Gemeinschaft, Noneconomic Distinctions, and the Migrant Worker: From the inside Looking out

Pacific Sociological Association

Gemeinschaft, Noneconomic Distinctions, and the Migrant Worker: From the inside LookingoutAuthor(s): Wayne J. VillemezSource: The Pacific Sociological Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 463-482Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1388233 .

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GEMEINSCHAFT, NONECONOMIC DISTINCTIONS, AND THE MIGRANT WORKER

From the Inside Looking Out

WAYNE J. VI LLEMEZ Florida Atlantic University

Studies of migrant farm workers in the United States have stressed the disorganization inherent in this type of life. The socially aberrant behavior of members of this subgroup has been explained in terms of the depressed material conditions of their life and its concomitants: their frustration, the unpredictability of their life, and various other disassociative constructs (see, for example, Ball, 1968; Nelkin, 1969, 1970). Some have suggested the existence of a form of social organization, but it is of a type implying only patterned nonrational responses to a disordered environment. All studies have viewed migrants from the outside looking in-from the perspective, that is, of deviance. Hence, almost all behavior has been seen as resulting from insoluble problems, frustrated aspirations, feelings of powerlessness, and the like. Yet it is possible to view the behavior of the migrant as influenced by something more than a lifelong despairing reaction to hopeless deprivation. Consider the following quotes:

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am grateful to the Agricultural Cooperative of South Florida for supporting this research, and to Jose Ortiz for his invaluable assistance in the data-gathering phase. PACIFIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, Vol. 18 lr)o. 4, October 1975 )1975 Pacific Sociological Assn.

[463]



[464] PACIFIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW / OCTOBER 1975

Ah hell, it's rough on a man, you know? But sometimes after a few beers sitting around at night in the camp I could just spread out my arms and love every man there. I seen them on and off for years and I know them and they know me. I even know the ones I never seen before, you know? They're my people and they're a sorry lot. But late at night I do love 'em. (Black camp-dwelling migrant, age 45) It is better not in the camps. We still live in them most seasons when we go north so I know. Here you can be yourself, whatever you are, you don't have to be what everybody thinks. It is a bad life no matter where you are, but here anyway it is my life-we are left alone. It is more hard but it is better. (Mexican-American urban- dwelling migrant, age 33)'

As the two selected quotes indicate, there are aspects to the social situation of migrant workers in camps that transcend poverty alone, and a thoroughgoing explanation of behavior must consider these aspects along with the more obvious ones. The aspect mirrored in the quotations above and the contention of this paper are that a great many migrant workers exist in a world of Gemeinschaft (roughly of the type Tonnies called "Gemeinschaft of neighborhood") and this affects both their behavior and their reactions to intervention from the more Gesellschaft world surrounding them.2 This typological distinction is being employed for descriptive purposes only, and not as explanatory. Some would argue for the explanatory power of typologies (see McKinney, 1966), but that is not the intention here. The major point to be argued is that noneconomic causes of human action have been ascribed mainly to those of higher income levels, while the behavior of the very poor has largely been seen as primarily economically linked. This is particularly true of studies of migrant farm workers, but applies as well to a great many studies of other financially deprived groups. It is not stretching the point too much to note that there seems to be an implicit "tipping point" hypothesis in the literature. For those below a certain economic level, behavioral explanations have most often hinged on reactions to conditions inherent in being below that level. This unstated hypothesis may have some validity, but it has led to a scarcity of considerations of noneconomic influences on the behavior of the poor. An



Villemez / GEMEINSCHAFT, NONECONOMIC DISTINCTIONS [465]

enormous array of psychological characteristics have been linked specifically to individuals living in poverty. These include present orientation; low achievement motivation; inability to defer gratification; fatalism; preference for affectivity; preference for particularism; weak personal identity; restricted world view; and many others.3 All of these have usually been interpreted as functional adaptations to the situational stresses of poverty. Zurcher (1972: 367), for example, has noted:

When the environment is replete with changes which impinge upon one's life and over which one has no control, when the future is unpredictable and uncertain, an orientation to the here and now and a set of values which encourages enjoyment of it constitute a reasonable adjustment.

