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2. From telephones in rural Oaxaca to mobile phones among Mixtec farm workers in Oxnard, California
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Jimenez, Carlos (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2017
- Published:
- USA: SAGE Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 152 Document Number: D10148
- Journal Title:
- New Media & Society
- Journal Title Details:
- 19(12) : 2059–2074
- Notes:
- 16 pages., Via online journal., Indigenous Mexican immigrants (Mixtecs) from rural Oaxaca, Mexico, experience a high level of isolation and seasonal farm work, but the increasing speed of communication technology stands to overcome these difficulties. For farm workers, the initial experience of landlines and public pay phones was filled with anxiety and missed connections. Despite the benefits of mobile phones, their adoption was delayed among Mixtec in Oxnard, California, because of a combination of legal status, high cost, and seasonal work. This article finds that a surge in mobile phone adoption and use took place during a time where production of labor-intensive crops like strawberries increased throughout California, farm worker settlement patterns matured, and mobile phone plans changed becoming more affordable and easier to understand. The widespread adoption of mobile phones brought more predictability to the informal agricultural job market for farm workers, but this did not necessarily mean higher wages in the strawberry fields.