California Farm Worker Labor and Living Conditions: Supporting Question 1

About This Lesson

Students explore Supporting Question 1 through a series of activities that help them understand the historical context for the farm worker movement that began in the 1960s. Students first explore a timeline depicting major events for agricultural labor in California from the 1860s to the 1960s. They will then be introduced to the concept of a “universe of obligation” to help them analyze the living and working conditions experienced by farm worker communities. Students conclude with a formative task that asks them to create a found poem that captures the conditions experienced by farm workers during this period.

Supporting Question

What conditions led migrant farm workers to build a movement for change?

Formative Task

Students will use texts from the lesson to create a found poem that captures the living and working conditions experienced by farm workers prior to the farm worker movement.

Lesson Plan

Day 1

Activity 1: Reflect on Group Membership 

Ask students to respond to the following prompt in their journals. Let them know that their responses are for personal reflection, and they will not be required to share what they write with the class:

Think about a group you belong to. It might be a group related to your gender, race, ethnicity, or religion. It might also be your family, a team, a classroom, an online community, or some other kind of group.

• What benefits and/or drawbacks are there to being a member of that group?
• What responsibilities does the group have to its members? What about to people outside the group?

After students have had time to write, invite volunteers to share their reflections. Reassure the class that sharing is entirely optional and that they are welcome to speak in general terms rather than naming specific groups.

Then explain to students that in today’s class, they will be introduced to a concept called the “universe of obligation” that will help them analyze how a community, state, nation, or society designates who is deserving of respect and care. In particular, they will be looking at the various factors that shaped California’s “universe of obligation” with respect to the treatment of farm workers during the first half of the twentieth century. Clarify for students that the term “obligation” refers to something you are expected or required to do because of a rule, a promise, or because it is morally right. ¹

Activity 2: Share a Definition of “Universe of Obligation” 

Post or write on the board this definition, and make sure that students can access it throughout the inquiry:

Universe of obligation: The circle of individuals and groups toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for amends. In other words, those that a society believes have rights that are worthy of respect and protection.

Ask students to discuss the following questions, first with a partner as a Think-Pair-Share and then as a class: 

• How might a group that is excluded from a society’s universe of obligation be impacted in each of the following situations?
  • When the society creates laws and policies to provide protection for the safety and well-being of its citizenry
  • When the society creates laws and policies that distribute resources and wealth
  • When violence or harm has occurred toward members of the excluded group

Explain that a nation or community might express its universe of obligation explicitly through its laws or more implicitly through the customs, beliefs, and choices made by individuals or groups. 

Activity 3: Explore the Position of Agricultural Laborers in California’s Universe of Obligation

Pass out the handout California Agricultural Labor Timeline (1860s-1960s) and break the class into small groups of three or four students. Distribute a sheet of poster paper, sticky notes, and markers to each group. Share with students the following instructions for the activity:

1. Read aloud the timeline together. 
2. As you read, underline any information on the timeline that helps answer the following question: 
   • What major events shaped agricultural workers’ place within California’s universe of obligation?
3. After reading the timeline, each group member will select one or two pieces of evidence from what the group has underlined and write it on a sticky note. 
4. Next, place the sticky notes on a large piece of butcher or poster paper, and group the events from the timeline together by coming up with at least three broad themes. Think of these themes as a headline or title for the notes you’ve grouped together. Record the themes on sticky notes and stick them to the poster paper as well. 

(Before students start working, consider modeling Step 4 for the whole class, using the Think Aloud teaching strategy to create one theme.)

Circulate around the room. If students need assistance coming up with themes, feel free to share some examples with them. For instance, students could write “Discriminatory immigration laws” or “Desire for low-wage labor” as broad themes. 

Ask students to tape their poster papers around the room, and have students tour the posters in a Gallery Walk, recording what they see in their journals in terms of patterns among their classmates’ responses.

Activity 4: Reflect as a Class

Regroup as a whole class. Remind students that in an earlier part of class, they learned that a nation, state, or community might express its universe of obligation explicitly through its laws or more implicitly through the customs, beliefs, and choices made by individuals or groups. Debrief the activity by asking volunteers to share their responses to the following question: 

• How did California express its universe of obligation with regard to farm workers? What major themes stand out to you from the timeline?

