Review Summary
- Modes of production:how do people make a living (obtain their daily resources) in Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies? (2 pages)
The general activity that helps people put food on the table in Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, is farming. However, farming activities vary. The book has focused on three essential stakeholders in the farming industry (Holmes, 2013). Farms and farms’ activities tie the three. The best way to analyze the book’s mode of production is by paying close attention to the three stakeholders. The first set of stakeholders comprises of the migrant farmers. The main reason the migrant farmers were crossing the borders was seeking employment from farms in California and Washington. The main source of livelihood was work from the farms.
The immigrants were engaging in different activities after securing an employment opportunity in any of the farms. The first activity is to tilt the land or prepare it for planting. Different processes proceed with the planting season, and their essentiality cannot be underestimated (Holmes, 2013). Because the immigrants were earning from the activities performed in the farms, it would be appropriate to state that the immigrants were making a livelihood from preparing the land.
The second activity, as mentioned by Holmes, is picking strawberries. Farmers in the United States are advanced when compared to other farmers in the region. One of the reasons behind it is associated with the commitment to make farming a commercial activity. When farming becomes a commercial activity, farming activities increase. As a result, there are numerous employment opportunities. Holmes testifies that he was among the farmers who were given the work of picking berries (Holmes, 2013). With this knowledge at hand, it is no doubt that picking berries was one of the immigrants’ livelihoods.
Corn planting is one of the activities that Holmes has talked about. The activity has made most immigrants leave their homes and secure an employment opportunity in the United States. According to Holmes, corn growing is an important activity in the agricultural sector of the United States (Holmes, 2013). People who performed the activity of growing corn were paid. Therefore, this is what they were doing for a living (Holmes, 2013).
The second set of stakeholders or characters in the book comprises of the supervisors. The supervisors have been mentioned in the book due to the significant role they play. The supervisors have been used as the symbol of racism in the book. The reason behind it is that they are mostly associated with cases of oppressing immigrants. According to Holmes, the hiring process of the supervisors was tainted (Holmes, 2013). The reason behind it is that people who got the position were Anglo Americans who did not have the experience. The supervisors’ main work was to guide the employees and make sure that they performed in line with the organization (Holmes, 2013). Therefore, they made a living by working on farms. From the point of view of discrimination, they made a living by oppressing others.
The third list of stakeholders comprises of the owners of the farms. The owners of the farms were the major beneficiaries. They made a living from the produce of their farms. It would be appropriate to state that they made a living from the pain of the employees. The book exposes the pain that employees were going through.
- Connect to “Cultural and Social Change” in Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies
Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies can be connected to cultural change in two different ways. The first way is associated with farming as an activity that attracted many immigrants. The immigrants did not have any other economic activity (Holmes, 2013). The availability of farms in the United States attracted immigrants. As a result, they changed their culture to meet their daily needs.
The second way is associated with the adoption of American culture. Some of the immigrants remained in the United States for a longer period. They started assimilating to the culture of the United States (Holmes, 2013). The reason why they assimilated is that they worked under the rule of Americans. Also, the worked side by side with Americans.
- Differences and similarities in the topic of Sacred Rice and Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies (2 paragraphs)
The similarity between the two books is that they focus on agriculture. In “Sacred Rice,” the book has paid attention to rice farming (Hawthorne, 2017). In the case of the “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies,” the immigrants work on farms. Therefore, it is evident that in the two books, the main characters or populations are in one way or another associated with agricultural activities. The second similarity is that they pay attention to the sources of livelihood. In “Sacred Rice,” the author introduces the readers to the life of the Jola people. Before changing their ways of life, the Jola people depended on rice as the source of their livelihood (Holmes, 2013). On the other hand, the author of “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies” introduces the readers to the immigrants’ source of livelihood. They cross the border to work on farms.
The difference is that in the “Sacred Rice,” people farm on their land and are not treated ill by their bosses (Hawthorne, 2017). It is the will and desire of the Jola people to engage in the activity of farming rice. The “Sacred Rice” focuses on the Jola people and their land. When it comes to “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies,” workers are mistreated. Also, they work in farms that belong to people from a different race.
References
Hawthorne, W. (2017). Sacred rice: an ethnography of identity, environment, and development in rural West Africa.
Holmes, S. (2013). Fresh fruit, broken bodies: Migrant farmworkers in the United States (Vol. 27). Univ of California Press.