Synopses & Reviews
"
In Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, Seth Holmes offers up an important and captivating new ethnography, linking the structural violence inherent in the migrant labor system in the United States to the social processes by which it becomes normalized. Drawing on five years of fieldwork among the Triqui people from Oaxaca, Mexico, Holmes investigates local understandings of suffering and illness, casting into relief stereotypes and prejudices that he ties to the transnational labor that puts cheap food on American tables. Throughout this compelling volume, Holmes considers ways of engaging migrant farm workers and allies that might help disrupt exploitation that reaches across national boundaries and can too often be hidden away. This book is a gripping read not only for cultural and medical anthropologists, immigration and ethnic studies students, students of labor and agriculture, physicians and public health professionals, but also anyone interested in the lives and well-being of the people providing them cheap, fresh fruit."and#151;Paul Farmer, Co-founder of Partners In Health and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
and#147;Dramatically portrays the harsh physical and emotional conditions under which farm workers labor. As they complete their brutal work, they suffer long-term disabilities in their senior years. This can be avoided with reasonable and decent working conditions. Let us remember them as we eat our daily meals.and#8221;and#151;Dolores Huerta
"This book takes concepts from the world of scholarship to enrich the understanding of people's lives; and the vivid detail, and empathetic portrait of the reality of people's lives enrich scholarship. The book leaves the reader in no doubt that economic arrangements, social hierarchies, discrimination, poor living and working conditions have profound effects on the health of marginalized people. It is all done with the touch of a gifted writer. The reader lives the detail and is much moved."and#151;Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Director, UCL Institute of Health Equity
"Provides a unique understanding of the political economy of migrant labor and of its human cost."and#151;Didier Fassin is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the author of Humanitarian Reason.
"Here in the U.S., we both utterly rely on immigrants from the South to feed us, and erect walls and employ militias to keep them out. In this groundbreaking new book, Holmes goes underground to explore what this bizarre duality means for the people who live it. A brilliant combination of academic rigor and journalistic daring."and#151;Tom Philpott, Food and Agriculture Correspondent, Mother Jones Magazine
and#147;Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is a powerful exposand#233; of the social and political realities that mark the bodies and limit the life prospects of Mexican migrant farmworkers in the worldand#8217;s richest economy. An absorbing read and a resolute call for just labor relations and health equity as key to a common and sustainable human development.and#8221;and#151; Joand#227;o Biehl, author of Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment
and#147;Holmes' book is a lyrical ethnographic rendition of Robert Chailloux's "Still Life with Strawberries," revealing the back stage, back-breaking work of indigenous Mexican pickers trapped in patron-client relationship to Japanese-American farm owners who are themselves trapped in price wars with global competitors to produce the beautiful abundance that we take for granted."and#151;Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death without Weeping
and#147;A tour du force ethnography. Holmes gives us the rare combination of medical, anthropological, and humanitarian gazes into the lives of Oaxacan migrant farmworkers in the United States. Their agricultural field work and his anthropological fieldwork intersect to produce a book full of insights into the pathos, inequalities, frustrations, and dreams punctuating the farmworkersand#8217; daily lives. Through Holmes' vivid prose, and the words of the workers themselves, we feel with the workers as they strain their bodies picking fruit and pruning vines, we sense their fear as they cross the U.S.-Mexico border, we understand their frustrations as they are chased and detained by immigration authorities, and cheer at their perseverance when faced with bureaucrats and medical personnel who treat them as if they are to blame for their own impoverished condition. A must read for anyone interested in the often invisible lives and suffering of those whose labor provides for our very sustenance.and#8221;and#151;Leo R. Chavez, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine
and#147;In his first book, anthropologist and doctor Seth M. Holmes gives us an intimate look into the lives of migrant farmworkers. Through his exhaustive research, Holmes reveals the struggles of the millions who work in our fields, every year, to put food on our tables. In deliberations about immigration and farm policy, these are the stories that should be at the center. Holmes' helps us put them there.and#8221;
Anna Lappand#233;, author Diet for a Hot Planet and founder, Real Food Media Project
and#147;Like the reporting of Edward R. Murrow and the labors of Cesar Chavez, Seth Holmesand#8217; work on these modern-day migrants reminds us of the human beings who produce the greatest bounty of food the world has ever seen. They take jobs other American workers wonand#8217;t take for pay other American workers wonand#8217;t accept and under conditions other American workers wonand#8217;t tolerate. Yet except for the minority of farm workers protected by United Farm Workersand#8217; contracts, these workers too often donand#8217;t earn enough to adequately feed themselves. Seth Holmesand#8217; writing fuels the UFWand#8217;s ongoing organizing among farm workers and admonishes the American people that our work remains unfinished.and#8221;and#151;Arturo S. Rodriguez, President, United Farm Workers of America
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Review
"By giving voice to silenced Mexican migrant laborers, Dr. Holmes exposes the links among suffering, the inequalities related to the structural violence of global trade which compel migration, and the symbolic violence of stereotypes and prejudices that normalize racism."
Review
"The reader is left with a deep understanding of how injustice in the United States is produced and the strength of the individuals that persevere through it."
