My next prey...well kinda.

Original Article: http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275140 (Click on the link and read the first chapter/excerpt)

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies

Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, With a Foreword by Philippe Bourgois

Seth Holmes (Author)

Available worldwide

California Series in Public Anthropology

DESCRIPTION:

This book is an ethnographic witness to the everyday lives and suffering of Mexican migrants. Based on five years of research in the field (including berry-picking and traveling with migrants back and forth from Oaxaca up the West Coast), Holmes, an anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, uncovers how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and health care. Holmes’ material is visceral and powerful—for instance, he trekked with his informants illegally through the desert border into Arizona, where they were apprehended and jailed by the Border Patrol. After he was released from jail (and his companions were deported back to Mexico), Holmes interviewed Border Patrol agents, local residents, and armed vigilantes in the borderlands. He lived with indigenous Mexican families in the mountains of Oaxaca and in farm labor camps in the United States, planted and harvested corn, picked strawberries, accompanied sick workers to clinics and hospitals, participated in healing rituals, and mourned at funerals for friends. The result is a "thick description" that conveys the full measure of struggle, suffering, and resilience of these farmworkers.

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies weds the theoretical analysis of the anthropologist with the intimacy of the journalist to provide a compelling examination of structural and symbolic violence, medicalization, and the clinical gaze as they affect the experiences and perceptions of a vertical slice of indigenous Mexican migrant farmworkers, farm owners, doctors, and nurses. This reflexive, embodied anthropology deepens our theoretical understanding of the ways in which socially structured suffering comes to be perceived as normal and natural in society and in health care, especially through imputations of ethnic body difference. In the vehement debates on immigration reform and health reform, this book provides the necessary stories of real people and insights into our food system and health care system for us to move forward to fair policies and solutions.

CONTENT:

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

Author's Bio:

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).

Reviews: More on the website: http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275140

"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

Why Picking Your Berries For $8,000 A Year Hurts A Lot

Original Article here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/08/07/209925420/why-picking-your-berries-for-8-000-a-year-hurts-a-lot

As the supply chain that delivers our food to us gets longer and more complicated, many consumers want to understand — and control — where their food comes from.

But even if we meet farmers at the farmers market, urban consumers are still largely divorced from the people who grow, pick and package our food. And we may even willfully ignore their suffering, argues Seth Holmes, a medical anthropologist and professor of health and social behavior at the University of California, Berkeley, in his provocative new book, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies.

For two summers between 2003 and 2005, Holmes lived on a farm in the Skagit Valley of Washington state. The farm produces strawberries, apples, raspberries and blueberries to sell to berry companies like Driscoll and dairy companies like Häagen-Dazs. He traveled there with a group of Triqui Indians, across the border from their hometown of San Miguel in Oaxaca, Mexico. As Holmes soon learned, the Triquis make up the very bottom rung of the agricultural labor ladder and earn between $5,000 to $8,000 a year.

Holmes stayed in the camp with the other laborers, in a shack with a tin roof and no insulation. Over the winter, he traveled with the Triquis to Madera, Calif., to prune grapevines in a vineyard. In 2005, Holmes went back to medical school, but he has continued to visit the same workers nearly every year since.

On the berry farm, Holmes picked fruit once or twice a week; the Triqui workers picked seven days a week, rain or shine, without a day off. And that took a heavy toll on their bodies: back and knee pain, slipped disks, Type 2 diabetes, premature births. As one Triqui worker he calls Abelino told him, "You pick with your hands bent over kneeling, your back hurts; you get knee pains and [hip] pains ... You suffer a lot."

We talked to Holmes about his time with the Triquis; here's part of our conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.

What was the most surprising or shocking aspect of the food system that you uncovered in your research?

"Before I did the research, I had a sense of the hierarchy of people involved in the food labor chain. But over the course of the first five months, it became clear that the hierarchy is much more detailed and subtle. There are indigenous Mexicans [like the Triqui] who occupy the rung with the most demanding physical labor — they're the ones who are bent over picking. The mestizos operate the machines — that's not quite as demanding. Then the U.S.-born Latinos are in charge of some things, and use English and Spanish. The white Americans have the most control.

"What was troubling was that people on every rung of hierarchy are legitimizing and justifying it. Farmworkers are doing that, too."

Do you think that hierarchy is representative of farms in other states in the U.S.?

"I think it is. The indigenous people from Mexico and Central America have the least powerful position. The system is different in California, because farms tend to hire a contractor to get big fields picked or pruned. The contractor goes out and finds laborers, and in my field research, I found that system to be worse in the sense that farmworkers are not paid directly by the farm. There's no paper trail. When we were in California, every time we pruned, we were paid less than minimum wage. With that system, labor laws are less likely to be enforced. But in Washington state, the farmworkers were hired directly by farmers, who were more likely to pay minimum wage."

