Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies Summary

“Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies” was published in 2013, by Steph Holmes, in response to how migrate workers are treated. Holmes main issue is we should be able to have fresh fruits, and less broken bodies. Holmes is trying to education people on whats actually going on around them. Holmes With less job opportunities, farm work in America is not volunteer work for these people, it is more of a forced thing to support their families. Holmes was able to conduct interviews and his real life experience with these people, to conduct a bigger audience. His main audience were only to policy makers, health care workers, and any one who could help these people during their time of need. One of his main idea is that why would you treat these immigrants in

a way you wouldn't treated a natural born citizen. It’s unfair, unjust, and discriminatory.
Global poverty does exist.

Poverty has been an on going issue for years, and today it is just getting worse, and just like Seth Holmes, we all wonder how the life of migrated worker works, and how are they really surviving. Living in poverty in American has it’s perks because we have the government backing us up to some extent. Americans have it so good that they don't have to work long and hard hours in the burning hot sun, for less than minimum wage. However, the Triqui migrant workers from Mexico do not have those privileges, so they flee from Mexico to work day and night in the fields of California and Washington and sometimes leaving their families behind to make close to nothing for a living.

In Fresh Fruits, Broken Bodies, by Seth Holmes he goes into depth on how the people of Triqui are trying to survive. Most migrant workers are mostly made up of Mexicans, mainly working on farms if not, they are being paid under the table for another job. Seth, has used Mexican migrant workers to define what structural violence, symbolic violence, neoliberal global economy, and naturalization

is.
Structural violence is a term used when the government is harming people by preventing them their basic needs and rights to survive. Homles states, “Structural violence is manifested as a social inequalities and hierarchies, often along social categories of class, race, gender, and sexuality.” Many Mexicans migrate to America, prominently the males who eventually send money back to their families in Mexico. Majority of these Mexicans cross the country illegally, these journeys are very dangerous and many immigrants have died, or nearly died during the whole process of trying to get to America.
The Unemployment and Poverty rate in Mexico is only getting higher and higher. The problem with Mexico is that majority of the people who live in rural areas are originally farmers and the extreme temperature and poor land makes it hard for them to farm, because farming is so hard in Mexico it is making it hard for families to actually make a living, which cause them to migrate to America and hope for a better life, and for some people it actually works out that way.
In Fresh Fruits, Broken bodies, Steph dedicated a whole chapter on “How the poor suffers.” he interviews three Triqui. Something Steph took notice of was their current health issues. Abelino, Crescencio, and Bernardo were all Triqui berry pickers with bad health problems which, effect how they work. Abelino had a knee injury, Crescencio had migraines, and Bernardo suffered from stomach pains. All three people is an example of what structural violence is.
What Steph and everyone else wants to know is, is it really necessary for these people to migrate. In this chapter Abelin states, “Do we have to migrate to survive? Yes, we do.” Actually if they don’t it'll be impossible for any man to support their family. Migrating to California does not mean that these people are safe, they are immigrants and they have no rights here in America, “… this on going movement leads to periods of homelessness, fear of apprehension and deportation, uprooting of connections and relationships outside the migration circuit, and continuity for child.”
Mexican worker has a huge effect on the nonliteral global economy.

The great part about Mexican migrant workers is that they take low paying, menial jobs, which no American would do without crying out. The problem in America now, is that Americans did not want the jobs Mexicans where doing, but now the unemployment rate in American has increased Americans now want these jobs. This is now causing social tension between Americans and Mexicans, and with Donald Trump being president nothing is getting better. Migrant worker are also hurting the economy, because they aren’t using the money to they in American in American, they are sending all that money back home so it messes with the

economy.
Triqui workers are not the agent of their suffering, their government is. While reading this book, what I learned is that people migrate because they have to not because they want to. Also, what I find really unfortunate is how Americans labels they as “job stealers” when in reality Americans would not work these kind of jobs. For example, if every immigrant were sent back to their country. How many job would really open up to Americans? or should I say how many good jobs would open up? Holmes recognize that people don't really want to be in America he mentions, “Most of the Triqui people I know would prefer U.S residency or temporary permission to work in the United States while keeping their Mexican citizenship in order to maintain their homes with their extended relative in Oaxaca.”