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Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies
Author	Seth M. Holmes
Language	English
Subject	Medical anthropology, migrant work
Genre	Ethnography
Set in	Mexico, United States
Publisher	UC Press
Publication date	2013
Media type	Print, Digital
Pages	264
ISBN	9780520275140

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States is a 2013 ethnography written by anthropology professor and licensed physician Seth M. Holmes. The book follows Triqui migrant laborers as they travel from their villages in Oaxaca, Mexico to the United States to work in the agricultural industry.

Synopsis[edit]

Crossing the Border[edit]

Seeking to understand the experience of migrant laborers, Holmes details in Chapter 1 his own failed attempt to illegally cross the Mexico–United States border with a group of Triqui workers. After failing to gain the trust of a Triqui village in Oaxaca named San Miguel by directly visiting, Holmes slowly develops a relationship with Triqui migrants by laboring and living with them in farms in Washington under harsh conditions. After a year, Holmes begins to visit San Miguel, and eventually finds a group to cross the border with him amidst fears that he might be an undercover US federal agent. He gives a first-hand account of the anxieties, fears, and close calls with potential robbers and con men. Despite the group persevering through the heat of the Sonoran desert, pulling cactus needles from their feet, and hiding in close proximity to rattlesnakes, they are ultimately caught by the US Border Patrol after making it to Arizona. They are taken to jail and Holmes released after a day with a hefty fine, while the Triqui immigrants are deported. After a few weeks, Holmes learns that the group he crossed with succeeded in their second attempt and arrived in Madera, California.

Arguments[edit]

Economic causes of migrant labor[edit]

Holmes questions economic theories that analyze migration in terms of "push and pull factors" which presumes a clean separation between forced migration caused by disaster and voluntary economic migration. (36) Holmes also argues that such theories assume that illegal migration involves individuals making rational and independent choices to take risks. Instead, Holmes emphasizes the economic forces that make not crossing the border a riskier decision, as the import of US corn out-competes the local small-scale corn farming that the Triqui once relied on. He identifies trade agreements such as NAFTA as creating an unfair advantage by forbidding Mexico from imposing trade tariffs on US corn while the US further lowers the cost of its own corn via government subsidies.(44) Despite border deterrents which frame crossing the border as a voluntary and unnecessary risk, in this situation, Triqui men have "no other option left" (36) but to cross the border and work on farms in the US in the face of their stagnating communities.

Following Michael Burawoy, Holmes defines migrant labor as a system where the "reproduction of the labor force" and the "production of the labor force" are separated in space and time. (p 32) In a system where the US and Mexico are intertwined, the US relies on the cheap migrant labor force that Mexico provides without needing to provide better standards of education or health care, which Mexico handles instead at a lower price and quality. Holmes points out that this arrangement is not coincidental, but "enforced" by political and economic interests and policies. These include laws in the American Southwest which allow US companies to only offer meager wages while at the same time preventing undocumented workers from using public services. Holmes cites California's Proposition 187 and the Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act as two such laws. (33, 57) In this arrangement, the agricultural industry of these states tacitly employ undocumented workers for their low costs while denying them the ability to reproduce or settle in the US.

Chapter Summaries[edit]

2 - Why study US-Mexico migration
3 - How racism and labor segregation structures the mindsets of people involved in US agriculture
4 - Sickness as violence
5 - How and why US doctors fail to treat migrant patients well
6 - How social inequality becomes taken for granted, and how to change it

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