Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies

Migrant Farmworkers in the United States

By: Seth Holmes

Narrated by: Paul Costanzo

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies provides an intimate examination of the everyday lives and suffering of Mexican migrants in our contemporary food system. An anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, Seth M. Holmes shows how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and health care. Holmes' 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 US, planted and harvested corn, picked strawberries, and accompanied sick workers to clinics and hospitals. This "embodied anthropology" deepens our theoretical understanding of the ways in which social inequalities and suffering come to be perceived as normal and natural in society and in health care.

©2013 The Regents of the University of California (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"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." ( New York Journal of Books)

a must read

I loved this book. Holmes framing the narrative as a anthropologist and physician made for a powerful and moving book.

Pronunciation is poor

The book is great, but the narrator poorly pronounces the Spanish words that are common throughout the book.

Had to read this for a Chicano studies class

I had to read this book for a class, and I’m glad I did since this book was just real powerful in its message and has definitely impacted me and moved me on these manny important issues that Mexicans in America face. Overall I loved the book and the author’s authenticity and commitment to these people’s stories

The voice is worse than text to speech software

This book goes over the hardships and the immense complicated journey of undocumented workers to the united states with interviews and first hand accounts. The voice was extremely monotone and grating regardless of what was going on in the book. I've heard siri speak with more tonal and emotional shift in her voice.

Still the best book on the issue

I use it in my class to teach. It remains the best book on the issue. No other book or article takes one across the border, crosses the border, gets to the farm, and shows the nature of agricultural work and its impact in migrant bodies. (The reader once in a while screws up the names of theorists such as Gramsci and Bourdieu… but tolerable).