage, but also allowed migrants to access care that had previously been foreclosed to them as poor peasants in Mexico. Thus crossing the border enabled a dual class transformation, as Mexican migrants transitioned from Medicaid recipients to cash-paying patients, and from poor rural peasants to ‘returning royalty’.Accepted Author Version. Not yet edited or proofed. Please see disclaimer on the article abstract page.
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and ... more They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in California’s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers suffer heatstroke at a rate higher than workers in any other industry. Although state officials and the media tend to portray the disproportionate number of heat deaths among farmworkers as a matter mostly of rising temperatures, Horton shows that labor, immigration, health care, disability, and industry food safety policies place Latino migrant farmworkers in harm’s way. Laden with captivating detail of farmworkers’ daily work and home lives, this book examines how U.S. immigration policy and the historic exclusion of farmworkers from the promises of liberalism has forced migrant farmworkers to be what Horton calls “exceptional workers.” She explores the deeply intertwined political, legal, and social factors that place Latino migrants at particular risk of illness and injury in the fields, as well as the patchwork of health care, disability, and Social Security policies that provide them little succor when they become sick or grow old. By following the lives of a core group of farmworkers over nearly a decade, Horton provides a searing portrait of how their precarious immigration and work statuses get under their skin, culminating in preventable morbidity and premature death.
The highly publicized 2008 Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite raid in Postville, Io... more The highly publicized 2008 Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite raid in Postville, Iowa, signaled a new strategy in interior immigration enforcement. Rather than merely deport the unauthorized workers it apprehended, ICE arrested them on charges of working under stolen documents (aggravated identity theft) and invented Social Security numbers (Social Security fraud) and imprisoned them prior to their deportation. Drawing on interviews with forty-five migrant farmworkers and six labor supervisors in a migrant farmworking community in California's Central Valley, this article explores how unauthorized migrants obtain the work documents they must provide to labor supervisors in order to work. This article shows that the poverty and marginalization of migrant communities has led to the mutually beneficial exchange of work authorization documents between donors with legal status and recipients without legal status. Using ethnography to recontextualize these document loans, this article offers an alternative interpretation of the criminal charges levied in Postville. Because voluntary document exchanges may be misrepresented as involuntary theft, labor supervisors use their knowledge of identity loan to suppress identity recipients' workers' compensation claims. This article examines the effect of the criminalization of immigration on labor discipline, suggests that migrant " denounce-ability " has joined migrant " deportability " as a powerful new tool of labor subordination. [illegality, deportability, identity theft, employer sanctions, criminalization of immigration]
Based on interviews and fieldwork in a migrant farmworking community in California's Central Vall... more Based on interviews and fieldwork in a migrant farmworking community in California's Central Valley, this article examines the phenomenon of " identity masking " and its implications for workers' labor conditions. It shows that labor supervisors often take advantage of unauthorized migrants' and minors' legal ineligibility for employment by making their employment contingent upon working a set of loaned identity documents. In doing so, employers render these groups " ghost workers " —that is, they simultaneously obscure their presence from the state and federal governments while benefitting from the wage deductions associated with such prohibited workers' labor. By calling attention to on-the-ground practices of document circulation, this article thus critiques the charges of " identity theft " often levied against unauthorized migrants during worksite raids. Yet the common practice of " identity masking " not only directly benefits supervisors as individuals, but also makes injured " ghost workers " disappear. As employers wield the threat of implicating such workers in " identity theft " to suppress their workers' compensation claims, this article illustrates the implications of the trend towards " governing immigration through crime " (Dowling and Inda 2013) on the migrant labor force.
"Identity loan" is common among U.S. farmworkers. In contrast to “identity theft,” it is a volunt... more "Identity loan" is common among U.S. farmworkers. In contrast to “identity theft,” it is a voluntary exchange in which citizens and legal permanent residents lend unauthorized migrants their identity documents so that the latter may obtain a job. Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 45 migrant farmworkers in California’s Central Valley, I show that federal and state policies have encouraged identity loan as a mode of reciprocal gift-giving in resource- and document-poor migrant communities. Document exchange benefits “identity donors” by increasing their unemployment payments and directly depositing deductions from unauthorized migrants’ wages into their Social Security accounts. While many scholars theorize that unauthorized status serves as a hidden subsidy for the state, this study illuminates the microprocesses through which ordinary citizens and residents agentively vie to divert this “profit reserve” into their own pockets.
Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness, Nov 2012
Because studies of migrants’ ‘medical returns’ have been largely confined to the field of public ... more Because studies of migrants’ ‘medical returns’ have been largely confined to the field of public health, such forms of return migration are rarely contextualized within the rich social scientific literature on transnational migration. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Mexican migrants in an immigrant enclave in central California, I show that migrants’ reasons for returning to their hometowns for care must be understood within the class disjunctures facilitated by migration. While migrants’ Medicaid insurance confined them to public clinics and hospitals in the US, their migrant dollars enabled them to visit private doctors and clinics in Mexico. Yet medical returns were not mere medical arbitrage, but also allowed migrants to access care that had previously been foreclosed to them as poor peasants in Mexico. Thus crossing the border enabled a dual class transformation, as Mexican migrants transitioned from Medicaid recipients to cash-paying patients, and from poor rural peasants to ‘returning royalty’.Accepted Author Version. Not yet edited or proofed. Please see disclaimer on the article abstract page.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010—the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a ce... more The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010—the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century—has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government-funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the existing fragmented and costly employer-based health care system. Focusing in particular on the ACA's individual mandate and its planned Medicaid expansion, this statement charts a course for ethnographic contributions to the on-the-ground impact of the ACA while showcasing ways critical medical anthropologists can join the debate. We conclude with ways that anthropologists may use critiques of the ACA as a platform from which to denaturalize assumptions of “cost” and “profit” that underpin the global spread of market-based medicine more broadly.
Resumen es: SE EXAMINA LA PARTICIPACION DEL SISTEMA DE SALUD PUBLICA DE ESTADOS UNIdos en una con... more Resumen es: SE EXAMINA LA PARTICIPACION DEL SISTEMA DE SALUD PUBLICA DE ESTADOS UNIdos en una construccion social mas amplia, de los inmigrantes cubanos como dignos ...
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and ... more They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in California’s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers die at work each summer. Laden with captivating detail of farmworkers’ daily work and home lives, this book examines uses ethnography to show how U.S. immigration and labor policies have made migrant farmworkers “exceptional workers.” It explores the deeply intertwined political, legal, and social factors that place Latino migrants at particular risk of illness and injury in the fields, and that saddle them with a higher burden of chronic disease at home. It examines the patchwork of health care, disability, and Social Security policies that provide them little succor when they become sick or grow old. The book takes an in-depth look at the work risks faced by migrants at all stages of the life-course: as teens, in their middle-age, and ultimately as elderly workers. By following the lives of a core group...
Mexican-origin children have higher rates of decay and lower dental utilization rates than childr... more Mexican-origin children have higher rates of decay and lower dental utilization rates than children from all other racial/ethnic groups. Different cultural groups' interpretations of dental symptoms illuminate their different decision-making process about seeking care. Through ethnography in a small rural U.S. city, we examined low-income Mexican immigrant caregivers' interpretations of their children's dental symptoms and evaluations of the need for treatment. We conducted 49 in-depth interviews with 26 Mexican immigrant caregivers about their perceptions of their children's dental symptoms, and observations of five such caregivers' help-seeking episodes and 30 other caregivers' presentation of their children's symptoms at dental clinics. All interviews and fieldnotes were analyzed qualitatively through a series of readings and codings. A conceptual model of caregivers' decision-making processes was developed. Most caregivers deduced the health of te...
