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Portable Housing for Mexican Migrant Workers

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Portable Housing for Mexican Migrant Workers Copyright Warning & Restrictions The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a, user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of “fair use” that user may be liable for copyright infringement, This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. Please Note: The author retains the copyright while the New Jersey Institute of Technology reserves the right to distribute this thesis or dissertation Printing note: If you do not wish to print this page, then select “Pages from: first page # to: last page #” on the print dialog screen The Van Houten library has removed some of the personal information and all signatures from the approval page and biographical sketches of theses and dissertations in order to protect the identity of NJIT graduates and faculty. ABSTRACT PORTABLE HOUSING FOR MEXICAN MIGRANT WORKERS by Janet Corzo A capable migrant labor force is critical in sustaining the United States' agriculture industry. Yet, migrant farm workers are among the most economically disadvantaged people in the United States (NCFH). The housing available to migrant workers in the United States is typically substandard and subject to other factors, such as local availability, social stigmas and legal status. While housing is usually provided by a grower (on-the-farm) or acquired by the migrant worker himself (off-the-farm), there seem to exist no examples of portable housing that a worker can transport from job to job. This study seeks to explore the viability of portable dwellings as a housing typology for migrant farm workers. Portable housing would readily seem to be the best suited form of housing for a demographic whose livelihood depends on being mobile. This study is divided into three parts. The first part will summarize the migrant experience. By analyzing existing research across various fields, including anthropology, economics and sociology, this research will establish an understanding of a typical migrant worker's lifestyle and career outlook. The second part will survey the scope of migrant housing in the United States. Illustrating both typical housing conditions and exceptional examples will help to reveal the problems associated with migrant housing, as well as to identify the successes. The third part will present a design for a portable dwelling based on the lessons learned from the first two parts. PORTABLE HOUSING FOR MEXICAN MIGRANT WORKERS by Janet Corzo A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Architecture New Jersey School of Architecture January 2008 AOA AGE OAE OUSIG O MEICA MIGA WOKES nt Crz M. Stephen Zdepski, Thesis Advisor Associate Professor of Architecture, NJIT Darius Sollohub, Committe Member Date Associate Professor of Architecture, NJIT James Dart, Committee Member Date Special Lecturer, NJIT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Author: Janet Corzo Degree: Master of Architecture Date: January 2008 Undergraduate and Graduate Education: • Master of Architecture, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 2008 • Bachelor of Architecture, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 2006 Major: Architecture Presentations and Publications: Janet Corzo "Crossing the Arno," Second Place, 6th Annual ACSA/AISC Student Design Competition: Category II — Open, 2005-2006. iv To Chris "It's ironic that those who till the soil, cultivate and harvest the fruits, vegetables, and other foods that fill your tables with abundance have nothing left for themselves." Cesar Chavez Ud b prn f th Cr E. Chvz ndtn. v ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Professors Michael Stephen Zdepski, Darius Sollohub and James Dart for their guidance and insightful critiques. Special thanks are given to Laurence "Tony" Howell for his continued support and encouragement. I would also like to thank those individuals who helped along the way by offering their advice and resources: Anthony W. Schuman, Kramer Woodard, Kara Garrett, David Ferguson and Bryan Finoki. Finally, this work could not have been possible without Christopher Lee Cora who provided the levity needed to balance out the serious endeavor that is research. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Overview 1 1.2 Objective 2 2 THE MIGRANT LIFESTYLE ... ......... ............ ...... ..................... ........... 4 2.1 Introduction 4 2.2 A Brief History of Migration From Mexico to the United States .................. 4 2.3 The Three Phases in a Migrant Worker's Career .................................... 5 2.4 Migrant Social Networks ............ ...... ...... ... ............ ...... ......... ......... 7 2.5 Migrant Streams ..................... ... ...... .............................. .............. 10 2.6 The Cultural and Social Implications of Migration ................................. 13 3 THE HOUSING DIALECTIC ... ...... ... ............ ...... ..................... ............ 15 3.1 The State of Existing Housing ...... ........................ ... ............ ............ 15 3.2 On-the-Farm Housing ......... ... ... ... ..................... ... ... ...... ................ 16 3.3 Off-the-Farm Housing ... ...... ......... ... ............... ..................... ...... .... 19 22 3.4.1 Participatory Design — Design Corps in Adams County .................... 22 3.4.2 Esperanza — Mattawa, Washington 25 3.4.3 Las Mananitas — Coachella Valley 27 4 THE HOUSING SOLUTION ......... ... ... ................................. ... ... ......... 30 4.1 Why Portable Housing? ............... ......... ... ............ ............... ........... 30 34 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) Chapter Page 4.4 The Proposed Housing Unit: Program, Structure, Systems and Ideologies 37 5 CONCLUSION 45 APPENDIX A AGRICULTURAL SEASONS BY STATE 47 APPENDIX B SELECTED AIRSTREAM SPECIFICATIONS 48 APPENDIX C SELECTED ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS 51 viii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 2.1 Composition of Migrant Streams: A Historical Perspective 11 2.2 Weeks of Activity by Legal Status (Excluding Foreign-Born Newcomers) .. 13 A.1 Agricultural Seasons By Stream and By State .................................... 47 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 2.1 Propensity for migrant settlement 7 2.2 Map of migrant streams in the United States 10 3.1 Adams County migrant housing unit in context 23 3.2 Adams County migrant housing unit plan 24 3.3 Esperanza site showing arrangement of housing units ... ...... ...... 26 3.4 Covered outdoor court shared by four units 27 3.5 Las Mananitas housing units 28 4.1 A compilation of lowrider images 36 4.2 Airstream chassis 39 4.3 A rural Mexican house sited in the fields near a village 42 4.4 A rural Mexican house sited in the village center 43 B.1 Freshwater distribution ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 48 B.2 Waste water distribution ............... ...... ... ... ............ ............... ....... 49 B.3 LPG distribution 50 C.1 Plan view of hard space 51 C.2 Side views of portable unit (hard space) 52 C.3 Soft space pallet ....................................... ...... ......... ... 52 C.4 Assembly sequence of soft space .......................................... 53 C.5 Hard space structure 54 C.6 View showing pallets stacked inside hard space ... 54 x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Overview A capable migrant labor force is critical in sustaining the United States' $28 billion per year fruit and vegetable industry (NCFH). The jobs available for migrant workers include planting, weeding, trimming, harvesting, sorting and packing, all of which are extremely labor intensive. Although harvesting can be done mechanically, there is no substitute for human hands in many facets of agriculture. These tasks are time sensitive and only allow for limited periods of employment. Large-scale and corporate farming in the U.S. was founded on the premise that migrant labor was cheap, plentiful and reliable (Mitchell 113-114). U.S. agriculture, in its current state, would become a crippled industry without migrant labor. Yet, migrant farm workers are among the most economically disadvantaged people in the United States (NCFH). With a median income of $7,500 per year and a median household income of less than $10,000 per year, 61% of migrant workers live in extreme poverty (Finoki). Migrant workers tend to live in isolation from the rest of American society and are "often invisible even to the residents of the towns where they come to work" (Embrey). Loraine Stuart describes the dichotomy between the two worlds that exist in California's Napa Valley as a decadent playground for the rich and an underground world of migrant workers that sustains the entire economy of the area. She says: `There's another world here, but you have to seek it out... It's the world that supports the world we're seeing now, and it's almost invisible. It's in the vineyards. In little shacks behind some of the commercial buildings, where guys may be living. Along the Napa River where others are 1 2 camped out. Down in [the city of] Napa, where eight
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