“You’re Just Stuck in a Hole,Really”: Mechanisms of Structural Racism Through Migrant Agricultural Worker Housing in Canada

Abstract

Worldwide, migrant agricultural workers face poor housing conditions and related health challenges. A growing body of research has documented the substandard housing often occupied by this largely racialized population. Yet limited health research has examined mechanisms of structural racism that determine this group’s poor housing and health. Drawing on interviews with 151 migrant farmworkers in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, we documented the housing experiences faced by migrant agricultural workers and examined the role of structural racism in determining housing and health inequities. Our analysis identified four overlapping mechanisms by which migrants’ housing and health were determined by structural racism: (1) scarcity, (2) segregation, (3) sacrifice, and (4) stagnation. These mechanisms both reinforced and normalized housing hardships, making it difficult for migrants to escape unsafe or inadequate housing. Our findings point to the need for immediate action to improve housing conditions for this population and to interrogate the racist design that keeps migrant workers at the margins of society.

Introduction

It is well documented that poor housing often leads to poor health (Raphael, 2016). This relationship is acutely felt by migrant workers, low-wage migrant populations working in high-income countries (Coates et al., 2013). Migrant workers are often housed in substandard, overcrowded conditions that are linked to a variety of health and safety threats, including respiratory illnesses, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and, in extreme cases, loss of life (Caxaj et al., 2022; Chávez et al., 2024; Keim-Malpass et al., 2015). Low-wage migrant workers are often racialized, and they face significant health inequities as a result of their housing. These health inequities exemplify structural racism. The role of structural racism in shaping health inequities is widely acknowledged (Laster Pirtle, 2020). Yet existing health research has not focused on migrant agricultural workers’ (MAWs) lived experiences of housing in Canada, nor the detailed mechanisms of structural racism that undermine this population’s housing and health. This paper represents our third publication from a 3-year project on migrant farmworkers’ housing, building on a prior scoping review on housing and health challenges faced by MAWs (Caxaj et al., 2024), and an examination of the role of globalized capitalism in contributing to housing inequities (Weiler & Caxaj, 2024).

A growing body of research has underscored poor and inconsistent housing conditions for migrant workers in the agricultural sector specifically (Arcury, Weir, Chen, et al., 2012; Arcury, Weir, Summers, et al., 2012; Anonymized for review; Fiałkowska & Matuszczyk, 2021; Hennebry, 2010; Keim-Malpass et al., 2015; Quandt, Summers, et al., 2013; Quandt, Wiggins, et al., 2013). Challenges include overcrowding, isolation, inadequate cooking facilities, a lack of adequate cooling and ventilation, and a ratio of washrooms and showers that is insufficient to maintain hygienic conditions. Often, employers are responsible for providing housing to migrants, which introduces role conflict when employers are both landlords and bosses. Human rights violations, harassment, and bullying have also been documented in migrant worker living quarters (Caxaj et al., 2024; Coates et al., 2013). Overall, MAWs face a lower quality of life and poorer mental health than other types of workers and have limited access to health and social services. Inadequate and precarious housing is a key factor determining these challenges (Leiler et al., 2019; Xiao et al., 2018).

Drawing from interviews with 151 MAWs, we sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What are migrant agricultural workers’ experiences of employer-provided housing in Canada? (2) How do mechanisms of structural racism shape migrants’ housing and health? Through our findings, we detail the poor housing quality faced by this population as well as the logic of structural racism that enforces these health inequities. Building on prior scholarship, our findings offer several novel contributions. First, they provide broader and more current documentation of MAWs’ housing quality concerns in Canada, which have typically been an incidental finding of a different area of inquiry, with a few exceptions that have focused on specific housing dynamics (e.g., Perry, 2018; Smith, 2015). Second, our analysis contributes to a more explicit analysis of the role of structural racism in determining features of poor housing, including social and neighborhood dimensions (e.g., surveillance and institutionalization). Below, we will first discuss prior scholarship and our conceptual framework (structural racism in housing) before presenting our findings, discussion, and conclusion.

Review of the Literature

MAWs’ Housing Challenges Globally and in the Canadian Context

MAWs worldwide face similar and widespread housing challenges. Furthermore, migrant farmworkers’ housing often lacks adequate oversight and regulation to ensure dignified housing (Arcury, Weir, Chen, et al., 2012; Joyner et al., 2015). Consistent concerns in countries such as the United States, Italy, Germany, and Poland include limited privacy, inadequate standards for hygiene, a lack of security, and physical structures of housing that are non-permanent, shoddy, or in disrepair (Stachowski & Fiałkowska, 2020). In a U.S.-based qualitative study (n = 30), Keim-Malpass et al. (2015) highlighted common challenges including pesticide exposure, “safety issues, pests,” and problems related to “water supply . . . air quality, temperature and moisture” (p. 4). Arcury, Weir, Summers, et al.’s (2012) research in the United States with 183 MAWs found that 83.5% felt that possessions were not secure in their living quarters, close to half lacked toileting or bathing privacy, and 52.7% experienced unsafe indoor room temperatures. Another study found that kitchen-related violations were common, with inadequate refrigeration and pest/rodent infestation among the most frequent infractions (Quandt, Summers, et al., 2013). A study with 396 randomly selected MAWs over a 2-year period in the United States found that all residences had a minimum of one exterior housing problem (e.g., structural), and 93% of the living quarters had an interior housing inadequacy (e.g., poor flooring and lacking fire extinguisher; Vallejos et al., 2011). Likewise, a scoping review of housing challenges faced by MAWs in the Canadian context identified several domains that pose a threat to MAWs’ health and safety: (a) food security, water, and sanitation; (b) electricity, utilities, and thermal safety; (c) habitability, exposure to hazards, and air quality; (d) coworker relations, privacy, and spacing; and (e) distance to required community services and resources (Caxaj et al., 2024). A 2010 survey with 600 MAWs in Ontario, Canada, found that 50% of workers considered their housing inadequate on at least two dimensions (Hennebry, 2010). Such rates of dissatisfaction were mirrored in a recent non-profit report on migrant housing (Migrant Rights Network, 2020).