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010--the U.S.&a... more The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010--the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century-has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government-funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the existing fragmented and costly employer-based health care system. Focusing in particular on the ACA's individual mandate and its planned Medicaid expansion, this statement charts a course for ethnographic contributions to the on-the-ground impact of the ACA while showcasing ways critical medical anthropologists can join the debate. We conclude with ways that anthropologists may use critiques of the ACA as a platform from which to denaturalize assumptions of "cost" and "profit" that underpin the global spread of market-based medicine…
ABSTRACTHistories of the role of public health in nation building have revealed the centrality of... more ABSTRACTHistories of the role of public health in nation building have revealed the centrality of hygiene to eugenic mechanisms of racial exclusion in the turn‐of‐the‐20th‐century United States, yet little scholarship has examined its role in the present day. Through ethnography in a Mexican migrant farmworking community in California's Central Valley, we explore the role of oral hygiene campaigns in racializing Mexican immigrant parents and shaping the substance of their citizenship. Public health officials perceive migrant farmworkers’ children's oral disease as a “stain of backwardness,” amplifying Mexican immigrants’ status as “aliens.” We suggest, however, that the recent concern with Mexican immigrant children's oral health blends classic eugenic concerns in public health with neoliberal concerns regarding different immigrant groups’ capacity for self‐governance.
"December, 2003." Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New Mexico, 2003. Includes bibliograph... more "December, 2003." Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New Mexico, 2003. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 275-289).
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010—the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a ce... more The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010—the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century—has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government-funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the existing fragmented and costly employer-based health care system. Focusing in particular on the ACA's individual mandate and its planned Medicaid expansion, this statement charts a course for ethnographic contributions to the on-the-ground impact of the ACA while showcasing ways critical medical anthropologists can join the debate. We conclude with ways that anthropologists may use critiques of the ACA as a platform from which to denaturalize assumptions of “cost” and “profit” that underpin the global spread of market-based medicine more broadly.
... 66, No. 2, 2000 MAINTAINING HISPANO IDENTITY THROUGH THE SANTA FE FIESTA: RE-APPROPRIATING KE... more ... 66, No. 2, 2000 MAINTAINING HISPANO IDENTITY THROUGH THE SANTA FE FIESTA: RE-APPROPRIATING KEY SYMBOLS AND RESISTING ANGLO DOMINANCE SARAH HORTON Department of Anthropology University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 ...
This article presents evidence of a "Latino oral health paradox,... more This article presents evidence of a "Latino oral health paradox," in which Mexican immigrant parents in California's Central Valley report having had better oral health status as children in Mexico than their U.S.-born children. Yet little research has explored the specific environmental, social, and cultural factors that mediate the much-discussed "Latino health paradox," in which foreign-born Latinos paradoxically enjoy better health status than their children, U.S.-born Latinos, and whites. Through ethnography, we explore the dietary and environmental factors that ameliorated immigrant parents' oral health status in rural Mexico, while ill-preparing them for the more cariogenic diets and environments their children face in the U.S. We argue that studies on the "Latino health paradox" neglect a binational analysis, ignoring the different health status of Latino populations in their sending countries. We use the issue of immigrant children's high incidence of oral disease to initiate a fuller dialogue between U.S.-based studies of the "health paradox" and non-U.S. based studies of the "epidemiological transition." We show that both models rely upon a static opposition between "traditional" and "modern" health practices, and argue that a binational analysis of the processes that affect immigrant children's health can help redress the shortcomings of epidemiological generalizations.
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Books by Sarah Horton
Refereed Journals by Sarah Horton
Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 45 migrant farmworkers in California’s Central Valley, I show that federal and state policies have encouraged identity loan as a mode of reciprocal gift-giving in resource- and
document-poor migrant communities. Document exchange benefits “identity donors” by increasing their unemployment payments and directly depositing deductions from unauthorized migrants’ wages into their Social Security accounts. While many scholars theorize that unauthorized status serves as a hidden subsidy for the state, this study
illuminates the microprocesses through which ordinary citizens and residents agentively vie to divert this “profit reserve” into their own pockets.
Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 45 migrant farmworkers in California’s Central Valley, I show that federal and state policies have encouraged identity loan as a mode of reciprocal gift-giving in resource- and
document-poor migrant communities. Document exchange benefits “identity donors” by increasing their unemployment payments and directly depositing deductions from unauthorized migrants’ wages into their Social Security accounts. While many scholars theorize that unauthorized status serves as a hidden subsidy for the state, this study
illuminates the microprocesses through which ordinary citizens and residents agentively vie to divert this “profit reserve” into their own pockets.