Do you think that the American public cares about the labor required to produce our food?

"We talk so little about the people who do the work that gives us the fresh fruit and vegetables that we want. Farmworkers are pretty hidden, and there's a concept from Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher, called bad faith, meaning self-deception. My simplified version of that is that we consciously hide from ourselves the difficult realities of the workers. We somewhat know them, but we don't think about them much. In that way it seems like 'communal bad faith.' "

Why do you think the people in the food movement calling for changes in the industrial food system don't talk much about the labor issues?

"On some level, a lot of the food movement is concerned with: How does this food affect me and my body? Are there hormones in it? Antibiotics? Pesticides? But the workers who are harvesting the food and spraying the pesticides — their bodies are human, too. Ideally, we would think about them and what's going into that work. If there are ways that we, as consumers, can lend a voice towards farmworkers having health care that will protect the bodies that are working so hard to give us the healthy food we can eat, I think that's really important."

So you think the health care available to farmworkers is deficient?

"In Washington state and California, the people I met were pretty lucky to have independently run, grant-funded, nonprofit clinics to go to. But it's unclear what will happen with the Affordable Care Act. The law is wonderful in lots of ways, and will increase access for a lot of people, but there are no provisions for immigrants. Meanwhile, immigration reform is stalled, and it looks like part of the reason is that several representatives won't vote for reform unless newly legalized immigrants will not be eligible for full health care. But the people who are getting sick to help us get a healthy diet deserve health care."

It's clear from the book that you don't really blame the farm owners for the poor living and working conditions of berry pickers. As you write, "The corporatization of U.S. agriculture and the growth of international free markets squeeze growers such that they cannot easily imagine increasing the pay of the pickers or improving the labor camps without bankrupting the farm ... many of the most powerful inputs into the suffering of farmworkers are structural, not willed by individuals."

"Sometimes it is fair for us to blame farm owners. But sometimes it isn't. We also have to look at the North American Free Trade Agreement, and other free trade agreements. In general, the problems in agriculture are long-standing."

What do you think is the most important thing for consumers to know about the people behind their food?

"Farmworkers help us be healthy by harvesting fruits and vegetables, and they're helping the health of our economy by paying sales taxes and Social Security. But we are not prone to value their health or bodies or well-being. That seems disrespectful and unfair."

Macbeth Act 5 Notes

Scene 1: 

• Gentlewomen explaining to Doctor that Lady Macbeth sleep walks
• Lady Macbeth always has a candle near her bed side
• rubs her hands as if she were to wash them...

-her hands are stained with evil

• Lady Macbeth speaks of old man and blood (who?)
• her hands will never be clean
• Speaks of Banquo and how he is now dead and buries and can't possibly come out of his tomb
• "What's done cannot be undone" 

DOCTOR
Foul whisp'rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her,
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night.
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.

Scene 2: 

• English Army is near
• Rumor has it Macbeth has gone mad and is guarding his castle

Scene 3: 

• Malcom=medicine of sick country 
• Macbeth believe in the witches prophecies “Fear not, Macbeth. No man that’s born of woman Shall e'er have power upon thee.” Then fly, false thanes,
• The attack on Macbeth is confirmed
• Macbeth wears his armor
• Asks Doctor to cure wife and country

Scene 4:

• Soldiers get prepared to fight
• grab branch from forest and hold it up to try to trick Macbeth
• pep talking each other 

Scene 5: 

• The army is approaching
• Macbeth says to many horrible things have happened to him that he is no longer afraid of horrible things
• Lady macbeth is dead
• tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
• Moving forest=english army

"If thou speak’st false,

Upon the next tree shall thou hang alive

Till famine cling thee. If thy speech be sooth,

I care not if thou dost for me as much.

I pull in resolution and begin"

Scene 6:

• Malcom, Siward, MacDuff 
• ready for battle
• putting the branches down and showing who they are

Scene 7: 

• "What’s he That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none."
• Macbeth and young Siward face to face
• young Siward is killed 

Scene 8:

• Macbeth rather see others die than himself
• MacDuff and Macbeth fight 
• insult each other
• MacDuff says he was not born from a women/ c-section?
• Macbeth is afraid to fight 
• Ross breaks the new to Siward that young Siward is dead
• MacDuff carries in Macbeth's head

"...As calling home our exiled friends abroad

That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,

Producing forth the cruel ministers

Of this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen,

Who, as ’tis thought, by self and violent hands

Took off her life; this, and what needful else

That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace"