'It is their nature to do menial labour': the racialization of 'Latino/a workers' by agricultural employers.

Latino/as1 constitute the largest ethno-racial minority group in the United States, and a significant and growing proportion of the US labour force. Nevertheless, they remain at the bottom of the US economy, concentrated and overrepresented in 'bad jobs'. Using a case study from agricultural work, this paper examines how racialization is implicated in such positioning of Latino/as within the labour market. Based on data from in-depth interviews, I explore how agricultural employers articulate racial meanings about and in relation to Latino/a workers. While employers espouse colour-blindness, they routinely invoke racial meanings in their assessment of workers and everyday practices. They use race as proxy for worker quality, making racialized distinctions between recent immigrants and second + -generation Latino/as. A dual frame of reference serves as an ideological tool to de-problematize exploitative work conditions in the United States. I explore the theoretical and political implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]