Previous
Chapter 5
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Hierarchy and Violence
Global Pressures and Individual Choices
Labor and Immigration Policy
Bias in Healthcare
Anthropology and Activism
Summary
Analysis
The Hiddenness of Migrant Bodies. Holmes recounts meeting a public health worker who doesn’t know migrant workers live in the Skagit Valley. He wonders how this is possible. The answer is that the local white public simply doesn’t see, interact with, or think about migrant workers. In fact, U.S. society deliberately hides migrants’ existence because that makes it easier to mistreat them. Conversely, if they learn about migrant workers’ struggles, the U.S. public might decide to take action.
Migrant workers’ invisibility in the Skagit Valley is a key example of symbolic violence, the phenomenon Holmes focuses on in this chapter. Because they literally don’t see migrant workers, Skagit Valley residents simply don’t understand that the local economy—and national agriculture industry—totally depends on brutally exploiting them. Invisibility allows inequities to continue unchecked, which is why the first step towards political change is making migrant workers’ lives and struggles visible to the public.
Themes
Symbolic Violence. Holmes briefly defines symbolic violence, which refers to the way people incorrectly and often unconsciously view social hierarchies as natural. Symbolic violence lets people “buy into […] the rules of the game,” or agree to define themselves and others through social hierarchies. In fact, most people in society take these hierarchies for granted, including the people at the bottom of them.
Symbolic violence is, above all, a distorted way of thinking. It involves stories that people tell themselves about other people and cognitive tricks people play on themselves in order to avoid recognizing other people’s humanity. Since symbolic violence is often unconscious and collective, the distorted and factually incorrect beliefs it produces often becomes accepted as common sense. This makes it even harder to combat.
Themes
Citizenship, Culture, and Difference. Holmes points out that white Skagit Valley residents implicitly divide themselves (“us”) from migrant workers (“them”). Similarly, Holmes’s elderly white friend J.R. considers as Latinx people as “foreigners,” including those born and raised in the California town where he lives. (Ironically, J.R. first moved there as a migrant farmworker.) J.R. believes that minorities should be forced to adopt white people’s “American” culture. In fact, this is a common belief in the U.S—even many doctors and nurses assume that minority groups will inevitably give up their “ethnic” cultures and choose “mainstream” (white middle-class) culture over time. In contrast, the Triqui migrants generally don’t want to be Americans: they want to live decent lives in Mexico, but this requires them to work in the U.S.
When white Americans think in terms of “us” versus “them,” or “Americans” and “foreigners,” they’re really talking about race and ethnicity. In other words, these terms are white people’s way of disguising their underlying belief in white supremacy—or the idea that white people should have political, economic, and social power in the places where they live. However, Holmes does not think all these people are hateful. Rather, his point is that they unconsciously choose these racist ideas as a way to justify inequities that benefit them. For example, when J.R. sees his town’s Latinx population growing, he refuses to recognize that Latinx people are equal to white people and should therefore be equally represented in the local government and culture. Instead, he decides that white people are California’s true owners and therefore nonwhite people must assimilate. This is how he ends up ironically believing that he’s the true “local” (despite being a migrant farmworker) while local Latinx people are “foreign” (despite growing up in town).
Themes
Race, Place, and Exclusion. Holmes explains that Skagit and Central Valley residents view migrant workers differently depending on their own identities. Most people view all Latinx people as “Mexican,” while those in the agriculture industry distinguish between Latinx U.S. citizens, mestizos, and Indigenous Oaxacans (including Mixtecs and Triquis).
In his third chapter, Holmes argued that a zoom lens is a useful metaphor for thinking about how people view social hierarchy. People can zoom in to see smaller and smaller segments of the hierarchy, like the hierarchy between mestizos, Mixtecs, and Triquis, or they can zoom out and see the bigger picture, like the overall status of white people above Latinx (“Mexican”) people. This metaphor shows that, while the racial-ethnic hierarchy determines people’s status in Washington and California, the people who live there aren’t aware of the entire hierarchy or attentive to everyone’s place in it. Instead, people enforce the hierarchy in bits and pieces, depending on who they are and where they work. The categories that they use to think about others depend on context, and symbolic violence is important because it is one of the contextual factors that shapes these categories.
Themes
Get the entire Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies LitChart as a printable PDF.
