Photo gallery

A panoramic view of a flat landscape, showing a large field dotted with foliage and machines drilling for oil.

Overlook of the Kern River Oil Field at the Panorama Park Bluffs, Bakersfield, CA.

A dirt road with an orchard at the right.

Oil-based formula applied near farm roads for dust control. The thin coat sprayed on the side of the road released a petroleum tar smell and stained the path a translucent and shimmery black.

Three rows of grape vines growing on wooden Y-posts with wires holding the leaves aloft.

Modern grape production includes wire technology that raises the grape leaves above workers’ heads. This can provide shade for workers during peak summer temperatures.

A car is parked to the left of an empty road on a stretch of dirt beside a field. Across the street is a row of houses.

The residents in the unincorporated areas of Bakersfield have no dust protection from either the side road maintenance near agricultural fields, sidewalk construction near homes, or regular street sweeps.

View of a dirt road, with an agricultural farm on the right side of the road and a row of residential homes on the left side.

The residents in the unincorporated areas of Bakersfield use brush and trees to reduce dust exposure.

An empty road runs between a home and an agricultural farm lined with wooden posts.

A less than six-foot buffer zone between agricultural operations and residential homes in Earlimart, CA.

A dust whirl moving across the center of an open field. A dirt road is the foreground, lined with wild plants.

Dust devil captured on the road in Kern County, CA.

A group of three women, including a doctor and a nurse, are speaking as they stand around a kitchen table.

Medical team from the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee’s free health clinic program visits a rural family in Calexico, CA. (UFW Collection, 3343. Photographer Glen Pearcy. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.)

A female doctor and nurse examine a child being held by a woman while a man and another child look on from the doorway.

A picketer being arrested by Kern County sheriff’s deputies in the 1970s. Kern County, CA. (UFW Collection 291. Photographer unknown. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.)

A sheriffs officer arrests a man while a crowd of people watch.

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The free health clinic program provided services to rural and agricultural workers and their families. Calexico, CA. (UFW Collection 3347. Photographer Glen Pearcy. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.)

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