Steven Ory

SeminarioMigraciones
Profesora Maria Lujan Leiva
August 8th, 2015
Toward a Plural Subject in an Assemblage of Parasitism: the Current Case of Mexican
Migrants in the Hudson Valley of New York
All those forays into space, all those facial spasms, all those wild stares were only meant to
express a vague discomfort. We experience a kind of frustration in the field of explanation. The
comedy, or the drama, begins all over again: approximate diagnosis and therapy.
There is no reason for the wheel to stop going round. Some day an X-ray will be taken of him
which will show an ulcer or a gastritis. Or which in most cases will show nothing at all. His ailment
will be described as functional.
-- Franz Fanon, The North African Syndrome
2. The massive exclusion of homeless citizens from anyparticipation in the democratic life of States,
the expulsionor deportation of so many exiles, stateless persons, and immigrantsfrom a so-called
national territory already herald a newexperience of frontiers and identity-whether national or civil
4. The inability to master the contradictions in the concept,norms, and reality of the free market (the
barriers of a protectionismand the interventionist bidding wars of capitalistStates seeking to protect
their nationals, or even Westernersor Europeans in general, from cheap labor, which often has no
comparable social protection). How is one to save one's owninterests in the global market while
claiming to protect one's "social advantages" and so forth?
5. The aggravation of the foreign debt and other connected mechanisms are starving or driving to
despair a large portion ofhumanity. They tend thus to exclude it simultaneously fromthe very market
that this logic nevertheless seeks to extend. Thistype of contradiction works through many geopolitical
fluctuationseven when they appear to be dictated by the discourse ofdemocratization or human rights.
-- Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx

Introduction and abstract.Though their writing now goes back some 25 years, the
plagues of the new world order, outlined by Derrida in his Specters of Marx and included
in part above, still call for what his Marxist inheritancetermed A New International critique
that is, a radical, globally-mindedcriticism of a neoliberal status quo that continues to
mockany argument which does not come from its own banal cycle of reproduction. The logic
and metaphors of the market, human rights, and democratization maintain an ideology
so ubiquitous that it appears impossible to escape the euphoria of liberal-democrat
capitalism,as emblematized by Fukuyama.1Mainstream neoliberal arguments are so popular,
1FrancisFukuyama,TheEndofHistoryandtheLastMan(NewYork:FreePress,1992);
deconstructedbyDerridainhisSpectersofMarx:TheStateoftheDebt,theWorkofMourning,

their vocabulary so readily recalled, that even fringe criticismsof them those contained to
the academic world, notably still insist on approaching neoliberalisms illnesses on the
ideologys ownsystematicterms. In doing so, these potentiallyradical works actually make it
difficult to sustain a radical politics. That is: when the radical critique does not have its own
vocabulary, or its own type of creative project, it in fact reinforces the metaphors of the
seemingly inescapable status quo: Neoliberalism gains its capital N, its status as monolith,
especially when it is criticized for having that status.2 From this need for a novel language to
combat the new world order of neoliberal globalization and its accompanying ideology, the
idea of the New International critique comes about.
The international plague that concerns this critique is, to pull from Derrida, the state of the
exile, stateless person, or immigrant within the context of neoliberal globalization. Like
Derrida, I use this medieval-sounding termnot lightly, and, moreover, to describe a violent
reality, which I think should be at the base of a radical critique of migration studies(this would
ideally be such a critique). And that is that the stateless person, the migrant, is by
neoliberalisms metaphors, and subsequently in the metaphors of systematiccritiques of
neoliberalism, excluded, or denied a certain amount of what Fanon called human reality.
Fanon asks in sharp irony in the beginning of his North African Syndrome, in a way that
would seem to apply more broadly to the agent said to be an immigrant or outsider:Who are
they? I ask you, I ask myself. Who are they, those creatures starving for humanity who stand
buttressed against the impalpable frontiers (though I know them from experience to be terribly
distinct) of complete recognition?3Migration studies tendsnot to recognize that the migrant is
andtheNewInternational,trans.PeggyKamuf(NewYork:RoutledgeClassics,2006),116.
2See:AihwaOng,"NeoliberalismasaMobileTechnology,"(TransactionsoftheInstituteof
BritishGeographers32,no.3(2007):38).
3FranzFanon,"The'NorthAfricanSyndrome,'"inTowardtheAfricanRevolution:Political
Essays,trans.HaakonChevalier(NewYork:MonthlyReviewPress,1967),1.