Hence, "adaptation to poverty" in all its various forms has been used as the primary explanation of behavior among migrants and other deprived groups.

There is clearly a distinct form of social organization and a distinct type of social relationship that characterize the migrant farm worker, both most adequately described by the concept of Gemeinschaft. Many have cited the factors that would impel the group toward this form of social relationship: their physical isolation from the rest of society; their sharing of all life experiences together; their similarities in origin and background. But most have considered these factors extraneous to a behavioral model and hinged their explanations on reactions to the situational stresses of poverty. One of the very few commentaries on social organization among migrants (Friedland and Nelkin, 1967; see also Nelkin, 1969, 1970) is devoted to a demonstration that such organization is, at most, intermittent, if not entirely lacking. The shifting habitat and employment of the migrant is seen as obviating the establishment of social organization, and this lack is assumed to influence behavior. This intermittency of social organization is, however, more apparent than real for two reasons. First, a great many migrants comment on the frequency with which the same people are encountered.




I never hit the same group twice. There's always old people and new people. But you see some of the same guys over and over. Maybe three-four years go by and then a guy pops up again and you figure he will. It's different people every year, but you know half of them so it ain't different at all, you know? (Camp-dwelling migrant, age 44)

And second, many note the presence of a constant form of social organization despite variability in role occupants.

A crew is a crew. Hell, they all the same. People gonna be the same way, do the same things, gripe the same gripes, make the same jokes. Even if they different people, it's all the same, you can count on it. (Urban-dwelling migrant, age 37)

Implied here is a very special type of constancy; one perhaps not properly called social organization by common definition of the term. The life of the migrant is, in the larger sense, extremely unpredictable and he feels this. He is never sure where, or even if, he will be working from season to season. The future feeding and sheltering of himself and his dependents are never assured. Yet'within the broad fabric of unpredictability that is his life, the camps themselves-present and future-form pockets of stability: "A crew is a crew. . . they all the same." In terms of the physical exigencies of life there is no predictability, but in terms of the psychic requirements for adaptation to interpersonal interaction there is considerable predictability. Thus the groupings in which migrants find themselves offer relationships valued affectively-they are not groupings willed into being by the members for instrumental purposes. To be sure, the groups are instrumentally created by others, but are not so viewed by the participants. As such, the groups seem clearly to be expressions of, in Tonnies' terms, Wesenwille (natural will) and may thus be best conceptualized as Gemeinschaft. The norms governing behavior are similarly clearly of the gemeinschaftliche type (concord, custom, reli- gion, and so on) and are not created by legislation or public opinion.




Viewed from this perspective, many aspects of migrant behavior become explainable in noneconomic terms. Many have noted that migrants exhibit a seeming incapacity to organize to improve their lot (see Nelkin, 1970). Their own responses to why this is so seem to revolve around a rather basic inability to conceive of coming together for instrumental purposes. Self- sufficiency, except in emergencies, is stressed, and joining with others is by free choice only, and then only for affective purposes. Their constant insistence on the desire for freedom (Ball, 1968; Nelkin, 1969, 1970) supports this point. Instru- mentally motivated relationships always involve some loss of personal freedom. Part of the same pattern is the type of crew leader preferred by most migrants (see Nelkin, 1969, for an extensive discussion of this point). Their crew leader preferences are best categorized as "paternalistic authority-types" (Tonnies, 1957: 252-255, suggested this type of preference as characteristic of the Gemeinschaft orientation). The farm- owners' perennial failure to reject the inefficient crew leader system seems tacit recognition of migrant distaste for legal- rational authority roles. Also part of the pattern is the nature of daily interaction within the camps, often cited as a "strange phenomenon": "The dynamics of a camp can, in a sense, be regarded as a dialectic between two contradictory dispositions: the tendency toward homogeneity on the one hand, and the continual reassertion of the pecking order on the other" (Nelkin, 1969: 386). If the above quote was referring to the "dynamics of a family unit," it would not seem such a strange phenomenon at all-and familial relations are the prototype of Gemeinschaft. Far too much has been made in the literature of the oft-discovered hostility among members of migrant crews. There has been a consistent failure to distinguish between the hostility resulting from the rupture or loosening of natural and existing ties and the other type of hostility which is rooted in strangeness, misunderstanding, and distrust (on this point see Tonnies, 1957: 48). Almost all evidence of hostility reported in the literature indicates that it is of the first rather than of the second type.