Underlying many of these challenges is the fact that housing for MAWs is often provided by employers and is typically located near the worksite (Fiałkowska & Matuszczyk, 2021). This dual employer–landlord role puts pressure on MAWs to acquiesce to significantly substandard living conditions that may lack even basic utilities (McLaughlin & Hennebry, 2015; Otero & Preibisch, 2016). In short, housing challenges faced by MAWs are long-documented, yet this population’s overall housing experiences have typically not been the subject of a focused scholarly inquiry, especially outside of the U.S. context.

Relationships Between Health Challenges, Inequities, and Poor Housing for MAWs

Researchers across the globe have documented the interconnections between MAWs’ housing and health issues. Common housing challenges, such as a lack of security in one’s home (i.e., lacking possession of a key), a lack of privacy and crowding in living quarters, and no provision of storage for one’s belongings, have been correlated with rates of anxiety, depression, and risk of substance use in the United States (Mora et al., 2016). In Europe, overcrowded quarters and a subsequent lack of privacy have been described as strong determinants of risks to physical and mental health (Brovia & Piro, 2021). Housing challenges, especially overcrowding, have also been documented as significant deterrents to adequate sleep, physical recovery, and health in Canada and Australia (Caxaj & Diaz, 2018; Petrou & Connell, 2018). Research in the southern United States has suggested that pesticide and hazardous heat exposure are the norm across MAWs’ living quarters, representing significant health threats (Arcury et al., 2014; Quandt, Wiggins, et al., 2013). Survey research in Canada also found that 37% of participants believed the poor quality of their housing directly threatened their health (Hennebry, 2010). Likewise, survey research with Syrian MAWs in Lebanon found a strong positive correlation between poor housing quality and incidences of multi-morbidity (Habib et al., 2016).

A common challenge for MAWs is geographic and social isolation, which can pose risks to food security, social well-being, and timely medical care (Caxaj et al., 2022; Helps, 2020). Constraints on social ties, freedom, mobility, and dignity are often influenced by the nature and location of housing (Caxaj & Cohen, 2019, 2021; Horgan & Liinamaa, 2017; Izcara Palacios et al., 2009; Otero & Preibisch, 2016; Reid-Musson, 2018; Stead, 2023). Employer-provided housing can further limit MAWs’ quality of life. For example, Perry (2018) examined how Mexican and Guatemalan MAWs in Ontario, Canada, navigated the obligation to live in the same place they worked. This environment resulted in involuntary interpersonal relationships between coworkers and roommates that often intensified their exploitation by merging workers’ personal lives with work. Smith (2015) examined community discourse surrounding municipal bylaw amendments intended to expand housing quarters for MAWs in Canada and found that racist and unfree labor relations governed MAWs’ mobility and living conditions. The community discourse both reinforced and mirrored exploitative workplace dynamics (Smith, 2015). Likewise, research in the U.S., Italian, German, and broader European contexts has described the social and spatial isolation of this workforce, and the migration policies and labor relations that reinforce their conditions (Brovia & Piro, 2021; Martin, 2021; Stachowski & Fiałkowska, 2020).

In short, prior studies have identified specific substandard housing characteristics and their links with specific health outcomes. Furthermore, important scholarship has begun to examine the political, economic, and institutional processes that undermine the status and freedom of MAWs and the impact of these processes on MAWs’ housing experiences. Our research builds on this prior scholarship by focusing on both (1) overall housing experiences and health challenges and (2) structural racism. In this way, our findings can contribute to a broader understanding of housing and health challenges faced by migrant agricultural workers, and a deeper understanding of the drivers of housing and health inequities faced by MAWs as they are informed by structural racism.

Conceptual Framework: Structural Racism in Housing

Structural racism encompasses the inner workings or functions of White privilege and White supremacy across multiple institutions (e.g., government) and domains of society (e.g., culture and history). As a result of these processes, racialized populations are both chronically and cumulatively disadvantaged, and their disadvantaged position is normalized (Lawrence & Keleher, 2004). Structural racism provides an important framework for understanding the unique inequities faced by migrant groups in high-income countries. For example, scholars have documented how racist marginalization faced by MAWs has been normalized by legally relegating their status to “temporary” (Tuyisenge & Goldenberg, 2021). Furthermore, the precarity and discrimination experienced by this group reflect a longstanding legacy of exploitation, slavery, colonialism, and inequitable trade agreements, all of which are indicative of historical and structural racist mechanisms (Cohen, 2019; Perea, 2011). The limited membership in society and (non)citizenship offered to this group have implications not only for how MAWs are understood in society but also for how the nation of Canada is constructed, given that individuals from the Global South, predominantly those who are racialized, are most restricted in their entry into Canada (Lundström, 2017; Sharma, 2001). Our research intends to apply this understanding of structural racism to examine its role in housing and health inequity for MAWs. Under the banner of structural racism, two concepts are useful to our analysis of MAWs’ housing: racial residential segregation and environmental racism, which are discussed below.

The concept of racial residential segregation helps explain how the neighborhood environment reproduces racial health inequities over time. The concentration of racialized populations in specific residential zones has been linked to reduced access to resources including employment, education, healthcare services, and social supports and increased exposure to violence and pollution. Through these hazards, and by creating conditions that maintain poverty, racial residential segregation is a key determinant of poor health (Poulson et al., 2021; Russell et al., 2012). Racial residential segregation has been most documented among Black populations in the United States (Massey, 2016). Yet with the growing migration of Latin Americans and other groups to the United States, more pronounced segregation has been noted among non-Black racialized populations in the United States as well (Charles, 2003; Morello-Frosch & Lopez, 2006; Olayo-Méndez et al., 2021). Researchers have also begun to document residential segregation as experienced by migrants in different regions of the world (Benassi et al., 2020; Boterman et al., 2021; Pelek, 2022). As a concept, racial residential segregation provides a lens to consider the racist and colonial historical legacies of a place, and how these legacies shift and linger differently across regions (e.g., Fung-Loy & Van Rompaey, 2021). Contemporary immigration policy will thus uniquely impact new patterns of racial residential segregation (Benassi et al., 2020). Applying the concept of racial residential segregation to our work allows for an analysis of how MAWs encounter their dwellings and neighborhoods as potentially limiting, marginalizing, and bound up in historical legacies of belonging (e.g., citizenship).