not only a migrant, not simply a limited object for study;but she is in fact a plural being
embedded into a transnational world, all the more plural for her being a migrant a person
who has been exposed to more intersections of identities.4
Ontheempiricallevelofthisarticle,IofferthesituationofMexicanfarmworkersin
theUnitedStatesandespeciallyintheHudsonValleyofNewYorkasanexampleof
contemporarychainlabormigration.Thisservesasapracticalenvironmentformycounterto
neoliberalandothernormalizingargumentslikepopularacademicones.MyNew
Internationalcritiqueofmigrationstudiescanbebestencapsulatedasanexplanationand
descriptionofpluralsocialagentswithinassemblagesofparasitism. The paper proceeds in
the following way. First, through the concept of forced migration inLeivas work; those
ofassemblage,neoliberalism as a metaphor and mobile technology in the work of Ong,
and a subsequent problematization using LaCroixs new S/A approach; I arrive at a nonmonolithic definition of neoliberal globalizations interaction with the migrant.5That is the
assemblage of parasitismupon the plural social agent. I attempt to show how this approach is
a change from the norm. I do this in order to demonstrate that, even while academic migration
scholars work and works like it sharply hone the idea of what migration studies should do
and providelasting empirical data, their reliance uponsystematic concepts like development,
for example, reinforce discourse that relies on neoliberalisms own metaphors. And in doing
so, these works deny the plurality of the migrant as a subject, political or otherwise, just as
neoliberalism itself does. I then provide some empirical backgroundto contextualize the
4ThomasLacroix,"ConceptualizingTransnationalEngagements:AStructureandAgency
Perspectiveon(Hometown)Transnationalism,"[InternationalMigrationReview48,no.3
(Fall2014)]:658.
5Itshouldbenotedthatastrictdefinitionofneoliberalismisnotstatedoutsidethe
explanationofassemblage,inordertodeconstructneoliberalismasametaphor,andthat
thereforethewordneoliberalismisnotreallyexplaineduntilthediscussionofOngswork.

assemblage of parasitism dependent on Mexican farmworkers in New Yorks Hudson

Valley. To conclude, I offer a microhistory-in-global-context fromHeriberto Gonzalez, a
former Hudson Valley farmworker who has gone on to do more explicitly political work with
an organization there.6The idea of the microhistoryin conjunction with the theoretical
criticism is to base the critique in a mode of practice, with the hope that doing so will
demonstrate a method of not limiting or idealizing the migrantas a tool for systematic
frameworks, neoliberal or anti-neoliberal, instead describing something closer to Fanons
human reality, plural and changeable as it may be for the migrant.
Keywords: Assemblage, neoliberalism, globalization, embedding, Mexico, United States,
subject, plurality, parasitism, New York, migration studies, radicalism, Derrida, Fanon,
Deleuze.
Definingassemblagesofparasitismandthepluralsubject.
We can acknowledge the reality of forced migration withoutlimiting the migrant
herself to being simply a part of asystem dependent on that idea. Indeed, we can describethe
changeable experiences of what migration may be like if we do not have to pay dues to
anideal example of migration upon which to make a systematic critique. In this section,
then, I define and recognize forced migration within neoliberal globalization, not treating it as
a system, but instead as something that can be assembled from the plurality of forces that
might affect the migrant as a plural subject, and with whicha migrant can interact.

