Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies

We know that our food is artificially cheap. At some abstract level we know there's suffering involved. Holmes beautifully lets us see and almost feel what that suffering is really like: the terror of the border crossing, the social circumstances that make it necessary; the back-neck-knee-and-body-breaking misery of picking strawberries seven days a week for unending hours; waking to rainfall as condensed breath drips from your uninsulated ceiling; the humiliation and insults and violence. Seth Holmes walked the walk, spending years living with (excuse the term) migrant workers roaming between Oaxaca, California, and Washington. People who turn out to be (gasp!) actual human beings who experience love, joy, fear, sadness, pain (only much, much more of the latter than you or I ever will).


Holmes writes engagingly, with more grace and heart than I could ever muster. Even when interviewing truly contemptible hatemongering bigots he refrains from editorializing, letting their own words damn them. But those are just small parts of the book. The vast majority takes you into the lives of these families, into their days and hopes of finding better lives. And into the systems that make that almost impossible.

Recommended reading for anyone who eats food. Required for anyone who has influence over immigration, agricultural, medical, or other cultural policies.