Also falling under the general header of structural racism, environmental racism is concerned with various issues as they intersect with environmentalism and racism and has long been intertwined with social activism (Pulido, 1996). Of particular interest to our work, environmental racism scholars have documented the disproportionate impact of pollution and environmental hazards on racialized populations (Bullard, 1993; Pulido, 1996). Such work has evolved to consider the ideological and systemic nature of racism in policy-making and institutional practices, above and beyond isolated and/or intentional acts of racism (Benz, 2019; Pulido, 1996). Environmental racism is relevant to our study: racialized MAWs may be disproportionately exposed to health hazards through their housing (e.g., Griffith et al., 2019) and as a result, their health needs may be uniquely neglected (Caxaj et al., 2022; Satcher, 2022). Environmental racism provides a framework to consider the design of both homes and neighborhoods, and the proximity of hazards, as potentially racializing processes that produce racial (and health) inequities.

Methodology

Our study employed a qualitative narrative methodology focused on the experiences of migrant farmworkers in two regions: British Columbia and Ontario. In keeping with our methodology, our interview guide included open-ended questions that encouraged participants to narrate their encounters with housing in Canada and situate them in the contexts that relationally informed individuals’ everyday meaning-making (De Fina, 2015; Moen, 2006). These questions included: “Tell me about your housing in Canada. What are the best parts/worst parts about your housing in Canada?” and “What is the biggest change to your housing that you would like to see?” Given our specific interest in mechanisms of structural racism, participants were asked about various social identities, including their nationality, Indigenous heritage, and ethno-cultural background, and, when relevant, probed to consider the extent to which racism was relevant to the experiences they shared. By making the assumption of racism explicit in our approach, we invited participants to share less sanitized accounts of their realities than might otherwise be strategically expressed (Maiter & Joseph, 2017). For instance, participants were explicitly invited to share their experiences of discrimination in Canada and probed to consider how concerns they had raised might be experienced differently depending on their race, gender, nationality, and/or work permit.

Interviews lasted 60 min on average and were conducted individually when possible. Participants who requested group interviews for logistical reasons, or to provide collective testimony, were accommodated. This article also includes data from interviews in which migrants discussed housing concerns as part of a separate project focused on their experiences with service provision in Ontario (George et al., 2024). Including their concerns in this article helps reduce the potential for overburdening underserved groups with research invitations (Sukarieh & Tannock, 2013). All participants provided informed verbal consent for their data to be used for this housing study. Both interviews and the consent process were carried out in individuals’ preferred language by a bilingual research team member.

Participants were recruited through trusted networks of service providers and advocates in close contact with migrant agricultural workers, who were provided with paper and digital flyers for our research. To facilitate trust-building and ensure follow-up support if necessary, recruitment was led by migrant worker advocates who were already known to participants. The lead researcher (Caxaj) provided training and ongoing mentorship to these advocates. In some cases, participants provided contact information to the research team at public-facing events catering to migrant farmworkers. To be eligible to participate in our study, individuals had to be enrolled currently (or over the past 2 years) in temporary migrant agricultural work in either the province of British Columbia (BC) or Ontario, Canada. Our sample reflected some of the dominant traits among the temporary migrant population in the region, with the majority being Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) workers (n = 94), men (n = 98), and from Mexico (n = 107). Yet a broader range of participants—among them, women (n = 33); individuals with differing work permits/status (n = 58); and individuals of different nationalities, including Jamaican (n = 26), other Caribbean (n = 12), and Central American participants (n = 4)—were recruited. Just over 15.8% of participants identified as Indigenous or of Indigenous ancestry. This heterogeneity in our sample in terms of gender, work program status (i.e., Temporary Foreign Worker Program [TFWP], SAWP, and tourist visa), Indigeneity, and country of origin enabled us to consider different social positions in shaping housing conditions for this group.

To analyze our data, we employed a reflexive thematic analysis that, consistent with our narrative approach (De Fina, 2015), orients researchers to develop themes that reflect shared meaning in the context of participants’ lives (Braun & Clarke, 2021b, 2023; Braun et al., 2023). Given our focus on mechanisms of structural racism, we sought to develop not only descriptive accounts but also implicit interpretations of MAWs’ housing encounters that otherwise may go unnamed. This was in keeping with our critical assumptions that knowledge is contingent on power relations (e.g., taken-for-granted ideologies such as racism), and thus, certain types of knowing may be undervalued or dangerous to express (Timor-Shlevin et al., 2022).

Given our large sample size, our team engaged in several rounds of provisional coding to represent a fuller range of participants’ experiences. Once all transcripts had been mapped for descriptive content (e.g., lack of heating and no privacy) and some provisional interpretive observations (e.g., “deservingness” because of labor contributions), our team focused attention on roughly half of the transcripts that our team had labelled as “most rich.” This allowed for a more engaged and practical analytic process, given that although most participants had voiced many housing concerns, only some had engaged in a sustained dialogue about the meaning of these experiences. As all team members are fluent in English and Spanish, transcripts were kept in their original language to sensitize the listener/reviewer to language use that may convey nuanced understandings. Selected quotes were translated by the PI (a bilingual native speaker) while preparing the manuscript for submission. As we engaged further in the analytic process, team leads proposed provisional themes and guiding concepts to structure our findings. At this point, we engaged in a more deductive process by revisiting both transcripts and provisional codes for alignment with these ideas. Through this process, provisional themes were further interrogated, reorganized, and revised toward the development of our current findings. Approaches to analysis that are theory-informed and flexible, involve both deductive and inductive processes, and engage with larger sample sizes are all within the scope of reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021a, 2021b; Braun et al., 2023). It should be noted that alternative guiding concepts and themes proposed before initiating the deductive phase of this analysis have been developed and refined for publication in a different venue (Weiler & Caxaj, 2024).

To foster rapport with MAWs, we hired and trained individuals who had strong records of building trust and offering support to this population. Each participant was provided with an honorarium in recognition of their time. This cash was provided preceding the interview to minimize a real or perceived sense of coercion to continue with the interview. Following the initial interviews, the research team participated in a series of community events and outreach activities to share the original research findings with the MAW community. Over 300 workers were reached in this manner. These informal conversations suggested widespread agreement with the findings, and migrants provided additional recommendations for how to improve housing conditions, which were incorporated into our analysis. All names used below are pseudonyms to protect the identity of participants. All research activities were approved by Western University’s Non-Medical Research Ethics Board, Project ID: 119116.