Hence, there are many indications of the existence among migrants of a particular type of social organization and form of social relationships-under which noneconomic rubric much of their behavior can be organized. However, a monistic explanation of migrant behavior is not being suggested. Other factors- those relating to deprivation, unpredictability, marginality-may be even more important in terms of behavior. Rather, an additional factor, one akin to a particularistic "world view," is being recommended as also of import.

Evidence from a study suggesting the validity of this characterization will first be presented, and then the implica- tions discussed.

METHODS

A sample survey of migrant workers in Palm Beach County, Florida was undertaken during the slack season. The slack season was chosen so as to include as many as possible who considered the county their home, for reasons noted below.4

In southeast Florida the bulk of the population is distributed along a ten-mile-wide strip of land that hugs the coastline. Just inland from this long, narrow urbanized area is the productive vegetable region known as the "rangeline." The geography is such that a person could live in the urban fringe of a large metropolis and work the fields just a few miles away. During the slack season approximately 50% of the coastal migrants in Palm Beach County choose to live in this urban fringe area rather than in camps while working the rangeline. Those who so choose tend to be those most actively (or at least most vocally) seeking egress from the migrant stream. Their goal is rarely attained, but their hyperactive concern with it clearly distin- guishes them from those migrants who remain in camps year-round.

The Gemeinschaft-orientation is prevalent, but not universal, among migrant workers. It was felt that those who live in the urban fringe areas when possible (it is usually not allowed




during the peak season) would represent that minority who are not so oriented. Most of the urban-dwellers do live in camps during significant portions of the year, but that they escape when possible marks them off from the bulk of migrants. It is also worth noting that they are escaping only from the camp environment. Living conditions in the urban slum areas where they reside are, by any indicator, somewhat worse than in the camps (see below for empirical documentation of this). This is important, since any differences between the two groups cannot be explained by appeals to the effects of poverty. Hence this group is ideal for comparative purposes-a migrant/nonmigrant comparison would be much less compelling because of a plethora of additional uncontrollable differences.

The sampling design employed was a stratified single-stage cluster sample. The initial stratification was camp-dwellers versus urban-dwellers and, by necessity, the process of cluster selection differed within each stratum.

A detailed list of all occupied camps was acquired from the Palm Beach County Sanitation Department (the agency respon- sible for public health inspections). The camps were then stratified into large and small (fifty inhabitants being the criterion) and clusters selected randomly from each group. Everyone was interviewed in each selected small camp and a random 25% sample of each selected large camp was interviewed.

The location of urban clusters was somewhat more tedious. A list of concentrations of urban-dwelling migrants was initially acquired by questioning both migrant workers and a host of functionaries at various governmental agencies and private organizations throughout the county. These clusters were plotted on a map, and students were sent into them to inquire of the residents as to additional clusters. The maps were also shown to the above-mentioned functionaries who were asked to add to them if possible. Newly discovered clusters were added to the map after checking and the whole process was repeated. This "snowball" technique proved effective, and after no new clusters were generated by the fourth and fifth repetitions of the process, this phase was terminated. All clusters were




numbered consecutively from north to south and a random sample drawn. As a check, interviewers were instructed to inquire about additional clusters after terminating each interview. No undiscovered clusters resulted from this check. It seems certain that no major urban concentrations of migrants escaped uncatalogued.

FINDINGS

Interviews were administered to 366 heads of migrant families. Each interview lasted approximately 2 hours and was conducted by black or Spanish-speaking interviewers, as appropriate. Of the 366 families, 190 were camp-dwellers and 176 were urban-dwellers-proportions very near the actual population proportions. The majority of camp-dwellers were of Spanish origin while the majority of urban-dwellers were black, and this, too, is representative of actual population distributions in Palm Beach County. However, because of this distribution it will be necessary to report data in a fourfold division (Spanish camp/Black camp/Spanish urban/Black urban) in order to demonstrate that the geographic differences discovered are not artifacts of an ethnicity factor. It should be noted that these data were gathered as part of a larger project (concerned with the retraining and resettlement of migrant workers) in which the author is involved. Nonetheless, it is felt that there are sufficient relevant items available to provide an adequate test, especially when supplemented by the many spontaneous com- ments of the subjects.

