Embodied Anthropology of Migration

Holmes explains that this chapter takes its title from a 2004 conversation between Holmes and Samuel, who (like other Triqui migrants) identifies as a field worker. Triqui migrants in the US are far from their homeland and families. Their time, energy, labor, skills, and identities are inextricably tied to the fields and work that injure their bodies. US agriculture is organized around hierarchies of ethnicity, labor, and suffering. Certain processes normalize these hierarchies, making them invisible. American farm labor is structured along ethnic and citizenship lines, and this structure leads to suffering and disease, particularly among Indigenous Mexican workers. Holmes maintains that this hierarchy isn’t deliberate or planned. Rather, it results from broader social structures, which are accepted by people on the farms, including those who suffer most.

Explaining and Being Explained

This section addresses the challenges of explaining anthropological research to non-specialists. Holmes introduced himself to Triqui migrants as a medical and anthropology student, which prompted some workers to ask him for medical treatment. He lived among migrants, yet he didn’t have a place in the farm hierarchy. Outsiders assumed he was a jefe, or boss on the farm. Samuel summarized Holmes’s purpose to a fellow migrant as follows: “‘He wants to experience for himself how the poor suffer’” (33).