Findings

Participants reported various experiences of poor housing quality that impacted their health. Their stories also pointed to the role of structural racism in determining these experiences. Overall, we identified four key processes through which structural racism entrenched housing challenges and consequent health inequities for MAWs. Scarcity encompassed the consistently under-resourced nature of housing quarters. Accounts under this theme were characterized by overcrowding; inadequate kitchen, laundry, and washroom facilities; and, often, substandard bedrooms and living rooms. As a result of living amidst such inadequate housing, participants faced heightened risks of illness, and they struggled to secure basic needs for privacy and dignity while incurring labor-intensive upkeep and financial burdens. Segregation consisted of the many and persistent ways that MAWs were kept apart from family, community, and a variety of services. This isolation was further reinforced and normalized through dependence on employers for basic mobility and overt employer surveillance. Casting MAWs’ housing as a natural extension of the farm further reinforced this marginalization. Sacrifice denoted the various sources of danger inherently linked to the opportunity to work and live in Canada for many workers. Such dangers included exposure to toxic hazards, extreme weather, and physical disrepair in living quarters. Stagnation illustrated the many ways that MAWs’ substandard housing could go unchallenged or unrecognized by authorities and society at large. Facing government authorities that condoned passive acceptance of inadequate regulatory frameworks, or even applied explicit pressure to accept unsafe and inadequate housing, MAWs’ efforts to improve housing conditions were often thwarted or stalled. Together, these themes help explain the coercive climate that MAWs face, where refusing unsafe living conditions and advocating for dignified living conditions are risk-laden and often ineffective.

Scarcity

MAWs’ housing experiences were commonly described as inadequate, both in terms of quality and spacing, creating a sense of deprivation, or scarcity. Living quarters were described as “the hospital and a bed line out [crowded, beds bunched together],” everybody crammed in one place “like a container,” or a “little cubicle with a jumble of people.” Consequently, participants suffered from a lack of privacy. Insufficient or lacking furniture or physical space for storage or rest, and inadequate or undignified beds and bedroom spaces, were also commonplace. For many, bedroom space was a significant priority to ensure sufficient space for storage and a better chance to rest. Private bedrooms were considered an essential requirement to ensure health, privacy, and a sense of dignity. As Juan Carlos, one Mexican SAWP worker with 3 years of experience, explained:

Well, having privacy, it’s a priority. We don’t have any privacy for example. [Say] I’m on a call and since there are many of us in a room, one has music on at a high volume and you know, you can’t [talk]. I have to go outside, and if it’s raining, you can’t. Or if I talk on the telephone, all of a sudden, there is gossip among my coworkers about what I talked about. And well no, [we have] no privacy. There is nothing like having your own room per person, that would be different.

The crowded conditions commonly reported by participants also posed significant concern for MAWs’ physical health. Several participants linked outbreaks of gastrointestinal viruses, cold- and flu-like symptoms, and skin infections with a lack of physical space and the general disrepair that inhibited coworkers’ ability to maintain hygienic standards. For Dana, a Jamaican SAWP worker, the generally poor conditions of the house led her to conclude:

It’s slavery for me. It’s less than slavery actually. Because you’re treated inhumane[ly], and [the accommodations] where you’re placed well, they [wouldn’t even] put animals to sleep.

Others described sleeping on beds that were uncomfortable and damaged, causing physical pain. One Mexican SAWP worker of Indigenous ancestry, Samuel, described his bed:

It’s a sponge, and it has year[s of use]. It’s not even new. It sinks, it’s sunk. No man, it [causes] a huge pain in my back when I wake up.

Many participants slept in bunk beds and discussed a lack of privacy and comfort, and an inability to rest as a result. Many also described lacking a closet or other furniture to store their belongings, and a lack of physical space or chair to rest after a long day of work. Damian, a Jamaican SAWP worker with 5 years of experience, summarized several common housing concerns:

The biggest change that I would like to see about housing: For everybody to get their own room with all the stuff that is supposed to be in a room in it. A good bed that, you know, you don’t have a back ache from it. And, as I said, a couch you can sit in and a place you can put your stuff. . . . Just give me a little comfort, even so I can put down my passport without having to worry that it would disappear. So, a room with a real bed and a place you can sit and where I can put my clothes and, you know, things like that.

Large ratios for shared washrooms, showers, laundry facilities, and kitchen appliances were also key concerns. On one farm in BC, two MAWs reported that 60 housemates were sharing three washrooms. Participants described waiting in lines to use washrooms and showers, which could interfere with their rest or time to prepare meals. Sharing washrooms with multiple people was also a source of considerable concern in terms of the increased risk of infectious diseases and the ability to ensure adequate hygiene and basic dignity. As a result, sleep, rest, or leisure had to be given up to attend to basic hygiene, as Rigoberto, one Indigenous Mexican SAWP worker with 16 years of experience, reflected, “There is no time . . . sacrificing hours of sleep to have a little bit of time [to wash up].” One woman also noted that a lack of adequate washrooms, coupled with insufficient privacy in bedrooms, resulted in unsanitary and inhumane conditions when menstruating.

Kitchen facilities were often described as inadequate, both in terms of the ratios of basic appliances to workers (e.g., stoves and refrigerators) and the necessary space to prepare meals and hygienically store perishable items. Sometimes, living quarters were not furnished with basic kitchen utensils (e.g., pots, cutlery, and microwaves), requiring MAWs to secure these appliances at significant personal cost. On one farm in BC, Victor, an Indigenous worker with experience in both the SAWP and an open work permit explained both the loss of food and the costs incurred because his employer did not maintain appliances:

It’s deplorable, you have to be pulling from your pocket [i.e., spending your own money] if it needs to be fixed, if it needs a lightbulb, any situation where something stops working, you have to get it yourself. . . . For example . . . we needed a refrigerator, but I think even for that the boss had to charge us for [repairing] the fridge . . . “You know what? You have to pay me x amount,” [she’d say]. But the refrigerator no longer held the cold, all of our food was getting damaged, so then we couldn’t count on enough space to each have our own [food].

Several workers also reported arriving at living quarters in Canada that were filthy and in disrepair, sometimes year after year. Consequently, significant time and resources had to be invested in an attempt to make accommodations more livable.