6Anideawhichowesmuchto:AyseKudat,Consecuenciaspersonales,familiaresysocialesde
lamigracindelasmujeresturcasenEuropa,(AAVV,Vivirentredosculturas,Barcelona,
UNESCO,1983).

InherMigracionesinternacionales:trabajoycapital,Leivasynthesizestwoconclusions
aboutwhichthemostradicalendofacademicantineoliberalthoughtinmigrationstudies
seemstoagree.First,herargumentisbasedonthepremisafundamentalthat:
ladesarticulacinprofundayprogresivadelaseconomasperifricasesoperada,entreotros
propsitosigualmenterelevantes,afindeasegurarunsuministropermanentedeinmigrantesyde
utilizarunejrcitodereservaflotantealserviciodeloscapitalesdelNorte.Enesesentido,entrelos
pasesdelnorte(capitalismocentral)yelsur(capitalismoperifrico)setensanmltiplesrelaciones
asimtricas,queademsdeampliarlabrechaentredesarrolloysubdesarrollo,contribuyenaquelas
economasdelsurseespecialicen,comoproveedoresdefuerzadetrabajobarata,desotisficandosu
economa.ElSurentraenlacategoradepasespobres,relegndoseeneldiscursoyenlaspolticasal
conceptodedesarrollo,subdesarrolloymsandedesarrollodelsubdesarrollo.7

Intheabove,Leivasetsuptheimportantideathatglobalneoliberalismreliesuponthe
migrantasapermanentmobileorfloating[flotante]laborresourceamemberofa
reservearmyuponwhichglobalcapitalismisdependent.Evenmoreimportantlyforour
purposes,sheproposestheideathatthemigrantisalwayssubjecttothisstatusaspartofthe
globalreservearmythatheisforcedtomigrateduetotheasymmetricglobalchainsset
upbyneoliberalismsconstantneedforlaborasaresource.Thatis,sheexplainsacertain
parasiticrelationship,whereinthemigrantisembeddedorcoercedintotheneoliberalmodel,
operatingasaresourceforit.
Theasymmetriesofglobalizationcreate,accordingtoasystematiccritiquelike
Leivas,variousmacrodialecticsthatcoercethemigrantintohermobile,cheaplabor
station.Developmentandunderdevelopment,centralandperipheralcapitalism,global
northandsouthallthesearesystematicprocessesthatdefinethemigrantandgivehera
rolewithinthesystemofmigration.Thatistosay,thedefinitionofthemigrantisonly
possiblewhens/heiswrittenintothesystemofneoliberalglobalizationasunderstoodbythe
7MaraLujnLeiva,MigracionesInternacionales:TrabajoyCapital,enContextosCrticos:
MigracionesContemporneas(BuenosAires.EdicionesDesdelaGente.2014),12.

antineoliberalcritique.Thisistrueevenwhenthecritiqueiscriticalofthesetypesof
dialectics.Themigrantstillhasaroletoplaywithinthatsystem,ands/heisdefinedbythe
systemsdependenceonher/him.
ItisimportanttorecognizethatinLeivassystematiccritique,theroleofthemigrantis
essentializedandinpracticemadearole,asalsohappenswhenmainstreamneoliberalworks
writeaboutthemigrant.Ourtaskwillnottobedenytherealityofthisrolemigrationunder
neoliberalglobalizationisforced,asLeivamakesclear,andthisforcingisawayofdefining
whatthewordmigrantmeansbutrathertoallowthisroletobeassembledwithalltheother
forcesthatmightmakethemigrant.Tobetoodependentonthemigrantsmigrantnessisto
denyFanonshumanrealityofwhichmigrantnessisonlyapartialreality.
ButsystematicasLeivasejrcitodereservacritiqueofneoliberalglobalization
maybe,heranalysisdoesacknowledgethatthemigrantisnotmerelyapassivesubjectwithin
anomnipotentsystem:
Esta migracin impulsada por el desarrollo desigual y el neoliberalismo puede considerarse una
migracin forzada (Delgado, Mrquez y Puentes, 2010, Leiva, 2010; Petras,2007), cuya caracterstica
ms notable no slo es la consideracin de los mecanismos de su causacin estructural, sino tambin
la forma en que apoyan el proceso de crecimiento y competitividad del capitalismo europeo y de
Amrica del Norte. Los inmigrantes no permanecen sin embargo como sujetos pasivos o meros
instrumentos econmicos, sino que generan espacios propios de resistencia y movilizacin con miras
a enfrentar el orden hegemnico en la economa, lo social y la poltica y su subalternidad social. 8