There were few statistically significant differences on most items between camp and urban migrants: mean family size was about the same, as was percentage of male-headed families; percentage of families with both husband and wife present; percentage of families containing legally married parents; and so forth. On all of the above urban migrants were slightly lower, but not significantly so. Mean annual family income for urban migrants was $4,048.28; for camp migrants it was $4,369.32; but who earned this money differed considerably.5 As Table 1 indicates, camp-dwellers earned greater proportions of the




TABLE 1 Mean Proportion of Annual Family Income Earned by Head of Household by Geographic

Residence and Ethnicity

Significance Type Proportion N of Difference

Total

Camp .847 190 p <02 Urban .620 176

Spanish Camp .853 160 p<.05 Urban .739 50

Black

Camp .811 30 p<.02 Urban .572 126

family income than did urban-dwellers. The difference is greater among blacks, but it is significant for both groups. Further, there were indications that heads of households in camps thought it important that they be principal wage-earners. When asked about family income and then about their own income, a great many camp-dwellers made statements like the following:6

I want my kids to go to school, I want my wife to stay home and tend them. When there's a good year then that happens and I feel like I got a real family and like I'm a man. But most times I can't manage it. I try every year but it don't work out most times. (Black camp-dwelling migrant, age 46) I like the work and my family likes the work. It is not easy but you are under the sky and free, not in a small room and afraid to leave.... But I am going to leave it because it isn't right that we all must work to live. I am a man so I must work, but for all to work is not right for a family. That is not how a family should be. (Mexican-American camp-dwelling migrant, age 28)

Similar sentiments were rarely expressed by the urban migrants. There seemed to be in the camps a decided preference for the traditional family with a clear male-as-breadwinner role empha- sized. Both groups expressed strong desires for a better life, but the preferred instrument for acquiring that life was, in camps,




the male. Urban migrants, for example, very frequently expressed desires for job training for their wives as well as for themselves. Only 7 (of 190) camp-dwellers expressly mentioned their wives in connection with job training.7

These findings seem to indicate a preference for the traditional family type among camp-dwellers. Further support for this inference is presented in Table 2. In response to an inquiry about where they would like their parents to live in a new community, over 41% of the urban migrants specified "not near" (categories 4 and 5 in Table 2) as compared to less than 20% of the camp migrants. This difference was much more pronounced for black migrants than for Spanish migrants, but the difference was considerable for both.8 Both camp and urban migrants for the most part acknowledged responsibility for the welfare of their parents, but urban migrants tended to define it as financial responsibility only.

A few representative examples:

I'd never let them starve, but that don't mean they have to be hanging around my neck all the time. (Black urban migrant, age 35)

TABLE 2 Expressed Preference for Location of Parents by Geographic Residence and Ethnicity (in %)

Total Spanish Black

Camp Urban Camp Urban Camp Urban

1. Same house 22.4 21.3 22.1 26.2 25.0 19.2 2. Same building 13.7 4.3 14.0 11.9 12.5 1.0 3. Different building 46.0 33.3 44.9 28.6 50.0 35.4

but near 4. Not near but same 15.5 17.7 16.2 7.1 12.5 22.2

general neighborhood 5. Different neighborhood 2.5 23.4 2.9 26.2 0.0 22.2

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 N 161 141 137 42 24 99

Significance of difference p <.0001 p <.03 p <.0002 between "not near" percentages (categories 4 & 5)




I got my own life now. They don't have to be right here so I can look after them. I'll know if they need something. (Black urban migrant, age 27) I care for them as a good son should. They will never want food if I can give some. But we are all happier if they are not too near. They are happier, too. Our life is not their life. (Spanish urban migrant, age 44)

Many of the camp migrants, by contrast, tended to define responsibility much more broadly-so broadly that in many cases "responsibility" became an inappropriate term.

