Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States(27 California Series in Public Anthropology)

An intimate examination of the everyday lives and suffering of Mexican migrants and indigenous people in our contemporary food system.
 
An anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, Seth Holmes shows how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and healthcare. Holmes’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 “embodied anthropology” deepens our theoretical understanding of how health equity is undermined by a normalization of migrant suffering, the natural endpoint of systemic dehumanization, exploitation, and oppression that clouds any sense of empathy for “invisible workers.”
 
Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is far more than an ethnography or supplementary labor studies text; Holmes tells the stories of food production workers from as close to the ground as possible, revealing often theoretically-discussed social inequalities as irreparable bodily damage done. This book substantiates the suffering of those facing the danger of crossing the border, threatened with deportation, or otherwise caught up in the structural violence of a system promising work but endangering or ignoring the human rights and health of its workers.

All of the book award money and royalties from the sales of this book have been donated to farm worker unions, farm worker organizations and farm worker projects in consultation with farm workers who appear in the book.

Table of Contents:
Foreword, by Philippe Bourgois Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: "Worth Risking Your Life?" 2. "We Are Field Workers": Embodied Anthropology of Migration 3. Segregation on the Farm: Ethnic Hierarchies at Work 4. "How the Poor Suffer": Embodying the Violence Continuum 5. "Doctors Don't Know Anything": The Clinical Gaze in Migrant Health 6. "Because They're Lower to the Ground": Naturalizing Social Suffering 7. Conclusion: Change, Pragmatic Solidarity, and Beyond Appendix: On Methods and Contextual Knowledge Notes References Index

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 & 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).

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." -- Marilyn Gates New York Journal of Books "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." -- Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern Antipode "Holmes brings an unusual expertise to his writing about migrant Mexican farmworkers... [He] goes far beyond mere observation." -- Charles Ealy Austin American Statesman "The insights gleaned by [Holmes's] participation-observation are priceless." -- Michelle A. Gonzalez National Catholic Reporter "Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in food and the food system... To say that the book provides a vivid look at farm labor is an understatement." -- Peter Benson Somatosphere "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." -- Leah Douglas Serious Eats "A provocative, important new book... Part heart-pounding adventure tale, part deep ethnograhic study, part urgent plea for reform... Holmes brings an enlightening complexity to the issue of migrant workers." -- Mark B. San Francisco Bay Guardian "A provocative, important new book... Part heart-pounding adventure tale, part deep ethnographic study, part urgent plea for reform." -- Marke B. Bay Guardian "A timely, eloquent, and analytically rigourous examination ... an excellent resource." -- MDICLHUMANITIES Centre for Medical Humanities "Holmes guides the reader through this endeavor by providing an intense blend of informant life histories, their clinical case studies, observations of and conversations with additional social actors on the farms and in the clinics he visited... A timely and innovative text blending theory and praxis." Alegra Laboratory