Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community

Selected as one of the Books that Matter by the Association of American University Presses for its 75th anniversary.

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.