Line-ups and wait times resulting from shared stovetops and other kitchen appliances were also often noted. On one farm, a Salvadoran 2-year permit worker, Mario, shared that only one five-person kitchen table was provided to a group of 28 workers sharing a home. Laundry facilities were also not consistently provided to MAWs. Some participants described not having a washer and/or a dryer. A few workers reported that they were regularly charged money to launder their clothes. When large numbers of workers shared a washer and/or dryer, participants described the necessity to dedicate a significant amount of their time off to washing their clothes. The need to line up to use basic household items could be a source of greater tension among coworkers and could reproduce workplace hierarchies, increase pressure in living quarters, and prevent individuals from creating psychological distance from their employment. One individual described feeling obligated to form groups to cook together and stagger shower and cooking times. He explained, “Because independently you can’t [cook]. It’s too much of a waste of time.” Such under-resourced living quarters were often inseparable from crowded living quarters, creating a greater sense of insecurity.

One Jamaican worker summarized a sentiment shared by many when reflecting on the general state of their housing, including inadequate water and sanitation in living quarters:

The truth is that I am scared for people. I am. . . . the experiences that I’ve had, I am afraid for people who are coming thinking that they’re coming into a place where they’re going to be comfortable because all of this is laid out as if it is so. But when they come, you come to dirty water. You can’t drink it. You know? You have nowhere to sleep really. I mean, it’s really shocking. And it really does something to you. It really messes with your mind.

Segregation

MAWs’ accounts pointed to consistent social isolation and immobility that were byproducts of their housing, leading to a constant sense of segregation. MAWs were typically housed on their employer’s property, often very close to their worksites. This created barriers to getting away from the farm, accessing a variety of health-supporting resources, and making community connections. Some participants also reported restrictions on or surveillance of their movement. Participants often relied solely on their employer or an employer representative for transportation off the farm, which severely limited their access to basic amenities and services. Dependence on an employer to travel off the farm was a common challenge affecting MAWs’ well-being, access to nutritional foods, and timely access to health and social services. Simón, a Mexican SAWP worker, explained the helplessness this invoked, stating, “For example, I’ll tell the boss, ‘I want you to take me shopping’, he says, ‘No, no it can’t be done’. And well I think it can be done.”

Another Mexican worker of Indigenous ancestry further explained his preference to live away from the employer in order to overcome a dependence on them and secure a greater quality of life:

Well, more than anything, [I would prefer to live in housing that is] not next to the boss or the boss’s house, but maybe downtown. Not in the center of the city, but that it be a little closer for any medical emergency, grocery shopping, because sometimes. . . . I had to be asking to go to town, to go to any errand, to get medicine or something. So yes, I would like it to be not right in the center, but close to the city to not be struggling like this—to be able to walk, take a cab or the bus. And you can go to buy your groceries, to buy medicine, or at least go to a park to distract yourself, and when you leave work, go out for a while, take a shower and go out for a while to distract yourself and get rid of the stress of work.

For many workers like him, the rural location of their housing was restrictive and provided few or no options for independent or affordable transportation, limiting participants’ movement and general autonomy. Barriers to accessing the internet or mobile service also digitally segregated workers from the surrounding communities and their loved ones. Several participants shared that they had been placed in housing without internet for years.

Many participants longed for outdoor spaces, such as gardens, gyms, or recreational facilities to support their well-being and provide a reprieve from the stressors of work and crowded conditions. Yet with few exceptions, these spaces were typically not provided. Some viewed such amenities as important for self-care, often referring to these spaces as opportunities “to get rid of stress,” “distract yourself with your coworkers,” and a solution to the fact that they often “don’t have anywhere to go.” Jose, an Indigenous Mexican SAWP worker, suggested that these spaces would support workers’ physical and mental health:

The perfect housing for me would be with the necessary spaces. . . . I don’t know, spaces for recreation, not because you’re going to spend all day at the park, doing exercise. But after work, the labour of work, you leave stressed, tired. And [if you could say], “no, I have half an hour, I’ll go to the park. I want to go for a walk.” Or maybe if there were a soccer field because [there are] many people or workers that we like to play some sport.

As participants hired on to formal temporary worker programs made up the majority of our sample, this group had limited options and opportunities to bring their families with them, even though many desired to do so. Separation from family further exacerbated MAWs’ sense of isolation and loneliness while living in Canada. Consequently, MAWs identified the need for access to affordable internet and phone data to access basic services in the region and to be able to communicate with family. Yet for many workers such resources were not readily available. Daniel, a Jamaican SAWP worker in British Columbia, reflected on his sense of isolation and his belief that such separation from the broader community was by design:

. . . [it] would be nice to be able to know what is happening in the country that you’re in. I mean, the truth is that I have no idea about anything that was going on. I didn’t know. Basically, the way things are set up is for you not to know anything that is going on and you’re just stuck in a hole really.

Being housed on the employer’s property created a climate in which workers were routinely restricted from community resources and a social life. Commonly reported restrictions included the following: (a) curfews; (b) requiring permission to have visitors; (c) requiring permission to leave the property; (d) the prohibition of collective gatherings; (e) camera surveillance both outside and inside of the home; (f) invasive employer visits; (g) an expectation to be on-call to work at any hour; and (h) the prohibition of alcohol consumption. On one farm, MAWs described the employer’s wife entering their homes to cook without providing advance notice. The workers felt this was an intrusion and worried that she might walk in on them unclothed or in the shower. Many also lamented their inability to have visitors in their homes because of the concern that they would be seen as troublemakers. These restrictions on movement and socialization further compounded the sense of isolation MAWs experienced as a result of their lack of independent transportation and the often remote locations of their homes. Sebastian explained the sense of captivity and isolation he experienced:

Unfortunately, we depend on them to take us on the bus. . . . Sadly, we do not have a social life. We get here and it’s like we are prisoners, and there they have you, and the only day that you are happy is mid-month because they pay you and you send a little bit of money to your family . . . You go to town and eat a hamburger, but it is the only thing you have access to is that, and it is only every 15 days.