Close the lesson by asking students to respond to the following prompt, first in their journals and then in a class discussion:

• What were the real or potential consequences for farm workers of falling outside of California’s universe of obligation?

Day 2

Activity 1: Share Historical Background Information About Agricultural Labor in California

Remind students that in yesterday’s class, they explored the long history of discrimination against farm workers that placed these laborers outside of California’s universe of obligation. In today’s class, they will learn more about the consequences of this exclusion, especially on the living and working conditions that farm workers experienced during the 1960s. 

Project the Map of California Produce and Migrant Farm Work Patterns. Ask students to study the map and discuss the following questions in pairs: 

• What does the map show about the nature of agricultural work in California?
• What might be some challenges associated with this kind of work for farm laborers?

Ask volunteers to share with the class. Then share with students some details about California agriculture in the 1960s that distinguished it from other regions of the United States in a brief mini-lecture: 

• California didn’t have many small farmers, as in the East Coast and Midwest regions of the country. 
• Instead, California agriculture was controlled by huge landowners, or “growers.”
• In the 1960s, 6 percent of the largest growers in California controlled 75 percent of the total farmland. ²
• As a result, California farms focused on mass-producing a single crop.
• This required a mobile labor force of migrant farm workers that followed the harvest from Southern California to Northern California. 
• As students learned in the previous lesson, California growers had depended on different groups of workers. Unlike in other parts of the US with steady farm labor, in California, growers often took advantage of new groups of workers who moved from one farm to the next when it suited them or work was available.

Activity 2: Explore the Working and Living Conditions of Farm Workers in the 1960s

Explain to students that in the next activity, they will explore various sources to deepen their understanding of the conditions that farm workers faced. Please note that these readings broach sensitive topics such as racial discrimination and labor exploitation. Refer to Teaching Note 2: Teaching Emotionally Challenging Content for additional guidance. 

Divide students into groups of four, and assign each group one of the six readings about the farm working conditions from the reading set Farm Working Conditions in 1960s California.

Explain to students that they will engage in a “Little Paper” silent discussion. Distribute the handout Instructions: Little Paper Silent Discussion and review the instructions with your students. Emphasize that this activity will be completed in silence, that all communication is done in writing, and that they will have time to speak in their group later in the activity. Each student should start by reading their group’s assigned text. 

As students read, they should annotate the text by writing comments, observations, or questions about the sources in the margins. Project the following prompts to provide scaffolding for students who may need additional support for their annotations.

• Describe farm workers’ working and living conditions.
• What does this source tell you about the power of growers? How did growers exercise power over farm workers?
• What emotions does this text raise for you? Are there particular moments, images, or stories that stand out to you? If so, why?

• What questions about fairness or justice does this text raise for you?

Prompt students to begin the activity, and monitor their progress as they individually read and annotate. When the process is complete, have students return each handout to the student who read it first so that student can see the written discussions that followed their initial comments.

Then bring the class together and have volunteers share thoughts, observations, or questions from the silent discussion. 

Close the lesson by asking students to return to their closing journal prompts from Day 1 about the consequences for farm workers of falling outside of California’s universe of obligation. Instruct students to add three to five sentences to their original response, using evidence from today’s class. 

Formative Task

Create a Found Poem

To answer the supporting question (“What conditions led migrant farm workers to build a movement for change?”), have students select at least two of the readings from the previous activity to create a found poem. Prepare extra copies of these texts for students or make them available digitally. 

To create their found poem, ask students to follow the instructions on the handout Creating a Found Poem: Farm Worker Conditions. When they are finished, students can read their poems aloud to the class. Alternatively, they can read and comment on the poems silently: First, have students pass their poems to the left once. Have them read the poem they’ve received, write a comment (students should sign their name to their comment), and then pass the poem to the left again for another comment. Depending on how much time you have, you might allow for three or four passes, or you might have time for students to comment on all of the poems created by their classmates.

• 1Britannica Dictionary online, s.v. “Obligation,” accessed April 24, 2025.
• 2Richard Steven Street, Jon Lewis: Photographs of the California Grape Strike (University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 51.