Analysis Of Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies By Seth Holmes

In Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s book, Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network, she allows us to enter the everyday lives of ten undocumented Mexican workers all living in the Chicago area. Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz refers to Chuy, Alejandro, Leonardo, Luis, Manuel, Omar, Rene, Roberto, Lalo, and Albert the ten undocumented Mexicans as the “Lions”. This book shares the Lions many stories from, their daily struggle of living as an undocumented immigrant in America, to some of them telling their stories about crossing the border and the effects of living in a different country than their family, and many other struggles and experiences they have encountered. Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s book delves into

Enrique’s journey from Honduras to the U.S. unveils the innate loyalty of a loving child to their mother and presents the dangers that a migrant faces on the road with consistent angst; nevertheless, it supports the idea that compassion shown by some strangers can boost the retreating confidence within a person. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” he seeks the beacon of light that all migrants hope to encounter; “El Norte.” Like many children before him, it is the answer to the problems of a hard life. While being hunted down “like animals” leading to “seven futile attempts,” he is

Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, shares his life-long journey as an undocumented immigrant in his text, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” As the title suggests, Vargas attempts to convey to his audience, who likely never has and never will experience anything similar to what he has, what it is like to live as an immigrant in the United States of America. Skillfully, Vargas details the perfect number of personal stories to reach the emotional side of his audience, which is anyone who is not an immigrant. Through the use of his personal accounts Vargas is able to effectively communicate that immigrants are humans too while simultaneously proving his credibility, as he has experience and a vast amount of knowledge

In the short story by Helena Maria Viramontes, “The Cariboo Café’, describes several of the key issues many immigrants face daily when living in the United States. The short story is broken down to three different narrative sections. Each section illustrates different problems that are being faced by the Chicano/a community. The story describes the lives of Chicano/a immigrants, a Central American refugee, and the owner of the café. Each part is given by different perspectives of the characters, which later all three narrations are place together to reveal the ending of the story. Throughout the three narrations multiple themes and topics can be connected to current issues about immigration. Viramontes is able to describe the scenarios and

Throughout life, every individual must face obstacles; some more difficult than others. In the story “The Trip” by Laila Lalami, poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez, and article “Outlaw: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” by Jose Antonio Vargas, there is a main character who has to face many challenges because of the fact that they’re immigrants. In all three texts, it is evident that being an immigrant has many affects on their lives. However, this label and the obstacles that come with it didn’t stop each character from pushing forward.

It has flawlessly displayed the coalescence of the principles of archaeology, linguistics, forensic science and ethnography, the use of the holistic approach of anthropology (Parkin & Ulijaszek, 2007) to reveal the violence and inhumanity brought by global inequality, without euphemizing the real events. The message the anthropologist Jason De León has successfully resonated with his readers, serving as a thought-provoking eye opener of the current socio-political

What do we expect as a life of a Mexican migrant? The American public consistently listens to the media to these people crossing the border illegally, which is deemed as a crime. They see these people as stealing American jobs and benefiting from government programs such as welfare. Countless people think it was voluntary for them to come to the United State, therefore they deserve whatever comes their way, either health problems, racism or low paying jobs. However, what countless American people don’t realize is that the majority of Mexican migrants are forced to migrate to the United State to survive. They constantly risk their lives to cross a dangerous border in order to find the jobs that the American people don’t want to endure. In the book called Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, the author, Seth Holmes focus on the lives of an indigenous Mexican group called the Triquis. Throughout the book, he focuses on the journey of the group from their hometown in Oaxaca to farms in California and Washington. The book also emphasizes on how racism and health problems of migrant workers have become invisible. Their health problems and their social status in the social hierarchy are blamed on themselves because they decided to come to a place where they are seen as illegal aliens. Instead of blaming the Triqui people of their sickness, health care facilities need to treat them without judgement, address what exactly their sickness is as well as its structural causes.

The book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States illustrates the fieldwork of the author Seth M. Holmes by explaining the myriad aspects of migrant workers’ lives in the U.S.—from the politics to the social environments to the physical body. By not only studying, but living, the lives of these migrant workers, Holmes brings the reader a view unseen by the vast majority and provides the opportunity for greater understanding through the intense details of his work. The voices of vastly different characters—real people—are captured and expounded on without judgment but with deep consideration for all factors that contribute to each person’s life, opinions, and knowledge. Ultimately, a picture of intersectionality is painted in the colors of migrants, mothers, fathers, children, doctors, soldiers, executives, the poor, the rich, and more.

External conflict in Rivera’s story is what brings about the plight this boy lives through. As the boy tells his mother, “Either the germs eat us alive or the sun burns us up. Always some kind of sickness”(Rivera 109).As a migrant worker, the boy and those like him, had to toil and live in unsanitary conditions and under harsh elements in the field for 12 hour shifts These conditions often brought grave illness or death to the migrants. Another factor that added to the migrant’s unsavory working conditions was the lack of consideration given to them by their bosses. In the story, the mother tells the boy and his siblings, “Don’t pay any mind to that boss if he tries to rush you. Just don’t do it. He thinks it’s so easy since he’s not the one who’s out there stooped”

Seth Holmes, the Author of “Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies”, is a cultural and medical anthropologist and physician. The focus of this ethnography is directly in the scope of his interests and his perspective as a physician and as a white person gives an interesting view of how he walkes through the world compared to the people he meets.

For centuries, a great deal of ethnic groups have been disempowered and persecuted by others. However, one should realize that none are more intense than the oppression of women. In the novel, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, women living in the Mango Street neighborhood suffer from their restricted freedom. Three such women, Rafaela, Mamacita, and Sally, provide great examples. All try to escape from their dreadful environment. Most of them fail, but at first, Sally seems to succeed in escaping from her father. However, she ends up meeting a husband as equally bad as her father. Ultimately, the men who live with Rafaela, Mamacita, and Sally act as insuperable obstacles that limit the freedom in their women’s lives.

Second Slide: The ways in which Indigenous Women tried to resist, but were ultimately victims of colonization, and how heteropatriarchy has affected them.

Enrique’s Journey focuses and sheds more light and understanding on the aspects and challenges of extreme poverty, family abandonment, systematic issues of an immigration system and what one has to go through in the face of adversity. The book centers on Enrique who starts out as a young boy living in extreme poverty in Honduras with his family. Enrique is an older adolescent, Hispanic, poverty economic status, unemployed most times, and is in a relationship with one child. This case study will further look at Enrique’s personal experiences from a young child up to young adulthood and how that has shaped his development has a person from coming from such difficult environmental circumstances. This will also look at the different environmental perspectives in the micro, mezzo and macro level when pertaining to effects on human behavior.

Gloria Anzaldua, Sherman Alexie and Richard Rodriguez are three different American authors that struggled with marginalization because of their heritage and culture. It shows that most people that are part of the minority ethnic group, struggle with finding their identity when they are forced to engage in a different society other than their own group. The authors find themselves in a linguistic and cultural borderland because they were looked down upon. They were discriminated by the dominant ethnic group when they try and stick to their heritage and they were shunned and neglected by their own people whenever they try to adhere to the standards of their new country.

The author starts his argument by explaining how colonialism and the colonial period vanquished all indigenous people from that area, together with their language. That implied the need to import laborers from different parts,