SH: The first misperception I would say we touched on a little bit although it sometimes seems like it's hard to get across, and that is the idea that these people coming to pick berries or work on farms in the U.S. are coming here voluntarily. And one problem with that framing is oftentimes even by U.S. government officials and the media ... we see that the people who die in the desert are subtly blamed for their deaths.
DB: For their own deaths ... they killed themselves...
SH: So they are understood to have chosen to take on that unnecessary risk. But the experience of the farm workers who I met was very much that they were forced to do this. There's no other option and so this idea that they deserve their death is a subtle but very inhumane way to think about people who are dying...
DB: Multiple forms of racism, it's a part of...
SH: That's true. Anti-immigrant prejudice, racism...
DB: Profound ignorance, misunderstanding, confusion.
SH: Whose deaths are mournable, should be grieved, should count. There's also, I think it was two weeks ago there were several Congress people who stated that they wouldn't vote for immigration reform unless it became clear that the newly legalized immigrants would not get health care in the U.S. for roughly 15 years, despite paying taxes.
And when I think about the essence of the transaction between these farm workers and the rest of us Americans who shop at grocery stores and farmer's markets it certainly looks to me through my research that the farm workers are going through dangerous border crossings, working bent over six or seven days a week, all day, gaining back problems, hip problems, knee problems, essentially giving away their health in order to pick healthy fruit, grapes, broccoli, asparagus, in order that the rest of us who shop at grocery stores in the U.S. or who go to farmer's markets can be healthy.
And, so, the transaction in one essence, that's part of where the title, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, came from which was actually suggested by Philippe Bourgois who wrote the book's foreword. There's an exchange, that their bodies are becoming sick and broken, in essence, to give us this healthy fruit, healthy food. If we are to respect this, I think we need to prioritize health care for this group of people who is helping all of us be healthy.
DB: Do you want to just talk a moment about what at the deepest level you learned from this journey and from this work? What can you tell the rest of us Americans about the reality of people who really we have to say do the hardest work that millions, tens of millions of Americans depend on, sit down at their tables, enjoy every day? And yet they may be the same people who want these people kicked out.
SH: Right. Correct. I would say right now in the midst of debates on immigration reform and health reform that we need to remember that immigrants are people. There's a lot of debate about immigrants in the abstract that goes on among politicians without listening to the stories of, the voices of, the realities of actual immigrants themselves. While all these things are being debated I think we need to remember that these immigrants are humans, they're fathers, they're sons, they're daughters, they're wives, they're mothers. They have stories. That's one thing I try to do in the book; write about actual people so the reader can get to know somewhat why they are doing what they are doing, who they are, what they're trying to do.
And I hope that this will help Americans vote differently, think differently, listen differently when they hear about people dying in the border. When they taste their strawberries they'll remember that likely the last person who touched these strawberries was the person who picked them. That's an intimate exchange that helps us be healthy; what do we owe in response?
DB: Well, yeah, these vegetables are sort of full of the fingerprints of suffering. And we're going to continue to cover this story. We appreciate you coming in and the risk that you took so that we could learn a little bit more about it. Of course, we know because we have friends and brothers, and as I mentioned to you earlier, the senior producer of this show, Miguel Gavilon Molina, really watched his mom die in the fields, as he was a young farm worker, and it's the families that do the work together. They break up the families after they do the work.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
