The migrant child labor in the USA: correlations between class, education and culture

ABSTRACT

This article discusses child labor in North American agriculture from the perspective of a critique of the culture of work as something that educates and dignifies migrant working-class children. It is part of the postdoctoral research carried out between March 2020 and February 2021 at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The research was conducted through analysis of Human Rights Watch reports and field research in North Caroline and Virginia during the tobacco harvest. The analysis was carried out from the dialectical historical materialism (MARX, 2013; WILLIAMS, 1958; 1980) and the Transformative Activist Positioning, developed by Stetsenko (2016; 2017; 2019), as an unfolding of the cultural historical theory and the philosophy of praxis. We denounce that the culture of precocious work is not an innate characteristic and so little educational or dignifying, as liberals and conservatives claim. But it stems from the social context/class in which the human being is inserted and, therefore, from the needs and forms of production of existence. In this sense, culture and education are not fixed/inert/innate, but arise both from contexts and needs and from our agencies and intentions that can be transformative and directed against all exploitation and social oppression that affects immigrant children and adults in this society.

Keywords:
Migration; Child labor; Tobacco; Culture; Education