Of course I want them near to me. Where else should they live? Are we savages to drown old ones who cannot work? Why not ask me where my wife should live? (Spanish camp migrant, age 52) My children do not know a family without them. I hope they never do. We are all a family, why should we not live together? I know many who don't feel this way, but I don't understand them. Family is family. (Spanish camp migrant, age 37) She (my mother) still working now, but even when she ain't she going to live with us. She belong with us, I mean. Hell, she my mother ain't she? (Black camp migrant, age 33)

Both types of sentiment were expressed in urban areas and in camps. But the latter type of expression was common among camp-dwellers and fairly infrequent among urban-dwellers. This points to a tendency for camp-dwellers to prefer the close, extended family and, more importantly, indicates their affinity for noncontractual felt obligations.

The next two tables indicate that this notion can be extended to a higher level of generality. Table 3 reports mean preference levels for type of dwelling (where 1, "would like it very much"; 5, "would hate it"). As can be seen, urban-dwellers expressed significantly higher levels of dislike for both apartments and duplexes. The reasons most often given for this involved lack of privacy. Among camp-dwellers who expressed dislike for apartments and duplexes, lack of ownership was most often cited. Of the camp migrants opposed to multiple dwelling units, 79.3% cited a desire for personal ownership as the primary reason for their opposition. Of the urban migrants opposed, 90.1% cited a




desire for privacy as the prime consideration. So not only were there differences in preference level, but also in the reasons for preferences. Indicated by both is a stronger desire on the part of the urban migrants for physical aloofness-insofar as possible- from the other members of the community.

Table 4 reports responses to the question: "Would you like to live in a community where everyone in it could vote on who should be allowed to live there?" Urban-dwellers answered negatively, expressing desires for heterogeneity and a fear of control. Camp residents were more often affirmative, praising the virtues of homogeneity and the desirability of moral control over cohabitants.

There never could be such a place, but it would be nice. No problems. Only the right kind of people there. All living together and no misfits to screw up the works. (Black camp migrant, age 51) Hell, no. I don't want anybody telling me how to live. And I don't want to tell anybody else how to live. Shit, they'd be peeping in your windows. It'd be terrible. (Black urban migrant, age 48)

Further evidence of differing desire for homogeneity is presented in Table 5, which details responses to the question: "If you could pick the neighborhood in which you live what sort of

TABLE 3 Mean Expressed Preferencea for Type of Dwelling

by Geographic Residence and Ethnicity

Total Spanish Black


Apartment 2.85 3.30 2.89 3.40 2.67 3.26

Duplex 2.56 3.08 2.62 3.24 2.22 3.02 House 1.14 1.05 1.14 1.14 1.11 1.01

N 183 171 156 50 27 121

Significance of Camp-Urban Difference for Total: Apartment: t = 3.86, p <.001

Duplex: t = 4.77, p <.001

a. where 1 = would like it very much, to 5 = would hate it




TABLE 4 Responses To: "Would You Like To Live in a Community Where

Everyone in It Could Vote on Who Should Be Allowed To Live There?" by Geographic Residence and Ethnicity

(in percentages)

Total Spanish Black


Yes 57.9 24.0 60.3 30.0 44.4 21.5 No 42.1 76.0 39.7 70.0 55.6 78.5

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 N 183 171 156 50 27 121

Chi-square significance level p <.001 .01 <p <.02 p <.001

people would you like to have in it?" Among the Spanish migrants, 32.5% of camp-dwellers express a strong preference for an all-Spanish neighborhood as compared to only 12.0% of the urban-dwellers. Similarly, among black migrants, 44.4% of camp-dwellers want all black neighborhoods as compared to 11.6% of urban-dwellers. For both Spanish and black groups the percentage indicating indifference was larger among urban- dwellers. Combining them, we can determine that 34.2% of all camp-dwelling migrants expressed a preference for homogeneity while only 11.7% of all urban-dwelling migrants did so.9 It should be noted that all of the migrants presently live in homogeneous settings. Camps are either black or Spanish, as are the urban neighborhoods.

As a corollary, the same general tendency is revealed by responses to the question: "Would you rather make your own decisions about everything or do you feel more comfortable when someone else tells you what the best way to do something is?" (see Table 6). Differences are not large, but are direction- ally consistent as well as statistically significant. For the combined groups, 17.4% of camp migrants indicated a preference for having others make their decisions for them, as compared to only 7.6% of urban migrants. The same type of difference holds across categories.