The author makes it clear that what she offers is not a top-down approach to migration
studies, and she in fact submits a bottom-up approach in defiance of less radical theories,
especially push-pull theory, which relies merely on algunosfactores macro-estructurales
(subdesarrollo, subempleo).9The bottom-upedness of Leivas approach is something we

8Leiva,TrabajoyCapital,2.Italicsadded.
9Ibid.,2.Forpushpulltheory,see:EverettS.Lee,ATheoryofMigration,(Demography
3,no.1.January1,1966):4757.

should take into account when considering the migrant as a plural subject, because it is thus
far the only approach that allows the subject any agency. It is in this allowance of agency that
Leivas critique of migration studies is most radical, and the idea of agency within a
coercive situation of embedding will serve as our jumping off point for explaining parasitic
assemblage. This is because in writing about the migrant as being able to interact with
something larger, in this case the system of flowing capital to countries in the global north,
Leivacreates a place of radical resistance for the migrant. The migrant-role that allows for
agency allows for resistance through that agency, so that the migrant now has a new realm for
identity (a new plurality) the overtly political one. This is a realm I emphasize in the
microhistory below.
Leivas argument epitomizesboth the advantages and limits of the systematic critique
of neoliberal globalization. On the one hand, it offers us a way of writing about the migrant in
the first place; the idea of a reserve army of labor does explain one single reality of the
migrant human reality, namely, that migration is something the migrant is embedded into. On
the other hand, the systematic critique has a very limiting disadvantage, which is that the
migrant is written into certain roles in a way that can be oversimplifying, and, moreover,
reliant on neoliberalisms own vocabulary.
When the migrants roleplays itself out as only part of a system, as takes place in even
the most radical systematic critiques, it become just that: systematic, as opposed to analytic
about or descriptive of a reality. In other words, the systematic critique permits migration
studies a vocabulary for talking about a migrants reality, but if relied upon to heavily, the
systematization of that critique only mirrors what neoliberalism says about the migrant: that
s/he has a single, simplified role to play as a labor resource. Relying on neoliberalisms own

metaphors reinforces neoliberalism, and rids the radical critique of its teeth, as it is subsumed
into neoliberalisms superficially ubiquitous repetition of itself as an idea.
Leiva writes the migrant into his status as a migrant, which is an idealization of the
migrants role (the migrant is not just a migrant); that said, Leivastwo assertions,a) that the
migrant is coerced or embedded into her situation, and b) that s/he interacts with agency as a
part of that system, are bothnotions that we can take forward asvital parts of a plural migrant
identity. The trick will be to move forward from the too-systematic parts of Leivas critique,
which, we should mention, was chosen for how lucid and emblematic its approach to radical
migration studies was. For this, we turn to the concept of assemblage, which itself will need to
be complicated somewhat, using what can be taken from Leivas work.
In her Neoliberalism as Mobile Technology, Ong identifies the problem, as we have,
with writing about neoliberal globalization as a monolithic system, as Neoliberalism with a
big N:
Yet,Neoliberalismwritlargeseldomengageswiththedynamismitencountersinparticular
environments.Theuseofmacrocategorieslikestructure,civilization,Empireandnationstatebetrays
anindustrialsensibilitythattrackstheunfoldingofaninevitableprocessacrossunits.Butifweview
neoliberalismnotasasystembutamigratorysetofpractices,wewouldhavetotakeintoaccounthow
itsflowsarticulatediversesituationsandparticipateinmutatingconfigurationsofpossibility. 10