Review
"Holmes brings an unusual expertise to his writing about migrant Mexican farmworkers. . . .and#160;[He] goes far beyond mere observation."
Review
"The insights gleaned by [Holmes's] participation-observation are priceless."
Review
"Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in food and the food system. . . .and#160;To say that the book provides a vivid look at farm labor is an understatement."
Review
"A compelling and frightening account of the lives of [Mexican migrant] workers. . . . [Holmes's] tales of crossing the border, doing backbreaking work in the fields, and exploring relationships with these dislocated and largely invisible workers is well worth a read."
Review
"A provocative, important new book. . . . Part heart-pounding adventure tale, part deep ethnograhic study, part urgent plea for reform. . . . Holmesand#160;brings an enlightening complexity to the issue of migrant workers."
Review
and#8220;A new and refreshing study. . . This is a powerful testament, and Garcia presents a vision of where we need to go when it comes to preventing the slow suicide of addictions.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Stunningly written and deeply intelligent. This is anthropology at its best.and#8221;
Synopsis
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fieldstakes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields of California s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers suffer heatstroke and chronic illness at rates higher than workers in any other industry. Through captivating accounts of the daily lives of a core group of farmworkers over nearly a decade, Sarah Bronwen Horton documents in startling detail how a tightly interwovenweb of public policies and private interests creates exceptional and needless suffering.
"
Synopsis
This book is an ethnographic witness to the everyday lives and suffering of Mexican migrants. Based on five years of research in the field (including berry-picking and traveling with migrants back and forth from Oaxaca up the West Coast), Holmes, an anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, uncovers how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and health care. Holmesand#8217; material is visceral and powerfuland#151;for instance, he trekked with his informants illegally through the desert border into Arizona, where they were apprehended and jailed by the Border Patrol. After he was released from jail (and his companions were deported back to Mexico), Holmes interviewed Border Patrol agents, local residents, and armed vigilantes in the borderlands. He lived with indigenous Mexican families in the mountains of Oaxaca and in farm labor camps in the United States, planted and harvested corn, picked strawberries, accompanied sick workers to clinics and hospitals, participated in healing rituals, and mourned at funerals for friends. The result is a "thick description" that conveys the full measure of struggle, suffering, and resilience of these farmworkers.
Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies weds the theoretical analysis of the anthropologist with the intimacy of the journalist to provide a compelling examination of structural and symbolic violence, medicalization, and the clinical gaze as they affect the experiences and perceptions of a vertical slice of indigenous Mexican migrant farmworkers, farm owners, doctors, and nurses. This reflexive, embodied anthropology deepens our theoretical understanding of the ways in which socially structured suffering comes to be perceived as normal and natural in society and in health care, especially through imputations of ethnic body difference. In the vehement debates on immigration reform and health reform, this book provides the necessary stories of real people and insights into our food system and health care system for us to move forward to fair policies and solutions.
Synopsis
Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies provides an intimate examination of the everyday lives and suffering of Mexican migrants in our contemporary food system. An anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, Holmes shows how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and health care. Holmesand#8217;s material is visceral and powerful. He trekked with his companions illegally through the desert into Arizona and was jailed with them before they were deported. He lived with indigenous families in the mountains of Oaxaca and in farm labor camps in the U.S., planted and harvested corn, picked strawberries, and accompanied sick workers to clinics and hospitals. This and#147;embodied anthropologyand#8221; deepens our theoretical understanding of the ways in which social inequalities and suffering come to be perceived as normal and natural in society and in health care.
Synopsis
This highly accessible, engagingly written book exposes the underbelly of Californiaand#8217;s Silicon Valley, the most successful high-technology region in the world, in a vivid ethnographic study of Mexican immigrants employed in Silicon Valleyand#8217;s low-wage jobs. Christian Zlolniskiand#8217;s on-the-ground investigation demonstrates how global forces have incorporated these workers as an integral part of the economy through subcontracting and other flexible labor practices and explores how these labor practices have in turn affected working conditions and workersand#8217; daily lives. In Zlolniskiand#8217;s analysis, these immigrants do not emerge merely as victims of a harsh economy; despite the obstacles they face, they are transforming labor and community politics, infusing new blood into labor unions, and challenging exclusionary notions of civic and political membership. This richly textured and complex portrait of one community opens a window onto the future of Mexican and other Latino immigrants in the new U.S. economy.
