Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: A Review
"Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies" Summary
In "Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies," anthropologist Seth Holmes visits immigrant field workers, in hopes of bringing a focus on how social, economic, and healthcare inequalities cause damaging yet avoidable injuries and health problems. He visits a group of Indigenous families for around 18 months as they cross the border, work on some farms, and then return to their hometown.
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Constantly bending over causes physical problems in the future for these workers |
How Should We Feel?
The story explains a lot about how these workers are treated day in and day out, but how should that make us feel? First off, we need to think about the workers and how important they are. Most of these workers come in at “3:00 in the morning, and [they] might just be there until 7:00. 8:00, 9:00 at night. Daylight to dark, it’s just the nature of farming” (Holmes 64).
Why You Should Read The Book
Holmes has made an impact with "Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies," as it has truly brought the attention to what really goes on behind the fruits and vegetables that are in our local grocery stores daily. Holmes is in a much better life than the workers, but has still decided to put himself in the immigrants' shoes and experience what they have to go through. Immigrant workers have been impacted in a lot of ways, even after all that they have done for us. One example is that "through the past two decades, a cash-strapped Mexican government ... has reduced financial supports for corn producers" (Holmes 41). A lot of these farm workers only came to America and work nonstop in order to live a better life, but are instead being caught and taken by our government, back to where they tried to first escape from.
Holmes, Seth M. Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies Migrant Farmworkers in the United States. Univ. of California Press, 2014.
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