Pineros: Latino Labor and the Changing Face of Forestry in the Pacific Northwest

Date: May 10, 2012
Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: Griffin Lounge, Memorial Union (MU), UC Davis
Cost: Free and open to the public

While the exploitation of Latino workers in many industries is well known, "pineros," Latino forest workers, toil largely in obscurity. In Pineros, Sarathy investigates how the US federal government came to be one of the country's largest employers of immigrant labor and documents pinero wages and working conditions in comparison to those of native-born forest laborers.

Pinero exploitation, Sarathy argues, is the product of an ongoing history of institutionalized racism, fragmented policy, and intra-ethnic exploitation in the West. Overcoming this legacy depends on improving the visibility and working conditions of pineros and providing them with a stronger voice in immigration and forestry policy-making.

This event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment’s Environmental Justice Project, Center for Regional Change, American Studies Program, Department of Native American Studiesearch, Geography Graduate Group, Sociology and the Sustainable Transportation Center.

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About Brinda Sarathy

Dr. Brinda Sarathy is assistant professor of environmental analysis at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA. Her book, Pineros: Latino Labour and the Changing Face of Forestry in the Pacific Northwest provides a social history of Latino immigrants and forestry in the Pacific Northwest, and a comparative analysis of pineros today with Anglo loggers and tree-planters from prior decades. Sarathy received her Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management in 2006 from the University of California, Berkeley, and held a post-doctoral position at the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UCMEXUS). Her research on pineros has been supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, the Rural Sociological Society, the Morris K. Udall Foundation, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.