I am honored to have been selected as a Dr. Lisa Sable Brown Fellow for 2025. This grant supported me in conducting research in spring and summer of 2025 for my master’s thesis titled: The Impact of Ecosystem Change, Labor, Immigration, and Fisheries Policy on Migrant Tuna Fishers in the U.S. North Pacific Albacore Fishery. My thesis seeks to understand, illuminate, and document the nexus between migration of foreign fishers to the U.S. North Pacific Albacore fishery, exploitative labor practices, ecosystem change and relevant labor, immigration, and fishery policies.
The support that I received from this grant helps call attention to a largely unknown migrant workforce in a crucial US industry. These workers are potentially vulnerable to the worst kinds of labor abuses because they spend most of their time offshore and have no access to shoreside medical, legal, and immigration resources.
To accomplish this goal, and with the support of the Dr. Lisa Sable Brown funds, I conducted the following activities. Committed to using community-based participatory research practices, I worked with community organizations involved with migrant rights, including the International Migrants Alliance and the Tanggol Migrante Alliance. I also conducted outreach to and interviews with migrant fishers who have worked in the North Pacific albacore fishery aboard vessels that have been owned, moored, or have landed catch in Washington state. These interviews included virtual meetings with fishers in the Philippines with support from translators. I conducted further interviews with fishing industry subject matter experts including captains, vessel owners, and knowledgeable individuals from relevant regulatory bodies. Finally, I conducted fieldwork and travelled to Washington fishing ports of Anacortes, Westport, and Ilwaco to view vessels, port infrastructure, and attempt outreach to fishers and local subject matter experts. Contacting crew currently aboard vessels was very challenging, however some brief interactions informed my research.
My many years of work in the labor movement have taught me that trust is earned over a long period of time and can vanish in a heartbeat. I brought this perspective to my academic work and learned that this rings true in an academic research context as well.
In reflection, this project has been both challenging and rewarding and has enabled me to grow as an academic. I began the interview process by working to build trust with community organizations. My many years of work in the labor movement have taught me that trust is earned over a long period of time and can vanish in a heartbeat. I brought this perspective to my academic work and learned that this rings true in an academic research context as well. The community-based participatory research for this project requires on-the-ground involvement with organizations advocating for migrants and fighting labor trafficking. The human toll of their stories was deeply moving, and it is important to me that my research is grounded in their experiences.
The support that I received from this grant helps call attention to a largely unknown migrant workforce in a crucial US industry. These workers are potentially vulnerable to the worst kinds of labor abuses because they spend most of their time offshore and have no access to shoreside medical, legal, and immigration resources. The stories that I heard from fishers involved isolation, vulnerability, and being forced to make difficult choices around tolerating abuse to continue to be able to work and to send money back home to their families.
The next steps of this project involve analyzing my interviews and writing my thesis. After conducting my research so far, I anticipate making policy prescriptions including the creation of a visa category specifically for workers hired for fisheries and empowering fisheries regulators and/or nongovernmental organizations to board vessels for the specific purpose of crew welfare checks. I hope that this research will distill the complex topics surrounding this issue into policy relevant information and shed light on a previously obscure facet of fisheries in the US.