TABLE 5 Preference for Community Homogeneity by Geographic Residence and Ethnicity

(in percentages)

Spanish Black Type Preferred: Camp Urban Camp Urban

All black - - 44.4 11.6 All Spanish 32.5 12.0 - - All white anglo 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 Don't care 48.4 58.0 44.4 86.8 Other 18.5 30.0 11.2 1.6

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 N 157 50 27 121

DISCUSSION

These data, of course, can only be suggestive. But they support an extremely important point. As Wilson (1971: 25) has noted: "in fact one of the unhappiest complexities of the logic of neighborhood is that it can so often lead one wrongly to impute to another person some behavioral problem on the basis of the latter's membership in a racial or economic group (emphasis added).

Those migrants who choose to live in the urban fringe areas when possible are predominantly those who reject the life style in camps-a rejection that has less to do .with poverty, unpredictability, and marginality than with types of social relationships. No data are available on what percentage of urban-dwellers manage to leave permanently the migrant stream as compared to camp-dwellers. But in the camps one hears only cynical tales of the hopelessness of attempting to leave (Nelkin, 1969, 1970), whereas the urban-dwellers are full of stories about those who made it. If these ethnographic data have any validity at all, they suggest that shedding of the Gemeinschaft orientation may be a functional requisite to leaving the stream.




TABLE 6 Preferred Locus of Decision-Making

by Geographic Residence and Ethnicity (in percentages)

Total Spanish Black


Myself, always 28.3 28.7 29.9 34.0 18.5 26.4

Myself, mostly 54.3 63.7 52.9 60.0 66.7 65.3

Others, mostly 12.5 6.4 13.4 6.0 3.7 6.6

Others, always 4.9 1.2 3.8 0.0 11.1 1.7

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 N 184 171 157 50 27 121

Significance of difference between percentage saying "others" p <.0025 p <.025 NS

i_ , .............

Beyond this, improvements in the day-to-day life of the migrants are also hampered by this orientation. Their refusal to come together for instrumental purposes has already been noted. Quoting Rubel (1966), Nelkin (1969: 386) notes:

a migrant crew is characterized "by an absence of cooperation ... in which qualities of contention, invidiousness and wariness are paramount in the perceptions which (individuals) hold of one another..." The atomistic quality of the system is sustained by the normative barriers to the development of leadership and hierarchy.

This is true, however, only insofar as one is discussing organization for instrumental purposes. Few groupings ever attain the levels of trust and cooperation visible every Saturday when resources (money, transportation) are being pooled to effect purchase of the Saturday night beer allotment. And on two different occasions during this study, individual members each set aside a small portion of their day's pickings so that an ill crew member would not lose a full day's wages. A few members refused to donate their portion and were subject to the scorn of the camp: "When they down, who they think going to help out? A man who don't help his own ain't worth




nothing, just nothing" (female camp migrant, age 37). Hence, there is apparent atomization only if one is seeking a Marxian Klasse-fur-sich-the migrants are certainly not that. Their cohesion is at a different level. But neither are they merely a Klasse-an-sich, an economically defined statistical aggregate reacting fragmentally to deprivation. They are more than that, and the concept of Gemeinschaft is most appropriate.

The Gemeinschaft orientation poses a dilemma, for while apparently functional from the viewpoint of individual adaptation and psychic security, it is obviously detrimental for both individual and group upward mobility. This, added to the distrust it occasions for nonmigrants seeking to help the group, compounds the problem. On this latter point a social worker encountered in the field noted:

I've been working with these people for years and they've come to accept me and trust me. But precisely because they do, they won't believe a word I say. I'm seen as almost one of them and my "opinion" is no better or worse than theirs. I accomplish nothing. New people come in and are believed-they are accepted as authority figures-but they are outsiders and aren't trusted. They accomplish nothing.

The "leveling" effect of the Gemeinschaft mentality apparently also frustrates many attempts by others to aid migrants.

Tonnies, in Community and Society, was ably describing two modes of mentality and behavior, but clearly underlying his work was an unspoken lament for the passing of Gemeinschaft (see Sorokin, 1957: viii). Today, for better or worse, it has passed and its continued presence among migrants adds one further handicap to an already multihandicapped group, making prospects for change even dimmer than they ordinarily would be.