Sacrifice

The poor state of MAWs’ housing, and its typical proximity to the worksite, exposed them to the elements as well as to workplace hazards they felt forced to endure. This in turn required them to sacrifice their health, safety, and comfort in regard to their housing. For instance, MAWs often described exposure to environmental hazards, extreme weather, pests, and a dangerous lack of maintenance in their living quarters. Often, participants endured severe heat with no air conditioning or ventilation system, while others reported limited or insufficient heating of their homes. These conditions affected participants’ quality of sleep and their health. Without proper climate control, individuals were forced to try to improve conditions by purchasing heaters and air fans, or improvising quick-fix solutions. Samuel, a Jamaican SAWP worker with 5 years of experience, explained:

So for us to get heat, we have to turn on the stove for it to warm up the house. We have to get clothing to put underneath the door [to seal against drafts]. Like, you know, for those cold air that coming in. For the window, we have to put like clothing [to seal the gaps]. So, you know, to keep out some of the cold. But it’s not good. So for you to go to sleep, you have to have a lot of stuff for you to put on your body for you to feel warm in the house as a farm worker. That’s not good.

During summer heat waves, participants portrayed their living conditions as intolerable, describing living quarters as “like an oven” and “it’s like a hell. I mean, it’s like a hell thing in there.” MAWs also described being in close proximity to the farm’s garbage site, leading to an infestation of flies in their kitchen. Several participants expressed concern that they were housed so close to the worksite that their living quarters smelled strongly of pesticides.

Many participants described a lack of general upkeep and maintenance to their homes that made the structure of their living quarters more susceptible to the elements (e.g., leaky roofs, rotting wood, and pests). Others expressed concern that they were exposed to electrical hazards as a result of inadequate maintenance, as Jaime, a Mexican SAWP worker who lived in a house with exposed wires and smoke coming out of outlets, which is typical of electrical overheating, explained, “In other words, in whatever moment, we feel like the trailer could explode.” For some, the basic infrastructure of their homes was questionable because of the improvised or dual purpose of the homes they were offered. For example, Felipé, a Mexican SAWP worker, described sharing a garage space with nine other coworkers. Several participants also reported that they were only provided with non-potable well water rather than potable running water. As a result, some participants opted to use and consume only bottled water, at a significant added financial cost. Jorge, a Mexican SAWP worker based in Ontario, explained:

Well, for me I can tell you that my living conditions are not good enough because we have . . . the water, it’s not for drinking. We have to get it in jugs . . . to be able to drink the water.

In addition to the financial burden of purchasing water, workers remained concerned about the potential ill effects of unsanitary water, as Sergio, an Indigenous Mexican worker based in BC, noted, “When I drink the water, it makes me sick.” Likewise, many participants expressed fear of—or recounted actual occurrences of—the spread of illness including COVID-19 due to substandard housing conditions. Such experiences resulted in feelings of being abandoned by Canadian society and feeling acutely vulnerable to various health threats.

Stagnation

MAWs voiced an urgency for improvements to their housing. Yet regardless of their level of interaction with authorities, regulators, or employers, MAWs typically saw limited changes and, in some cases, witnessed the further deterioration of their housing conditions. Therefore, MAWs viewed authorities and regulatory regimes (both Canadian and sending-country) as agents of stagnation. Participants provided several examples to illustrate this characterization. First, due to the nature of most participants’ work permits, they were often dependent on their employer to maintain their job status and also to remain housed. Several MAWs reported that requests to employers for housing improvements had resulted in not being called back to a specific farm. One worker explained that after a year of washing his clothes by hand, with no dryer, his request for laundry equipment had led to him not being asked back by the same employer.

Second, MAWs often relied on consular officials/liaisons to address inadequate housing standards. Yet participants described several incidents where consular officials had discouraged workers from making complaints or had promised to follow up on concerns but either had not returned or had taken no action once basic housing challenges had been shared. The risks of reporting poor housing despite a desire to do so were captured by Eusevio, who stated:

Well, yes, that’s what I would like, for us not to be silent, for us to … [stop] really hiding the truth behind lies, for everyone to raise their voices and say that some of us live in terrible conditions; [some] more than others. And that we should not remain silent, but unfortunately, sometimes we remain silent out of fear of the government of our countries, sometimes of not returning, sometimes of the program taking you away and no longer having the opportunity to return.

Third, MAWs discussed limitations and inadequacies in existing oversight of workers’ housing. For instance, some mentioned that they had participated in government housing inspections where houses had been staged to appear better than they were because the inspection had been pre-arranged with the employer’s knowledge. Thus, participants expressed the need for unannounced inspections. In other cases, MAWs reported that interviewees for inspections were hand-picked by the employer and coached on what to say. Carsson, a Jamaican SAWP worker, emphasized the need for unannounced inspections, explaining:

I really believe that these people, that these inspectors, when they are going to check these places, I don’t believe that they should give them a heads up that they are coming. Because they’re just warning them to fix up because that is what they do every year.

Other times, inspections of what appeared to be undignified housing had resulted in no consequences, resulting in a sense of futility and limited confidence in the role of inspectors. Some MAWs expressed hopelessness when reflecting on the fact that poor housing for MAWs seemed to be largely accepted by Canadian society, as Pablo, a former SAWP worker with 15 years of experience who is now on an open work permit for vulnerable workers, explained, “Because to a Canadian, they’re not going to give them the same treatment that they give to a Mexican.”

Inadequacies in representation and regulation coupled with a sense of coercion to accept poor housing conditions resulted in many MAWs feeling powerless. In fact, for many, these gaps in oversight represented a form of systemic and consistent neglect and discrimination. Janet, a Jamaican female SAWP worker with 6 years of experience, reflected on this: “I mean, we don’t live in trees. Apparently, they think we do. And we’re actually used to beds and stuff. We actually have a nice home and nice stuff.”

Discussion

Our research identified four mechanisms of structural racism that determined substandard housing and health consequences for MAWs. First, we identified the theme of scarcity, which described MAWs’ experiences of insufficient and overcrowded living conditions. These conditions posed barriers to workers’ quality of life and physical health. Furthermore, in an attempt to maintain or correct deficiencies in their housing, MAWs often expended finances and energy. Issues such as poor sanitation, water/food insecurity, mold, overcrowding, and a lack of privacy in MAWs’ accommodations have been previously documented in the literature (Arcury, Weir, Chen, et al., 2012; Arcury, Weir, Summers, et al., 2012; Castillo et al., 2021; Caxaj et al., 2024) and linked to poor health outcomes (Kearney et al., 2014; Mora et al., 2016). Prior research among immigrant diasporas resettling in rural/small towns, where MAWs typically live and work, has documented low affordability, lack of knowledge of tenancy rights, and discrimination as factors that may affect housing quality (Patel et al., 2019). Yet the theme of scarcity as faced by MAWs invites greater attention to the poor quality housing made available to migrant populations with limited or partial status in Canada, for whom scarcity also encompasses a lack of personal agency and a lack of resources related to accommodations.

