Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Brizeida Cruz Hernandez Social Science

Labor Law in the Fields: Legal Consciousness among Mexican Indigenous Farmworkers in Rural Central California

Scholars Journal

California provides farmworkers with the strongest labor protections in the U.S., including overtime pay, anti-retaliation protections, and workplace safety standards. While there’s legal protections, a justice gap exists between legal protections (“law in the books”) and how laws are enforced and experienced in agricultural fields (“law in the fields”). This project asks: How do Mexican Indigenous farmworkers in rural Central California understand & interpret their labor rights? How do these understandings influence decisions to report or tolerate workplace violations? Drawing on legal consciousness theory, I examine how workers’ interpretations shape responses to violations. This study challenges generalized narratives of “Latino farmworkers" by focusing on Mexican Indigenous farmworkers because they face distinct barriers in agriculture. Many speak Mixtec, Zapotec, or Triqui and may have limited Spanish literacy. Workplace materials like safety guidelines may remain inaccessible.