California’s Sheepherders at the Center of an Overtime Battle
Civil Eats, 8 June 2022
In recent years, HAP has brought multiple lawsuits regarding the wages and working conditions of H-2A sheepherders, including accusations of human trafficking and wage suppression. As in the current overtime debate, a core question of those lawsuits has been just how much sheepherders work. The labor is challenging to quantify because they live on-site, are always on call, and because the work—which includes tasks such as moving sheep, caring for herding dogs, and setting up electric fencing—changes over the course of the year.
Bring on call 24-7 also has its challenges. “Sometimes you have to get up at night because [the sheep] break through the fence and escape,” says Ricky Romel Cerrón Porta, a sheepherder from Llamapsillon, Peru, who also works at Kaos. “You know because the dogs start barking, and the sheep make different noises, too.”
Civil Eats, 8 June 2022
In recent years, HAP has brought multiple lawsuits regarding the wages and working conditions of H-2A sheepherders, including accusations of human trafficking and wage suppression. As in the current overtime debate, a core question of those lawsuits has been just how much sheepherders work. The labor is challenging to quantify because they live on-site, are always on call, and because the work—which includes tasks such as moving sheep, caring for herding dogs, and setting up electric fencing—changes over the course of the year.
Bring on call 24-7 also has its challenges. “Sometimes you have to get up at night because [the sheep] break through the fence and escape,” says Ricky Romel Cerrón Porta, a sheepherder from Llamapsillon, Peru, who also works at Kaos. “You know because the dogs start barking, and the sheep make different noises, too.”
Caroline Eaton Tracey writes about the environment, migration, and the arts in the US Southwest, Mexico, and their borderlands. She speaks and works in English, Spanish, and Russian. Her first book, SALT LAKES, will be published by W.W. Norton.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant. In 2024, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant. In 2024, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline Eaton Tracey escribe sobre el medioambiente, la migración, el arte y la literatura en México, el Suroeste de Estados Unidos y su frontera. Habla ingles, español y ruso. Su primer libro, SALT LAKES, será publicado bajo el sello de la editorial W.W. Norton.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers. En 2024, recibió una beca para escritura sobre el arte de la fundación Andy Warhol.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers. En 2024, recibió una beca para escritura sobre el arte de la fundación Andy Warhol.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.