Often, “Mexican” just becomes a general label for racial and cultural difference. For instance, a group of local Washington high schoolers formed a gang called “Whites Against Mexicans” (or “WAM” for short) and started attacking other students. One Latino “WAM” member insists that “Mexican” is an “attitude,” not an ethnicity, and so claims that he’s not “Mexican” because he’s not a “gangster.” His friend explains that the people they hate are “dirty Mexican[s].” Holmes points out that anthropologists see “dirt” as humans’ way of talking about things that are out of place—for instance, sand is “clean” on the beach but “dirty” in the house. So when white people say that “Mexicans” are “dirty,” this implies that they do not belong and should be removed.
In this deeply ironic example, a Latino teenager joins the “Whites Against Mexicans” gang because he believes he’s not a “gangster.” This example shows how the teenagers’ underlying belief in a social hierarchy takes precedence over the reality they live in. Therefore, the “WAM” gang provides a clear example of how symbolic violence supports hierarchies. “WAM” gangsters don’t care that their worldview makes no logical sense and they can’t even clearly define whom they are dedicated to hating. They maintain their worldview and hatred in order to justify their feeling that they deserve superior status and power compared to another group of people.
Themes
J.R. also complains about “filthy-ass Mexicans” in his area. Specifically, he’s furious that they blame “their filthiness” on farm owners who don’t give them running water. A local Latina woman complains that migrants bathe in the river, and Holmes remembers that he used to do the same when he was homeless in California with Samuel’s family. He points out that poor people tend to live and work in dirtier conditions all across the world.
J.R.’s prejudice is based on mixing up literal dirt with metaphorical dirt. Namely, he concludes that Latinx people are out of place and should be treated as criminals (or are metaphorically dirty) because, due to their jobs and their poverty, they are often covered in literal soil. Through this cognitive maneuver, J.R. starts viewing the effects of structural violence—literal dirt—as a justification for further structural violence, or cleaning out metaphorical dirt. This is a textbook example of symbolic violence: it’s a cognitive distortion that helps J.R. justify and reinforce a racial-ethnic hierarchy that puts him at the top.
Themes
Notably, while white U.S. citizens often use the word “Mexican” to disparage those they see as other, Latinx U.S. citizens and Mexican mestizos use the word to define themselves in opposition to Indigenous people from Oaxaca. Regardless, people use these racial categories to separate themselves from others and, ultimately, ignore those others’ suffering. Therefore, race and ethnicity aren’t fixed categories: rather, they depend on both who’s talking and who they’re talking about.
Because California and Washington’s social hierarchy depends on both race and ethnicity, “Mexican” ends up having negative connotations when used by white people but positive connotations when used by mestizos. However, in both situations, people use the word in a way that allows them to justify their own position in the hierarchy and another group’s inferiority in it. White people use “Mexican” to disparage all Latinx people as inferior, while mestizo people use “Mexican” to proclaim their superiority to Indigenous Mexican people. In other words, the word becomes a tool for symbolic violence in both situations. This shows that, while race and ethnicity categories are flexible, they don’t just change randomly: instead, groups mold them to fit their specific, self-interested goals.
Themes
Blamed for Suffering. Holmes catalogues numerous ways that migrant workers get “Blamed for Suffering.” Rather than seeing the social hierarchy behind migrants’ suffering, white people often attribute it to migrants’ stupidity, incompetence, or laziness. For instance, one farm administrator hates that the workers don’t learn English, even though they’re not allowed to participate in the farm’s English classes. Similarly, J.R. sees the U.S. as “a classless, individualistic society” where anyone can succeed through hard work, but conveniently ignores how poverty and racial hierarchy create barriers for nonwhite people, especially in agriculture.
Blaming the victim allows people to simultaneously reinforce structural violence and blind themselves to it. For instance, because J.R. assumes that U.S. society isn’t racist, he concludes that Mexicans are simply inferior to white people and justifies treating them as subordinates. In other words, because he starts out by telling himself that there is no unjust social hierarchy, he concludes that the social hierarchy he observes must be just—and should be perpetuated, not overturned. This shows why blaming the victim is such an effective symbolic violence strategy: it helps people continue to believe that the world is fair and convinces them that they deserve their power and privileges.
