California Farm Worker Films

Labor conditions, organizing, and the voices of the workers

Richards supported the efforts of farm workers to organize in the face of corporate agriculture’s domination of the factory fields of California’s rich agricultural lands. He documented the organizing drives of the late 1950s and 1960s including the United Packing House Workers (Factory Farms), of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (The Harvesters, Uno Veintecinco)) and the United Farm Workers (The Land Is Rich).

His films showed labor conditions in the fields and migrant camps, and provide rare glimpses of the “bracero” or “guest worker” program that imported Mexican nationals into California during the 1950s and '60s.

Like his work in Mississippi, his farm worker films include the voices of the poor telling their own story in the their own words. His documentation of the workers' feelings and thoughts make his works primary sources of information about the era.

California farm worker films:

© Paul Richards
"Hasta Sacramento" from The Land Is Rich

Photographs

Richards began still photography work in earnest during his trips to rural California in support of union organizing efforts among farm workers in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He continued taking still photos throughout his four film projects from 1959-1966. His still photography is available in photo galleries available on the Photography page.

Huelga photo Lettuce harvester California Central Valley 1958
  © Paul Richards
Click for slideshow of
Farm Workers on strike 1962 - 66
Click for slideshow of
Portraits of Life and Work
in California Fields 1958


Cover of Critical Focus
Critical Focus:
The Black and White
Photographs of
Harvey Wilson Richards

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