Literary Analysis Essay on Fresh Fruits, Broken Bodies

Introduction

This book is an uplifting and methodical ethnographic account of the farmers who originated from Mexico and migrated to the United States experienced. The author manages to expose how the contemporary food system depends on human suffering. Seth Holmes uses the character's observation to look into the involvements of the native Mexican community. This indigenous community is Triqui, and they manage to procure crops from Washington through harvests. The Triqui did not decide to migrate, but initially, they experienced the issue of violence for them to survive.

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The book is an ethnographic piece that illustrates the experiences of human suffering through the Triqui collective group who are indigenous immigrants. The issue of human suffering and healthy living are essential matters that the book touches. This paper aims to review Seth Holmes' book into details, considering the summary of the arguments pushed by the author, few details about the author, and the overview of the contents of the book, the weakness and strength of the book.

Summary of Argument

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is a book that gives the reader a vivid and bright look at the social injustices that are part and parcel of Agriculture. The book courageously talks about the socio-cultural and the political-economic factors that Oaxacan migrants live labour and treat their physical ailments. Holmes (90) manages to argue his empirical findings with reflexive social analysis with close regard to his position in looking into the experiences of the immigrants in the society run by violence.

Social and pragmatic gap bind insights of the working circumstances and related injuries. In this regard, unskilled labour is a total misnomer for the picking of strawberry which is a highly skilled activity that people perform with their bare hands. In most cases, they perform this activity while kneeling or squatting, and this exposes workers to pesticide residues.

In the book, experienced workers pick at high speeds, contrary to the inexperienced workers. The reason why the qualified workers pick at high speeds is that they want to make the required minimum. However, the farm owner claims that the Triqui do not want to take lunch breaks. In reality, many of these people do not eat or drink anything before work. The primary reason for this is because these people cannot afford the time to use the portable toilets on while doing the job.

Summary of Contents

The author opens his book with a convincing picture of understanding, endeavoring to cross the US-Mexican boundary through the Arizona desert with a collection of Triqui asylum seekers farm labourers. The author manages to use such an experience to introduce the text subject. His liking for the Triqui farmworkers, the growers, comes out. He uses the skills of these people to define the original encounter with the people in Oaxaca, Mexico.

In the leading chapter, the author manages to talk about the immigration of the Triqui from Northern Mexico to the principal examination site in Washington's Skagit Valley. In the next chapter, Holmes (185) looks into the theme of partisanship and manages to establish the tenacity of the paperback of denaturing racial and nationality disparities in agronomic labor, well-being discrepancies in the health center and the widespread racial discrimination in the society at large.

The author manages to contribute to the field of anthropology and the farmers by documenting the association of production in a straight up a unified berry plantation in the Skagit Valley. The author manages to demonstrate the way structural oppression relies on ethnic differences, citizenship and language. It lies by the gauge of a built-up farm.

Holmes engraves the understanding of Triqui laborers the isolated plantation through drawing pictures in the mind of the reader with close regard to injuries. Through the three stories, Holmes manages to cast out their dehumanization that emanates from a widespread free enterprise. Intimidation is apparent in the rivalry in Mexico. The reason behind this is that the United States managed to sponsor drug conflict in the perspective of the free trade pact in North America, the production of arms in the U.S./Mexican boundary and the separation of the laborers. This sponsorship targeted the method of farming in cultivation which yields "broken bodies" mistreated in the health facilities in the United States and Mexico.

The sixth chapter commences with a hypothetical argument of the manner in which physical and figurative vehemence is the primary ways over which tyranny relies on ethnicity, language, race and citizenship which are tangibly detrimental to the Triqui migrants. Holmes (181) debates that Triqui involvement with violence yields transformation on the capacity of the group, and these alterations challenge belonging, irrespective of their position in the social hierarchy. Holmes (181) carries on, "this naturalization of oppression and racism is particularly efficient and unquestioned because it is invisibly effected on the level of the body."

The author clinches the paperback by putting much emphasis on the isolated labor pyramids in farming production which are communally created and that once his readers comprehends this, they will be in improved point to participate in realistic cohesion on both native and international balance. The labors that Holmes studied were not the proposed audience for this book. However, in the recent labour struggles, the workers managed to use Holmes' work.

About the Author

The author is an anthropologist and a medical doctor whose workings focuses on the character that insight of transformation play in the creation and imitation of societal pyramids and health variations. He is the author of Fresh Fruits and Broken Bodies where he pens in the custom of Agree, Murrow and Steinbeck in revealing the societal prejudices that are part and parcel of farming. He manages to disclose the merger of powers that establish medical and health problems and necessitates complex solutions.

Seth Holmes received his PhD in medicinal anthropology from the University of California, Francisco. He also completed his internship at the University of Pennsylvania. He managed to finish the book, Fresh Fruit, Broken bodies in 2013.

The Weakness of the Book

The fault of this book lies on partiality, the point of privilege among the Triqui farm laborers and the way this situation biased his opinion and clarification of the ambition, willpower and power of the Triqui laborers. The author was biased and therefore was not in a place to comprehend that they were not wholly dupes who wanted solidarity and the goodwill of their oppressors.

Strengths

The primary strengths of this book are the available writing styles which can reach the full range of audiences. The author is flexible and portrays evidence in the ways structural and symbolic act on Triqui workers who are moving from Oaxaca through the Mexico-U.S. border to the West Coast of the U.S. The book can, therefore, play a vital role in assisting the activists in their campaigns against oppression.

Conclusion

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is a book that is very critical and essential in the modern scholarly work and also advanced capitalism. The author, Seth Holmes, managed to present a multifaceted and several proficiencies of the Triqui workers on the international arena in a precise and concise manner. The book is, therefore, vital in the shaping future approaches on the challenges that face human beings such as problems that immigrants, workers and laborers face.

Work Cited

Holmes, Seth. Fresh fruit, broken bodies: Migrant farmworkers in the United States. Vol. 27. Univ of California Press, 2013.