Synopsis
"In a time when we have great need to understand Mexican immigrants and their place in U.S. society, Zlolniski offers a superior analysis of why and how advanced capitalist economies employ undocumented workers. After reading his book, we will never think again of immigration as something that exclusively comes from outside. The immigrants, too, have agency in his account, as he narrates and analyzes an important case of unionization, pointing to significant new possibilities in American life."and#151;Josiah Heyman, Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas at El Paso
"Zlolniski makes a critical contribution to our understanding of the underside of advanced capitalism. He shows us its complexities: It is not only about misery, it is also about shaping subjective and political possibilities. If there is one concept that comes to mind it is the complexity of powerlessness."and#151;Saskia Sassen, author of Guests and Aliens
"This is a well-written and accessible ethnography of Mexican immigrants in Silicon Valley, the working poor who live in the shadow of affluence. Zlolniski presents a nuanced analysis of the thin line between formal and informal work, how families strategize and cope with the myriad challenges wrought by poverty, and the structural limitations to human agency. Zlolniski's perceptive ethnography illuminates hidden social worlds and struggles for dignity through collective action."and#151;Patricia Zavella, author of Women's Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley
"Stringing together multiple livelihoods, moving among wage labor, the informal economy, and political activism, the immigrants Zlolniski profiles refuse to submit completely to the structural cards stacked against them. In this important and carefully situated study, Zlolniski engages internationally relevant debates over the changing nature of work, the abandonment of employer liability, and the propensity for the media to construct myths that simplify and underestimate the hard work of immigrant families in Silicon Valley."and#151;David Griffith, author of Fishers at Work, Workers at Sea: a Puerto Rican Journey through Labor and Refuge
Synopsis
The Pastoral Clinic takes us on a penetrating journey into an iconic Western landscapeand#151;northern New Mexicoand#8217;s Espaand#241;ola Valley, home to the highest rate of heroin addiction and fatal overdoses in the United States. In a luminous narrative, Angela Garcia chronicles the lives of several Hispano addicts, introducing us to the intimate, physical, and institutional dependencies in which they are entangled. We discover how history pervades this region that has endured centuries of material and cultural dispossession, and we come to see its heroin problem as a contemporary expression of these conditions, as well as a manifestation of the human desire to be released from them. Lyrically evoking the Espaand#241;ola Valley and its residents through conversations, encounters, and recollections, The Pastoral Clinic is at once a devastating portrait of addiction, a rich ethnography of place, and an eloquent call for a new ethics of care.
Synopsis
"Timely, disturbing, and luminously written,
The Pastoral Clinic is anthropology at its best, bringing into view a devastating piece of reality, highlighting larger processes and human singularities, and calling for a new public and ethics of care."and#151;Joand#227;o Biehl, author of
Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment"Garcia calls for a new ethics of care for heroin addicts, exposing the insufficiency and lack of continuity of rapidly privatizing faith-based services for the rural poor. Her heartfelt ethnography of the geography of addiction in New Mexico reveals how formerly agricultural communities and families find themselves painfully embedded in a land of dispossession and displacement with an unresolvable past, and an unlivable present."and#151;Philippe Bourgois, author of Righteous Dopefiend
"Angela Garcia has expanded the roots and basis of addictions to the great lossesand#151;personal, cultural, economic, of birthright and landand#151;that few would dare to explore. I've sought a book like this for years, addressing my own addictions and those of the young men and women I've worked with for decades. A formidable thinker, a wrench-in-the-works activist inside and out of the industry, Angela understands that addictions are not a 'always has been and always will be' fate, but a collective, individual, and even 'intimate,' funneling into the web. And how the path toward healing, reconciliation, and wholeness is in the land, in the hand, and the capable heart of every addict and broken community."and#151;Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA
Synopsis
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields takes the reader on an ethnographic tour of the melon and corn harvesting fields in Californiaand#8217;s Central Valley to understand why farmworkers die at work each summer. Laden with captivating detail of farmworkersand#8217; daily work and home lives, Horton examines how U.S. immigration policy and the historic exclusion of farmworkers from the promises of liberalism has made migrant farmworkers what she calls and#147;exceptional workers.and#8221; She explores the deeply intertwined political, legal, and social factors that place Latino migrants at particular risk of illness and injury in the fields, as well as the patchwork of health care, disability, and Social Security policies that provide them little succor when they become sick or grow old. The book takes an in-depth look at the work risks faced by migrants at all stages of the life-course: as teens, in their middle-age, and ultimately as elderly workers. By following the lives of a core group of farmworkers over nearly a decade, Horton provides a searing portrait of how their precarious immigration and work statuses get under their skin, culminating in preventable morbidity and premature death.
About the Author
Seth M. Holmes is an anthropologist and physician. He received his PhD in Medical Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco, and his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. He is Martin Sisters Endowed Chair Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Philippe Bourgois is Richard Perry University Professor of Anthropology and Family and Community Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and author, among other books of In Search of Respect (Cambridge, 2000) and Righteous Dopefiend (UC Press, 2010).
Table of Contents
Foreword, by Philippe Bourgois
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: andldquo;Worth Risking Your Life?andrdquo;
2. andldquo;We Are Field Workersandrdquo;: Embodied Anthropology of Migration
3. Segregation on the Farm: Ethnic Hierarchies at Work
4. andldquo;How the Poor Sufferandrdquo;: Embodying the Violence Continuum
5. andldquo;Doctors Donandrsquo;t Know Anythingandrdquo;: The Clinical Gaze in Migrant Health
6. andldquo;Because Theyandrsquo;re Lower to the Groundandrdquo;: Naturalizing Social Suffering
7. Conclusion: Change, Pragmatic Solidarity, and Beyond
Appendix: On Methods and Contextual Knowledge
Notes
References
Index