Farewell Ferris Wheel

Over the past two centuries, the carnival has been woven into the fabric of the American experience. However, rising expenses and changing domestic labor habits have made it difficult for U.S. carnivals to remain in business. The need for reliable labor coupled with rising overhead has caused employers to find labor outside of U.S. borders. Today, eighty percent of all carnival workers are Mexican citizens who legally travel north for the eight-month carnival season, and then return home. Astonishingly, one third of the workers come from the same small Mexican town – Tlapacoyan, Veracruz.

After receiving complaints about abusive work conditions found in industries that use H-2B visa, the Department of Labor issued new rules that would raise wages and protect H-2B workers from potential exploitation. The carnival industry protested that the rules would put the carnivals out of business. Farewell Ferris Wheel spends six years examining the carnival industry’s labor struggles by following a carnival owner, a labor recruiter, and two workers from Tlapacoyan.