The term resource scarcity has been aptly applied to explain neighborhood-level disparities and to illustrate how structural racism operates to neglect and deprive racialized populations (Satcher, 2022). Our research suggests that for MAWs, who experience reduced mobility and freedom within their neighborhoods (Guzmán & Medeiros, 2020; Reid-Musson, 2017), scarcity often operates within the tightly bound parameters of living quarters and the worksite. Future research could look to expand the application of resource scarcity to consider not only neighborhood qualities and municipal infrastructure impacting racialized communities but also the localized deprivation often faced by MAWs in their housing (e.g., lack of kitchen/laundry utilities and overcrowding). Noting the energy and financial expenditures required to endure such poor housing conditions, future research could also explore the specific chronic disease burdens that may be associated with such stressors.

MAWs’ segregation compromised their ability to connect with and/or access various supports. Poor living conditions constrained the time available for workers to socialize and pursue activities to maintain their mental health and reproduced a sense of inescapable institutionalism (e.g., hierarchies, waiting in lines, and lack of free time). These constraints on workers’ time and space (Horgan & Liinamaa, 2017; Reid-Musson, 2018) and the institutionalization of MAWs’ living quarters in Canada (Caxaj et al., 2024; Perry, 2018; Weiler & Caxaj, 2024) have been noted elsewhere. The common experiences of isolation, familial separation, unreliable or lacking technology and transportation, a lack of recreation opportunities (Basok & George, 2021; Caxaj & Diaz, 2018; Cohen & Caxaj, 2018), and the deadly impact of this segregation on MAWs’ health have also been documented (Caxaj et al., 2022, 2024). Yet our research makes clear that for MAWs, freedom of movement and opportunities for community connection are central considerations in housing quality, in addition to an important determinant of health and access to resources.

Troublingly, the many ways in which MAWs are separated from family and community life, and made dependent on employers for access to services, are often normalized. Our findings indicated that MAWs’ housing on the farm or in proximity to their worksite served to group MAWs together as natural extensions of the agricultural sector. The more these individuals experienced their realities as solely “workers,” the more difficulty they faced in having their human needs (e.g., relationships and supports) recognized. Using the lens of racial residential segregation, several seemingly disparate sources of isolation can be understood as a unified mechanism of exclusion. For example, limited access to communication technology, being housed on the farm where they work, and camera surveillance of workers’ movements can be described as either passive/logistical oversights (e.g., no phone and no internet) or one-off bad employer behaviors (i.e., “one bad apple”). Yet these various sources of isolation are justified by the agricultural industry’s needs for productivity and reliability wherein MAWs are necessarily less free, more in need of protection or surveillance, perceived as simply visitors, and crowded in under-resourced conditions.

Furthermore, proximity to industrial pollutants and limited access to green space, transportation, and other resources are understood as ways racial residential segregation contributes to health disparities (Chakraborty et al., 2023; Galaskiewicz et al., 2021; Morello-Frosch & Lopez, 2006; Saporito & Casey, 2015). However, our research contributes insights into the unique position of temporary MAWs, who are typically housed on the worksite and often face restricted mobility and surveillance (e.g., employer mediation and lack of transportation). Therefore, the segregation faced by MAWs is especially tightly bound. Scholars describing poor, marginalized, and racialized neighborhoods (Kessler, 2012), including communities who live where they work (Luxardo et al., 2022), have used the term territorial stigma to describe the combined social scrutiny of and underinvestment in certain neighborhoods. Although typically applied to larger-scale urban spaces, such a category may be fitting to describe the racist logic that justifies the simultaneous confinement and under-resourcing of MAWs on farms.

Through sacrifice, MAWs reported dangerous exposure to various hazards and hardships related to substandard housing. Because of migrants’ temporary status and employment precarity, the burden of increased exposure to hazards, waste, and unsanitary conditions was often considered something to endure rather than something to avoid. The relationship between MAWs’ precarity and occupational health risks has been well documented (Adams et al., 2023; Caxaj & Cohen, 2019; Hargreaves et al., 2019; Moyce & Schenker, 2018), whereas the hazards posed by housing have been given less attention with a few exceptions (e.g., Kearney et al., 2014). Given that the distinction between housing and the worksite is not easily made for MAWs (Perry, 2018), a more expansive inquiry into the exposure of hazards that accounts for both the workplace and living quarters is warranted.

The disproportionate burden of exposure to hazards faced by MAWs in their housing mirrors what many environmental justice scholars have documented at a larger scale with racialized and Indigenous populations. Racist ideologies and racial capitalism compound the struggle for racialized populations as these groups are often devalued or cast as expendable, especially in the global context (Gonzalez, 2021). Pulido (2017) argued that environmental racism is largely enacted through industrial endeavors that both produce social difference and devalue non-White bodies, such that capitalism and structural racism are often mutually constitutive. Policies and program requirements that MAWs navigate often dictate their docility and acceptance of bodily hazards in exchange for admission and to be valued as “good workers” (Basok & Bélanger, 2016). Our examination of MAWs’ housing further illustrates how exploitation and bodily sacrifice are prescribed both in the worksite and in the living quarters.

Closely related, the theme of stagnation described participants’ encounters with fixity and/or ineffectiveness of regulations, authorities, and wider community responses to their urgent calls for housing improvements. Inadequate oversight, for instance, enabled poor housing conditions to be commonplace. As a result of lacking enforcement, MAWs often faced threats or punishment should they suggest improvements to their housing, while issues remained unaddressed. Regulatory inadequacies, limits in representation, and employer restrictions, as well as community-wide racism and xenophobia, are well documented in the literature (Binford, 2022; Mooten, 2021; Yearby & Mohapatra, 2020). Yet our research uniquely showcases how MAWs viewed the inadequacies of their housing as an overt act of racist discrimination. Therefore, the assignment of undignified housing is an explicit reminder to many MAWs of their inferior status both as racialized subjects and as temporary-low-wage workers.

