Dream Fields of Florida

Ella Schmidt is assistant professor in the department of Anthropology, Criminology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.

• Chapter 1 IntroductionChapter 2 Chapter I. The Hidden, Shameful PresenceChapter 3 Chapter II. The Imposition of IdentitiesChapter 4 Chapter III. Identities, Localities, GlobalitiesChapter 5 Chapter IV. Schools as Alienating InstitutionsChapter 6 Chapter V. Rituals of Daily Life: Past Sorrows, Present PridesChapter 7 Chapter VI. Straddling the Tracks: Mexican Farmworkers and the Politics of IdentityChapter 8 Chapter VII. ConclusionsChapter 9 Afterword

This book is engaging and illuminating-sociology at its best-going beyond tabulation of quantitative data to provide insights about social dynamics in contemporary society. Ella Schmidt's observations, conversations, and analyses are well-embedded in a developing conceptual and research framework. She does not simply examine surface patterns of immigrant settlement like the sorts of valuable but constrained analyses that emerge from Pew, the Migration Policy Institute, and other DC think tanks. Her book contributes to better public understanding of the contemporary situation of farmworkers (more than half of whom are, indeed, unauthorized Mexican immigrants) at a time when we are about to reembark on public debate about immigration policy.