Ongreiterateswhatwediscoveredabovethesystematiccritique,dependentasitison
overarchingconceptslikestructureandcivilization,orinthecaseofradicalmigration
studies,developmentandunderdevelopment,disclosesaloyaltytoold,oftenorthodoxor
structuralistvocabularies.Thatistrueevenandespeciallywhensystematiccritiquescriticize
thosevocabularies,becausesuchcriticismsinfactstrengthenthosevocabulariesvia
recognitionandreuse.
10Iquotefreelyinthissectionfrom:AihwaOng,"NeoliberalismasaMobileTechnology,"
[TransactionsoftheInstituteofBritishGeographers32,no.3(2007):38].

RelyingonDeleuzeandGuattarisconceptofassemblage,Ongcomesupwithneoliberalism
withasmalln,adecisionwewillrepeatandproblematizeinreferencetoneoliberalisms
interactionwiththemigrantsubject:
Iproposeatransversalmodeofanalysisthatskirtsanindustrialormilitarymodelof
neoliberaltakeover.Neoliberalismisconceptualizednotasafixedsetofattributeswithpredetermined
outcomes,butasalogicofgoverningthatmigratesandisselectivelytakenupindiverse
politicalcontexts.Neoliberalismwithasmallnisatechnologyofgoverningfreesubjectsthatco
existswithotherpoliticalrationalities.Theproblemofneoliberalismi.e.howtoadministerpeople
forselfmasteryistorespondstrategicallytopopulationandspaceforoptimalgainsinprofitThus,
neoliberallogicisbestconceptualizednotasastandardizeduniversalapparatus,butamigratory
technologyofgoverningthatinteractswithsituatedsetsofelementsandcircumstances(emphasis
added).

Theideathatneoliberalismglobalizesandinteractswithdifferentenvironmentsanddoesnot
functionasaplaceless,persistenttsunamihelpsusgetawayfromtheproblemofover
systematization.And,consequently,toachanceatdescribingsometypeofhumanrealityand
migrantplurality.
Forourpurposes,usingOngstransversal,movingfrombigNtosmalln
neoliberalism,meanstakingLeivasbottomupapproachastepfurtherinorderto
complicatethemigrantsubject.Notonlydowenotassumeneoliberalismsownvocabularies
totalkbroadlyaboutmacrostructures(notionsofdevelopmentandsoon).Butwealso
donotsolidifythemigrantsroleasamicrostructurewedonotassumethats/heis
embedded/coercedintoneoliberalismthesamewayeverywhere,northatotherfactorsbeside
his/heragencydonotaffectthisembedding/coercion.Inotherwords,anythingandeverything
withinalimitedenvironmenthasachanceatbeingthrownintothemigrantnarrative.Itwill
notbeamatterofunderstandingthemigrantsagencythroughhisrolebutassembling
togethertheaccountofthemigrantsforcedsituationtoincludethepracticesand
environmentsofagivenimaginativegeography,andthenmakinggeneralizationstocreatean

assemblageaboutamigratorygeography,e.g.MexicanmigrationtoNewYorkState.The
notionofassemblageisliteral.Itisaputtingtogetherinsteadofatakingapartanew
empiricismratherthanasystematicanalysisbasedonmainstreamvocabularies,which,inthe
end,donotprovideforradicalanalysisanyway.
In his new S/A (structure and agency) approach, Lacroix acknowledges a key
problem with the assemblage method, and that is that it does not allow for much more than
description of, in this case, different practices of neoliberal globalization and migration. One
can see how the notion of, as I stated above, putting any and everything into the migrant
narrative, i.e. the notion of assemblage, seemingly eliminates the chance at critical
generalization. In other words, assemblagemakes it hard to talk about why neoliberalism
might force the migrant-subject into certain situations, and sticks simply to thehow. Lacroix
says critically:
Such an approach [assemblage], Law asserts, is descriptive rather than foundational (2009:141). It
focuses on how material/immaterial relations assemble rather than on why. It focuses on the logics of
durability that stabilize a given configuration, rather than on the mechanics of rationality that spur
emergent practices. In this regard, I fear that the followers of Gaia so eager to build up an egalitarian
vision of the worldbetween the human and the non-human, jettison the ontological specificities of
human beings.11