Themes
Meanwhile, U.S. Americans often blame Mexico’s “corruption” for making rural Indigenous Mexicans poor, but this was really the result of U.S.-led policies like NAFTA. Similarly, mestizo Mexicans blame Triqui people for their poverty—for example, one nun says that Triqui people don’t work hard enough. She suggests they open stores in San Miguel, but Holmes points out that many did—and then failed due to a lack of demand. One final common stereotype is that Triqui people are violent. This common misconception comes from the fact that they’ve been invaded and displaced repeatedly and had to defend themselves.
The U.S. public’s beliefs about Mexican society and mestizo Mexicans’ beliefs about Indigenous people are ways of blaming the victim. Just like J.R.’s bigotry, these distorted ideas enable symbolic violence by pretending that unjust social hierarchies are really a reflection of just natural hierarchies. But these beliefs also fall apart as soon as they’re challenged by facts, which is why Holmes believes social scientists can make a difference. For instance, it makes no sense to say that Indigenous Mexicans should be punished for the corruption of Mexico’s mestizo-dominated, Spanish-speaking government. (If anything, they should be able to apply for political asylum.)
Themes
Powerful people also commonly blame powerless people for their suffering by claiming that they “want” it. For example, John Tanaka says that the pickers “don’t want a lunch break” (but they do want one) and “don’t want to understand” the farm’s confusing pay scale (but they do understand it).
When analyzed out of context, John Tanaka’s insistence that his impoverished, low-paid workers don’t want better conditions looks nonsensical. In context, it becomes clear that it’s a way for him to justify his failure to improve their conditions and avoid a guilty conscience.
Themes
In addition to blaming migrants’ suffering on migrants themselves, U.S. Americans also blame their own suffering on migrants. For instance, J.R. blames his migrant worker neighbors for taking away his farm job—rather than the farmer who hired them or the economic policies that forced the farmer to cut costs.
J.R.’s thought process is very similar to how the U.S. public blames individual migrants for crossing the border, rather than trying to understand the economic forces that compel them to migrate. It also resembles the way Holmes assumes that his readers will initially blame the Tanaka brothers for exploiting their workers, rather than seeing the market pressures that leave them with no option. In all these cases, symbolic violence leads people to blame the victims because it’s easier than blaming the perpetrators.
Themes
Normalization. Holmes explains that white people in California and Washington learn to view migrant workers’ suffering as normal, acceptable, or even beneficial. They get used to seeing labor camps, which they assume are better than people’s housing in Mexico. They also claim that migrant workers are participating in a universal cycle of immigration, in which one generation works hard in poor conditions so that the next can have more privilege. Finally, because of the farm’s physical segregation, many white workers don’t acknowledge the migrant workers or understand their suffering.
As a symbolic violence strategy, normalization often involves simply forgetting about inequities until they fade into the background. In other instances, normalization involves deliberately reinterpreting social inequities and structural violence so that they appear to be just. This allows people to avoid feeling guilty about or acting to stop the suffering they observe. For instance, by assuming that migrant labor camps are an improvement in people’s housing and the next generation will have better chances, people reinterpret migrant workers’ suffering as meaningful or even necessary.
Themes
Naturalization. Holmes has variously heard that “Oaxacans like to work bent over,” that Triqui people are the most “brutish” and efficient pickers, and that Indigenous people should naturally work as berry pickers simply “because they’re lower to the ground.” These statements show how powerful people blame social hierarchies of race and ethnicity on supposed natural characteristics, which makes those social hierarchies appear justified. This is a powerful kind of symbolic violence, which justifies and sometimes multiplies structural violence. For instance, the crop manager Scott justifies exposing pickers to dangerous pesticides by saying that those who get sick from this exposure are just oversensitive.
Naturalization allows people who enforce social hierarchies and impose structural violence on others to argue that they are not truly responsible for the consequences of violence, because they are just carrying out the natural order of things. Of course, people can freely define what they consider “natural,” depending on what they stand to gain from exploiting others. For instance, Scott would never randomly expose Triqui people to pesticides becuase he believes they're naturally resistant to it; instead, because his job requires him to expose people to pesticides, he decides that this is natural and allows himself to abdicate responsibility for poisoning people.