Furthermore, workers often expressed that they were forced to accept poor housing to maintain their status and/or livelihood. Consideration of this group’s inability to refuse unsafe or inadequate conditions by virtue of their precarious migratory status points to the need to examine temporary status as a unique factor in determining how structural racism is enacted on MAWs’ housing. In fact, an important feature of employer-provided housing for MAWs is that job loss often simultaneously means a loss of housing (Adams et al., 2023; Weiler & Caxaj, 2024). Furthermore, housing standards for SAWP workers, who constitute the largest proportion of MAWs in Canada, are laid out in a contract that is negotiated annually between employers, migrant-sending countries, and Canadian government officials. However, these standards are low (e.g., bunk beds and highly crowded bedrooms are acceptable), and workers lack independent representation at the negotiations (Basok et al., 2023). In short, prior scholarship has generally pointed to the coercive climate and the limited political status and representation MAWs face in Canada. Our research builds on this prior work by pointing to temporary status as a necessary anchor for structural racism that both normalizes housing and health inequities while stalling necessary reform or change.

Strengths, Limitations, and Unique Study Considerations

To further contextualize our findings, several methodological decisions and ethical considerations should be noted. First, a sample size of 151 is exceptionally large for a narrative study (Vasileiou et al., 2018). To maintain adequate immersion and depth in our analysis, our team carried out several rounds of analysis over several years (2021–2023), much of which occurred as data collection continued. Furthermore, as noted in our Methodology section, we prioritized data in which MAWs were more engaged in the impact and meaning of their housing experiences rather than only descriptively focused on specific concerns. We felt confident in this balancing of attention because we had collated all concerns in prior readings of all transcripts. It is antithetical to evaluate data sufficiency in narrative research based on sample size (Vasileiou et al., 2018). Rather, it may be that the size of our sample creates limited opportunities for more nuanced engagement and elaboration of complex stories of housing and health inequities faced by MAWs. Future research could explore more focused and in-depth intersecting social identities, and how they uniquely inform housing experiences for specific, harder-to-reach populations, such as has been done in health access research with migrant LGBTQIA+ populations (Haghiri-Vijeh & Clark, 2022).

Second, our data consisted of both (1) data collected solely for this housing study and (2) data collected simultaneously for a different study with a focus on service provision needs and access (George et al., 2024). As mentioned previously, we opted for this approach to prevent greater burdening of our population. Nonetheless, a sole focus on housing may have yielded richer accounts among this subset of transcripts. It is notable, however, that while we had intended to screen out transcripts found irrelevant to the topic of housing, housing had been raised as a concern in all transcripts. Importantly, all participants gave informed consent for their accounts to be used for both study purposes. Furthermore, our analysis was significantly complemented by various public-facing and digital outreach events wherein many MAWs expressed alignment with our key impressions.

Third, all participants in our sample faced a degree of precarity (e.g., temporary or undocumented status), and most were currently experiencing substandard housing. Anticipating these vulnerabilities, our team worked closely with community advocates, including volunteers and service providers with strong track records of working with MAWs, both to lead recruitment and carry out interviews. This approach ensured that all participants could be referred and accompanied to necessary resources and support should urgent issues arise during the interview. We also met participants in places where they felt most comfortable, and both encouraged and facilitated interviews outside of the home to protect participants’ privacy. Notably, several participants agreed to participate in the interview with the explicit intention that their housing concerns be documented. Yet because of the various risks in reporting concerns using formal regulatory channels, most participants opted for their testimonies to remain in the study research context to ensure the concerns would be raised to policy-makers in both anonymous and aggregate form. Our intention in future methodological work is to lay out the epistemological and reflexive implications of working with non-academic advocates in the context of MAW scholarship. These reflections can build on methodological debates and dialogue surrounding “embodied” (Sharma et al., 2009) and “insider” (Kinitz, 2022) researchers.

Conclusion and Implications

Our analysis identified four key mechanisms of structural racism that determined MAWs’ housing conditions and subsequent health challenges: (1) scarcity, (2) segregation, (3) sacrifice, and (4) stagnation. Each theme provides a lens through which to identify a constellation of housing inadequacies, their health implications, and the racist logic that serves to justify and normalize such inequities. Scarcity encompassed crowded and inadequate living facilities that left participants burdened with additional health and financial costs. Segregation described various forms of separation from communities and resources that restricted and threatened MAWs’ health, well-being, and access to services. Sacrifice denoted the many hazards and dangers that MAWs felt forced to endure in their living quarters. Stagnation outlined the ways that various social, political, and regulatory channels available to workers to address housing concerns were found to be lacking and ineffective at protecting workers from retaliation. The identification of these mechanisms invites scholars to consider the exceptional circumstances that both limit choice in housing and prescribe inadequacies in housing for MAWs. These findings may also apply to other temporary migrant populations or to the analysis of racist structures in housing at large. For example, looking at how MAWs’ housing is configured raises important questions about how racial supremacy (and temporary status as a vector for structural racism) is enacted in contemporary society.

In a more immediate sense, our findings point to a myriad of health threats and concerns that require intervention. Insufficient washrooms, cooking facilities, and laundry facilities and overall crowding pose serious health threats to MAWs through increased risk of the spread of infections as well as psychological challenges. Increased exposure to extreme weather, hazards, and contaminants as a result of inadequate shelter likewise puts MAWs at greater health risks. Limited access to community resources, a social life separate from work, and employer surveillance and gatekeeping are detrimental to workers’ dignity and quality of life and pose life-threatening barriers to timely medical care. The development of national housing standards, with proactive attention to areas of health risk that inadequate housing poses, is very much needed (Caxaj et al., 2024; Weiler & Caxaj, 2024). Improved housing inspections that are consistently unannounced, and in which MAWs are adequately engaged, can also help address issues of coercion or staging of housing that have been noted here and elsewhere (Caxaj & Cohen, 2021; Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group, 2020).

Ultimately, policy and infrastructure planning that better protect MAWs’ ability to actively participate in community life and to freely assert their rights are warranted to address the larger determinants of housing and health inequity for this group. Toward this end, governments should develop options that ensure higher quality housing, including easier access to resources. Furthermore, open work permits, the ability to collectively organize, and permanent residence can help to address the precarity that makes it so difficult for MAWs to refuse substandard housing. These larger policy initiatives are necessary to truly address the deeply entrenched machinery of structural racism that has produced and normalized various housing inequities faced by MAWs.