From the sociological point of view, these data indicate the necessity to include in one's analyses of certain groups as behaviorally relevant some component that details their way of viewing the world. Be it a major factor or minor factor-it is assuredly a factor. These data demonstrate that the explanation




of the pattern of behavior among people such as migrant workers cannot be satisfied alone or even largely by an appeal to the consequences of poverty. Nor can the behavior patterns in question be explained by reference alone to the character of the work, including its instability, uncertainty, irregularity, and so forth. Rather, the data indicate that workers bring to their work a kind of world view that determines differences in their patterns of adjustment to their work and to their general situation. This world view cannot be accounted for in terms of their economic situation or of the character of the work itself. The specific origin of a world view among migrants is problematic, but it is similarly problematic among all groups- not just the economically deprived.

In summary, people have heretofore tended to explain migrant behavior and attitudes in terms of their functional adjustment to their poverty situation. Data were presented that suggest the existence of many aspects of migrant behavior that do not easily get organized in terms of this frame of reference. Since there are very evident differences in the patterning of behavior among subgroups sharing a common situation of poverty, the poverty explanation must be dismissed, and an alternative-and more complex-explanation must be sought. This general point is probably more broadly applicable to explanations of behavior among the economically deprived in general, and a reexamination of such explanations is needed.

NOTES

1. All unreferenced quotations are from the interviewer's notebooks. 2. Tonnies's typology is employed only because it closely matches the phe-

nomenon in question. Others that could have been used with greater or lesser validity are Durkheim's "mechanical vs. organic solidarity"; Redfield's "folk vs. urban society"; Becker's "sacred vs. secular"; Sorokin's "familistic vs. contractual relationships"; and even Weber's "zweckrational vs. wertrational" or Parsons' pattern variables of action orientation. The essential distinction underlying all of these is the distinction in question (Loomis and McKinney, 1956). That is, many migrants tend to live in a communal society, characterized by: (a) minimal division of labor and role specialization; (b) highly personal social relationships and emotionally significant




interactions in the majority of cases; (c) the primacy of the family as the only membership group and as the basis of all social organization; and (d) the regulation of behavior by custom and tradition.

3. See, for example: Beilin, 1956; Beiser, 1965; Boose and Boose, 1967; Burgess, 1965; Ireland and Besner, 1965; Kaplan, 1965; Keller, 1963; LeShan, 1952; Schneider and Lysgaard, 1953; Miller et al., 1968; Keller and Zavaloni, 1964; Straus, 1962; Miller, 1968; Mischel, 1961; Schneiderman, 1964; Turner, 1962; White, 1955; Freedman, 1969; Allen, 1970; Sarbin, 1970; Rossi and Blum, 1969.

4. Estimates place the migrant population of the county at about 42,000 during the peak season. Of this number approximately 22,000 consider the county their "home base." During the slack season, population estimates vary from 13,000 to 18,000 (see Kleinert, 1970; PBC Health Department, 1972; PBC Sanitation Division, 1972).

5. Both of these figures exceed somewhat the national average estimates of migrant income. This is explainable by the nature of the population sampled from-all were working during the slack season.

6. Some might question the validity of employing self-reported income data for this type of comparison. However, errors (deviations from actual figures) are either random or nonrandom. If the former, there is no problem; if the latter, then the point is even more strongly made. That is, if camp-dwellers artificially inflate (deliberately or not) their contributions to the family total, it must be because this dimension is cogent to them.

7. An explicit question designed to ascertain interest in job training programs was asked, followed by "And what about your wife ... ?"

8. Although ethnicity is being controlled for to make a point, there is certainly no contention that the characteristic in question does not vary by ethnicity as well.

9. The "Other" category in Table 5 contains mostly respondents who indicated indifference with the exception of one group. Most of the Spanish-origin migrants in this category said they did not care as long as there were no blacks, while most of the blacks in this category said it did not matter as long as there were no "Anglo" whites.

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Documents

Gemeinschaft, Noneconomic Distinctions, and the Migrant Worker: From the inside Looking out