Themes
Internalization. Holmes argues that people at the bottom of the hierarchy also often internalize a belief in their own inferiority. For example, the pickers work around highly toxic insecticides. Although management technically showed them a safety video, nobody takes the risk seriously. When Holmes tries to explain the risks, his Triqui friends say they’re too strong to get sick. Their belief that they have special ethnic characteristics actually exacerbates the health risks they face.
The Triquis internalize the hierarchy of race, ethnicity, and citizenship by declaring that their natural strength destines them for the most grueling farm work. Although they believe in their physical superiority, this leads them to accept the inferior position they’re given on the farm and in U.S. society more generally. Of course, when it comes to pesticides, it also leads them to accept unreasonable health risks. By doing so, they are perpetuating structural violence against themselves on behalf of the racial, ethnic, and citizenship hierarchy.
Themes
Body Position in Labor. Holmes argues that the physical positions that people assume at work reflect their place in social hierarchies. The top workers (like the farm executives) work at desks, while those at the bottom (like the pickers) do physical labor in uncomfortable conditions. The white workers often treat berry pickers like animals—for instance, Shelly yells at a group of workers to “Shoo! Shoo! Get, get!” In short, by treating migrants as inferior, people like Shelly reinforce the hierarchy that makes those migrants suffer disproportionately.
Body position isn’t just important becuase of its health effects on different kinds of workers—it also becomes a symbol of people’s relative status. People who sit at a desk all day (like the farm executives) are more likely to be seen and treated as authorities, while Shelly associates berry pickers with nonhuman animals in part because they spend their time doing physical labor in the fields. This shows how symbolic violence also affects the way people’s bodies get perceived: people with power get perceived as having high-status bodies, while Shelly perceives people at the bottom of the hierarchy as more akin to animals than humans.
Themes
Resistances and Refusals. Holmes points out that locals occasionally do break with the racial hierarchy. For example, some white locals point out that the bank’s policy of serving white customers before migrants is discriminatory, and others admit that they feel guilty about the nearby migrant camps. Some even understand how global economic forces put pressure on farm owners and workers alike. For instance, a local bed-and-breakfast owner comments that farmers might eventually replace workers with machines, and in San Miguel, Triqui people insist on drinking local sodas instead of Pepsi, which they believe to contain human beings. Holmes sees this as a metaphor for the way “corporations thrive while grinding up living human beings,” including workers and small business owners.
These small “resistances and refusals” show that people are capable of spontaneously breaking through symbolic violence. This means that they perceive unjust social hierarchies, and then confront them instead of immediately justifying or defending them. The Triqui people’s resistance to drinking Pepsi shows how it’s possible for a whole group to do this together, in an organized way, and start resisting structural violence to whatever extent they can. The Triquis also show how it’s possible to respond to symbolic violence’s stories—which normalize, naturalize, and internalize structural violence—with counter-stories that personify the evil that lurks behind social hierarchies.
Themes
The Strike and the Memo. Holmes explains what happens when the strawberry pickers go on strike. The executives meet with the pickers and are astonished to learn about the racism they face. The Triqui workers temporarily win lunch breaks and a raise, but the Tanakas take these benefits away the next summer. Again, the managers constantly have to choose between their workers’ dignity and their farm’s market viability.
The strawberry pickers’ strike shows how it’s possible for migrant workers and other oppressed groups to win better conditions through political organizing. Crucially, by pointing out mistreatment, the pickers show the executives that they’re presiding over a racist and exploitative system. In other words, they successfully—if temporarily—disrupt symbolic violence.
Themes
Social Change and Social Reproduction. Holmes admits that the racial-ethnic-citizenship hierarchy is an unchallenged norm in the agriculture industry. So is the horrendous racism migrant workers face from managers and the local community. Beyond the pain and danger they suffer because of their work, they also get blamed for that pain and danger through the symbolic violence of normalization, naturalization, and internalization. But understanding this symbolic violence can be a first step towards changing social hierarchies.
Holmes sets the stage for his conclusion by admitting that changing the social hierarchies he’s studied is an enormous and incredibly difficult undertaking. But just like the Triqui strikers, he hopes that his research can at least help challenge the symbolic violence that holds these hierarchy together. Specifically, by challenging his readers’ incorrect assumptions about the U.S. agriculture, immigration, and healthcare systems, he hopes that he can spur them to recognize those hierarchies and ultimately act to change them. In brief, he hopes that his research will turn people into activists.
Themes
