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Reference: Holmes, Seth M. Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States. University of California Press, 2013.
In "Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies", Holmes' concept of violence and suffering expand the definition of violence as its typically defined. Typically, one thinks of direct, physical harm as violence. But in Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, Seth Holmes refers to violence in a more complex way. Throughout the book, Holmes mentions both structural and symbolic violence, and how these forms of violence are doing damage to the health of migrant workers.
Structural Violence, as Holmes describes is "violence committed by configurations of social inequalities that, in the end, has injurious effects on bodies similar to the violence of a stabbing or shooting" (43). An example of structural violence committed against migrant farm workers is the knee, back, and hip pain experienced by the workers that Holmes worked alongside. The structures that exist which cause economic hardship for the migrant farm workers, leading them to migrate, and obliging them to work a grueling labor job are indirectly responsible for the pain, an act of structural violence. In the case of Abelino, Holmes states "Abelino's knee pain is a direct result of structural violence, particularly as it drives him into jobs requiring repetitive, harmful movements that all but guarantee physical deterioration, inflammation, and pain. He is not given the option of other forms of work, like the "light jobs" in which he sees U.S. citizens engaged." (110). After the injury, Abelino didn't receive adequate healthcare from his various doctor visits, in part because of the U.S. healthcare structure where doctors are overworked in hectic environments with little time and information on the patient. Abelino was also exploited by his workplace that wouldn't pay him adequate workers compensation, before eventually taking it away entirely while his problem persisted. Abelino's injury and pain was still present years later due to these acts of structural violence.
Holmes describes Symbolic Violence as (mis)recognizing the social structures and inequalities inherent to the world as natural (44). We (mis)recognize that migrant laborers are lower in society, believing that their low wages and poor conditions are natural and deserved. This leads to and naturalizes discrimination and inequality in many facets of life. An example of Structural Violence in the book is the treatment of Triqui workers. Triqui workers were considered the bottom of the ethnic-labor hierarchy, suffered the most injuries, and worked the lower paying jobs (such as making up the majority of those who worked the berry fields rather than the higher paying apple picking job). They were discriminated against and called slurs by the crew bosses. Holmes states "Unofficial farm policies and practices subtly reinforce labor and ethnic hierarchies. The position of the Triqui workers, at the bottom of the hierarchy, is multiply determined by poverty, education level, language, citizenship status, and ethnicity. In addition, these factors produce each other. For example, a family's poverty cuts short an individual's education, which limits one's ability to learn Spanish (much less English), which limits one's ability to leave the bottom rung of labor and housing." (78). This demonstrates how Symbolic Violence perpetuates itself, as well as Structural Violence, and causes a cycle of discrimination and hardship. Need Assignment Help?