As stated at the outset of this New International Critique, the idea here is to arrive at some
kind of Fanonian human reality, so the charge that assemblage doesnt allow for that type of
specificity is a serious one. Lacroix is correct in saying that many uses of assemblageas a
concept in migration studies do not allow for much analysis per se. Even Ong, in the paper
mentioned above, only shows how neoliberalism seems to be spreading as a technique of
administration and as a metaphor of a knowledge society in contemporary assemblages
in East and Southeast Asia; her work does not offer much reason for why it might spread that
11Lacroix,Structure/AgencyApproach,653654.

way there, specifically.

However, Leivas concept of forced migration provides us with a why for our assemblage
concept, and that why is that word hinted at earlier, parasitism.The way neoliberallogic
organizeshumansandnonhumansdoeshaveoneconsistentrationaloperation,andthatisthe
generalforcingitdoesonthemigrantbyalwaysusingthemigrantasalaborresource,
muchlikeaparasitedependentonanotherbeingforcesthatbeingintoacertainwayof
operating.Thebeinghasitsownagencyandcanstillbe,butthewayitoperatesisnow
affectedbytheparasite,muchasFanonspatientwithNorthAfricanSyndromeisstill
functionaldespitehisailment.
Migrationunderneoliberalglobalization,despitetheunsystematicwaysitmayoperate
indifferentgeographiesandtemporalities,alwaysdoeshaveanunderlyingmotiveofusing
themigrantforhislabor.Neoliberalismscoercion/embeddingprocessuponthemigrantuses
differentassemblagesaroundtheworld,butitsembeddingitselfintothemigrantssubjectivity
iswhatmakesitparasitic.ThusIfindthetermassemblageofparasitismuseful,asit
incorporatesthehumansubjectandwhats/heinteractswith,butconcentratesonhowthe
human,themigrantsubject,isaffectedbysuchaspecificprocess.
Imentionedearlierthatwewerenotattemptingtorelegatethemigranttohisroleasa
laborresource,soitmayseemlikethereisacontradictionatpresentwhenIsaythatthisisa
conditions/heisconstantlyunder.Buttheconclusionherewouldbethatthebeingaplural
beingwithagencythatisembeddedintoanassemblageofparasitismisacontradictory
notion.Andyetitpartiallydescribesareality.ToexplainIwouldliketounifytophrasesI
haveusedbutnotnecessarilyputtogether:pluralbeingandthemigrantisnotjusta

migrant.Thelatteristhedefinitionoftheformer,meaningthatthereareotherpartsofbeing
amigrantsubject(beingpoliticallyresistant,forexample)thathavenothingtodowithbeing
amigrant,ifwedochoosetodefinethemigrantbytheprocessofforcedmigration.The
migrantsubjectoperatesinpluralrealmsoutsideofsimplyhisassemblageofparasitism,or
hisbeingalaborresource,andyetthatparasiticrelationshipdoesinawaylabelordefine
migrantsubjectivity.
Thecontradictionofthemigrantssituationisperhapsamoreusefulwayoftalking
abouthows/heisembeddedintoneoliberalismschangeablelogic,atleastmoresothan
his/herroleasalaborresourcewithinalargersystem.Thatis,thiscontradictionthatthe
migrantispluralandnotonlyamigrant,whileatthesametimebeingalwaysembeddedintoa
situationofparasitism,ofbeingusedasaresourcethiscontradictionpartiallygetsatthe
Fanonianhumanrealityofthemigrant.Inwhich,despitebeingapluralsubjectwithagency
whointeractswiththeworld,themigrantisalwaysmadetopayduestoherownprivate
microcosmofsuffering,theparasiticassemblagewhichdependsonher.
Writing an assemblage of parasitism: Delgado-Wise on US-Mexico labor migration,the
assemblage of parasitism in the Hudson Valley, and Heribertos plural agency within it.
In order to base the above New International critique in a practice and therefore
explain something like Fanons human reality, I conclude with this shortmicrohistory about
a plural subject, HeribertoGonazalez, who interacts with an assemblage of parasitism, the
situation of Mexican farmworkers in New Yorks Hudson Valley.But first I include some
context based on empirical research about Mexican migration to the US, in order to show
some of the non-human aspects that Heriberto might have to interact with in a parasitic
assemblage.

The migration and development scholar Delgado-Wise describes the current period of
Mexican migration to the US as crecimientodesbordante de la migracion y
aperturaeconomicaindiscriminada.12In 1986, as the global welfare state fell and neoliberal
policies became increasingly popular, tempting the notion of what migrations scholars have
called a global south, Mexicos government introduced the Acuerdo general
sobreArancales y Comercio (GATT).13 The GATT was a free-trade agreement, which, in
conjunction with NAFTA in 1993, legally legitimized US dependence upon Mexican labor.
Since then, Mexican labor migration to the US has increased exponentially, in a turn of irony
where the neoliberal buzzword of free trade creates a coercive situation for those migrants
who play the partial role of labor resource.14 This all came on the heels of already 22 years of
undocumented migration since the fall of the bracero program, which, from 1942-1964had
introduced a policy of parasitism in Mexico-US labor relations. We see a parasitic assemblage
of non-human elements begin to form: policy, labor needs, and geographic proximity, and that
is only if we leave out the bottom-up or subjective experience of such an assemblage.
Our microhistorysnon-humancontext, then, is a parasitic assemblage built wherein the
US depends on Mexican labor. This is a relationship that, at least since the second world war,
started as political policy with the bracero program, became entrenched by US markets need
for labor, and then was re-solidified and made law because of that need. The assemblage
compounds upon itself and entrenches itself over time, as neoliberal market logic becomes
policy. Elsewhere, Delgado-Wise has claimed that in the context of the regional integration
molded by NAFTA, the dynamics of migration to the United States havemushroomed and
12RalDelgadoWise,"LamigracinmexicanahaciaEstadosUnidosalaluzdela
integracineconmicaregional:nuevodinamismoyparadojas,"[RevistaTHEOMAI:
EstudiossobreSociedad,NaturalezayDesarrollo,no.14(2006)],78.
13Leiva,TrabajoyCapital,1.
14SeeGrfica1inDelgadoWise,MigracinMexicana,79.

socioeconomic dependence on remittances in Mexico has deepened.15 Though Delgado-Wise

makes this statement based on macro-considerations like sub-development of Mexico and
subsequent sub-employment of Mexicans in the US, his statement does hold true in that the
US does survive on Mexican migrant labor in those sectors, like farm work, in which policy
allows for undocumented workers due to market needs.
In the 2000s, New Yorks Hudson Valley has seen a surge in migration from Mexico,
especially from the Oaxaca region.16Being undocumented and thus being labeled unskilled,
many Oaxacansareforced into the situation of unskilled farm labor for which there is a great
need in the Hudson Valley, an area which supplies much of the locally-grown food and
resources for New York City.
To make a generalization, then: we see a Oaxaca-Hudson Valley assemblage inside
the larger Mexico-US one, a microcosm of the larger parasitism that has its own particulars.
Some of those particulars include the cultural specificity of the state of Oaxaca and how that
cultural specificity travels, creating animagined community among undocumented Oaxacan
farmworkers in the Hudson valley.
Heriberto Gonzales arrived in New Yorks Hudson Valley in the beginning of May 2009, after
a month long journey from the border town ofTecate, Mexico. In Mexico he was a college
student who worked on his grandfathers farm on his breaks from school, as he had while
growing up. He left home in order to earn more money in the United States and send part of
that money back, which is emblematic of the remittance economy that plays a role in the
Oaxaca-Hudson Valley assemblage.Heriberto describes his road from Mexico with simple,
15RalDelgadoWiseand
16MariaRose,"OaxacanImmigrationtoPoughkeepsie,"WelcometotheHudsonValley:A
GuidebookofLocalTopicsinEnvironmentalHistory,lastmodifiedJune3,2013,accessed
August24,2015,http://pages.vassar.edu/hudsonvalleyguidebook/2013/06/03/oaxacan
immigrationtopoughkeepsie/.

negative adjectives: difcil y peligroso. He recounts eating only one meal a day, and for
three days not eating at all, on the walk from Tecate to San Diego, during which he and other
migrants slept together to manage the cold nights, one of those nights having to scare off
rattlesnakes from their camp.He then took a five-day trip from San Diego to New York in a
truck. Hehad to spend a large portion of his savings on this trip, and he arrived in New York
needing to start work immediately.
Originally from Morelos, Mexico, Heriberto is not Oaxacan. And yet, he was
embedded into the situation of farm labor in much the same way many Oaxacans are upon
arrival in the Hudson Valley.In other words, he was forced, by being undocumented, into a
situation of working as an unskilled laborer. And since he had some experience with farm
work and that is such a needed resource in the Hudson Valley, farm work was the sector he
ended up in. Through this job on a farm near Poughkeepsie, New York, he met other
undocumented workers, many from Oaxaca, and was introduced into the inclusive aspect of
that imagined community, which inclusion functioned as a form of resistance against the labor
burdens that the Oaxaca-Hudson Valley assemblage puts upon those who are embedded in it.
The Oaxacanand larger Latino community in the Hudson Valley, it turns out, ended up
being a key part of Heribertos plural subjectivity and eventual political resistance, because
associations with other Oaxacan and Latino migrant workers helped him make connections
that enabled him to later leave farm work for more political work.
Heriberto worked on farms for four and a half years, then, through connections he had
made within the farmworker community, moved on to a job with the Rural and Migrant
Ministries of New York (RMM), a grassroots organization committed to honor and support
efforts of those who are disenfranchised, especially migrant farmworkers and the rural poor,

as they seek greater self-determination.17Specifically, he works on their Justice for

Farmworkers Campaign, which pushes the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act, a bill in
the New York State Senate attempting to provide farmworkers with standard labor reform
practices like overtime pay, an 8-hour work day, and a day of rest.18
Heribertos decision to work in a grass-roots movement instead of continuing on as a
farmworker demonstrates at the very least one side of his subjectivity that has nothing to do
with his being a labor resource, and that is his political side. His decision to be a political
subject shows that he is in fact a plural subject and more than his migrant role. And yet, his
transfer to overtly political work was facilitated by the fact that he was embedded into the
Oaxaca-Hudson valley assemblage; he would not have joined RMM had it not been for his
situation of forced migration.
And it remains true that, while he is no longer a farmworker,Heriberto and his role as a
labor source still supply the Oaxaca-Hudson valley assemblage of parasitism, if we still assert
that the migrants status is one of forced migration. That is, Heriberto is now part of an
organization working to improve the situation of migrant farmworkers, not eliminate the role
of migrant farm work. His political work maintains a neoliberal, globalized assemblage
between Oaxaca and the Hudson Valley, as we now see that near anything and everything can
contribute to a parasitic assemblage. His narrative then illustrates the contradiction of the
plural subject within an assemblage of parasitism: that one can exercise agency and be
more than a role-player or a singular subject, but as long as the parasitic assemblage exists, it
will use the migrant, and partially deny him human reality. InFanonian terms, the ailment
remains functional.
17"MissionandVisionStatements."Lastmodified2010.AccessedAugust6,2015.
http://www.ruralmigrantministry.org/.
18See: FarmworkersFairLaborPracticesAct,S.S17432013,2013Leg.(N.Y.2013).

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