Robert (FRW) Coles

When photographer Gary Harwood first stepped onto the K. W. Zellers family farm in Hartville, Ohio, to take pictures of the Mexican migrant workers there, he did not expect to find such a strong, tightly knit community. Over the next five years, he used his camera to study the lives and work of these migrants in their northeastern Ohio home. His artful photography captures the migrants' portraits and movingly conveys their great pride in work and family, their struggles and joys. Accompanying these vibrant photographs are revealing first-person narratives written by David Hassler. The voices of the migrants and community members are eloquent testaments to the importance of the culture, the resilience of the people, and the power of the place. In photos and stories, "Growing Season" celebrates the work and play and religious, medical, familial, and communal experiences of these workers - young, old, male, female - and offers readers a success story. A part of our American landscape, these people and the dedicated, caring group of volunteers who support them teach all of us about dignity and humanity.

With These Hands documents the farm labor system through the presentation of a collection of voices--workers who labor in the fields, growers who manage the multi-billion dollar agricultural industry, contractors who link workers with growers, coyotes who smuggle people across the border, union organizers, lobbyists, physicians, workers' families in Mexico, farmworker children and others. The diversity of stories presents the world of migrant farmworkers as a complex social and economic system, a network of intertwined lives, showing how all Americans are bound to the struggles and contributions of our nation's farm laborers.