Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies Summary

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Seth Holmes ethnography Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is a startling window into the start reality of the lives of Migrant workers and their role in the agricultural/food industry in this country. It illustrates the hardships that Migrant workers face trying to earn a living. It shows the obstacles and oppression they face, all while trying to survive in a system that is designed explicitly to exploit them. Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is a study on the ethics and politics of the food industry. Holmes is a physician-anthropologist, so his work really highlights all aspects, including the medical nature, of the problems poor migrant workers face on a day-to-day basis. Holmes completely immerses himself in the culture of the Triqui workers, including …show more content…

I think its extremely clear that Holmes understands how different the risks he takes by following the Triqui migrant workers and their families, versus the risks the migrant workers take in their everyday life and their pursuit of survival. He really emphasizes that he believes that the Migrant workers do not “choose” to cross the border to make a living, but that the structural and cultural attributes force them to a point in order to survive and provide for their families as best as then can they have to. For these migrants to cross the border it can cost around $1500 to $2500 for everything which is a ton of money especially when you typically only make around $3000 to $5000 a year (Holmes, The Importance of Migrant Farmworkers). These people will risk their lives crossing the border in order to provide. In their country there isn’t a need for workers like there is in the …show more content…

Kinship was a big thing we discussed in class this semester, kinship is family. Without kinship many of these people would have nothing to live for, they take care of there kin. We have our own kinships and most of us would do just about anything for our kin. Just like in other societies kin means just about everything and many of these migrant workers were working for their kin. Language is another major issue that was addressed in the book that we also discussed in class. Many immigrants coming in might know little to no English at all and because of that can stem great inequality, if they can’t speak the language how can they move up in the job or communicate properly if an issue was to occur. At the farm they have programs for people to learn English but with constantly working to support their families where is the time for learning (Holmes, Supervisor )? In the beginning of chapter two Holmes says something that I found to be extremely powerful, “It was not only my eyes and ears that collected valuable field observations but also the back of my neck as cold rain seeped down the inside of my farm-issued rain gear… racing against the clock to keep my picking job… (Holmes, Embodied Anthropology )” Holmes was only working under these conditions for a fraction of time while most of these migrants spend day after day, year after year doing the same thing only being able to travel home maybe every

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