Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States

The Skagit Valley

To open this chapter, Holmes focuses on the labor hierarchies on US farms, beginning with a description of the Skagit Valley in northwestern Washington State, one of the sites of his fieldwork. He includes a lyrical description of the region, including its fertile fields, snowcapped mountains, and quaint towns. However, he soon shifts the emphasis to problems in the area. Citing the Benson dairy farm, farmer Johnson’s berry fields, and the Christensen orchards as examples, he touches on the challenges facing family-run farms, which struggle to compete with corporate agribusiness. Locals rail against the loss of family farms on their bumper stickers, which read: “Save Skagit Farmland, Pavement Is Forever” (47).

Migrant Farmworkers in the Skagit Valley

Holmes introduces the squalid conditions in which migrants live and work. A few thousand workers migrate to the Skagit Valley every spring. Some laborers live in squatter shacks made of plastic sheets, cardboard, and cars parts. Others stay in company-owned labor camps. Holmes’s detailed description of the camps conveys the extent of their dilapidation: “The migrant camps look like rusted tin-roofed tool sheds lined up within a few feet of each other or small chicken coops” (47). These small shacks stand in stark contrast to the nearby homes of wealthy Americans, which Holmes describes as multilevel houses with “picturesque views of the valley” (47).

The conditions in migrant camps aren’t just uncomfortable—they’re also unsafe:

During summer days, the rusty tin roofs of the units conduct the sun’s heat like an oven, regularly bringing the inside to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. At night, the air is damp and cold, reaching below 32 degrees Fahrenheit during the blueberry season in the fall (47).

In his own shack, Holmes writes that it contains an “old, damp mattress with rust stains from the springs [and] an old and smelly refrigerator” (48). The bathrooms and showers are separate and shared among hundreds of workers.

The Tanaka Brothers Farm

Holmes focuses on the hierarchical organization of labor on the Tanaka Brothers Farm in Washington State’s Skagit Valley. The farm has been in the hands of the same Japanese American family for three generations. Their primary crops are strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and apples. The farm is vertically integrated—that is, it includes a seed nursery, berry fields, and a processing plant. Most of the fruit reaches the market via large companies, such as Driscoll and Haagen-Dazs. The farm employs approximately 50 year-round employees, who live in a small camp that is insulated and heated. An adjacent camp holds about 100 workers and their families during the summer. The shacks in this camp have some insulation but no heating. Both camps are tucked behind the processing plant. The main camp, by contrast, is next to a major road and houses 250 male and female workers and their families in the summer. These workers live in uninsulated, unheated shacks. Members of the Tanaka family live in well-built homes, one of which resembles a diminutive plantation house.

The Tanaka Brothers Farm bills itself as a generations-old, family-run business. Its employees tend to all aspects of farm work: planting, growing, harvesting, packaging, and selling. As Holmes notes, however, segregation and oppression are inherent in the structure of farm work. He relies on Philippe Bourgois’s notion of conjugated oppression, which describes how ethnicity and class combine to produce a form of oppression that differs experientially and materially from oppression produced by ethnicity and class individually. The hierarchical structure of the Tanaka farm was apparent to Holmes within weeks of living and working there. The hierarchy mirrored and reinforced that of American society, falling along racial, class, and citizenship lines. Workers in different positions, including the owners, receptionists, field managers, berry checkers, and berry pickers, referred to one another using what Holmes calls “vertical metaphors.” These metaphors call attention to social stratification by describing individuals and groups as being “above” or “below” others, and by characterizing upward social mobility as “moving from ‘the top’ to ‘the bottom’” (51).

Farm Executives

Most executives at the Tanaka farm are brothers from the Tanaka family, including the farm president, John. The rest are Anglo-American employees. The executives ensure that the farm remains profitable amid competition from corporate agribusiness in the US and foreign growers, especially from China. Although they’re at the top of the labor hierarchy, the executives aren’t solely to blame for the low wages and poor living conditions of those beneath them. As Holmes points out, structural forces are also at play, such as the corporatization of US agriculture and increasing competition in the global market. Farm owners and managers can’t raise migrant pay and improve conditions in the camps without incurring significant costs. Unless they raise the prices of their produce, these extra costs would force them into bankruptcy. Raising their prices, however, would make them uncompetitive. Structural violence on farms is thus attributable to market pressures (as well as to racism, sexism, classism, and anti-immigrant prejudice). Tanaka executives are ethical people who want their business and employees to thrive. Many are involved in social justice nonprofits. Several asked Holmes for his input about improving labor camps and were upset when racism was brought to their attention during a picker strike. As Holmes notes, the executives are “human beings doing the best they can in the midst of an unequal and harsh system” (53). During his time on the farm, Holmes learned that executives worked long hours but had some control over their schedules. He determined that executives lived in quiet, insulated houses with heating and indoor plumbing, and that they worked in private, well-equipped offices.

Administrative Assistants

Most administrators at the Tanaka farm are white women. Their offices are open and accessible to area locals, business associates, and farmworkers. An administrator named Sally helped migrants by arranging loans for them until crew bosses and executives reprimanded her for being too friendly. Her primary complaint to Holmes was feeling disrespected by the people “above her” and being “treated like a peon” (61). Another administrator, Samantha, described Indigenous Mexicans as “dirty and simple” (61) compared to “regular Mexicans.” Maria, one of the few Latina administrators at the Tanaka farm, often mediated between migrants and their superiors. All the administrative assistants worked six or seven days a week. They were paid minimum wage without overtime but received lunch and bathroom breaks.

Crop Managers

Crop managers control all aspects of producing crops. They oversee plowing, planting, pruning, spraying, picking, and shipping. Their offices are private but close to the fields, where they spend much of their time. Their day begins at 5:00 a.m. and ends early in the evening during the harvest season. They don’t have days off, but they choose when to eat, take breaks, and go home. Their main concerns are the availability of farm equipment, the impact of the weather on crops, and the docility of their workers. In addition, crop managers worry about the unpredictability of their workers: “‘Sometimes people walk out, and sometimes people pick. It’s kind of like the weather; you can’t really predict it and you don’t really have control over it’” (63). One crop manager confessed to Holmes that he couldn’t tell the difference between US-born Latinos and Oaxacans. Another praised members of the Tanaka family for their work ethic. Most believed that farm workers should be allowed to enter the country because their labor is critical to the survival of family farms. Holmes’s profiles of crop managers reveal that most aim to run an ethical farm but that they felt pressure from forces beyond their control.

Supervisors

Supervisors, also called crew bosses, oversee crews of up to 20 pickers. Their job is to ensure that workers are picking quickly without leaving too many berries behind. In Holmes’s time on the farm, most crew bosses were Latino, a few were white, and only one was Indigenous Mixtec Oaxacan. Crew bosses generally live in insulated houses in labor camps. Some crew bosses are respectful toward pickers, while others call them derogatory names and bar them from attending farm-run English classes. A crew boss named Mateo, the only Oaxacan at the farm with a non-picking job, expressed concerns about pregnant members of his crew being exposed to pesticides. His other worries included the poor treatment of pickers and their low pay. Shelly, a white crew boss charged with overseeing teenage white pickers, saw it as her job to teach local children the value of agriculture. She called Indigenous Mexican pickers “more dirty,” “less respectful,” and “less work-, family-, and community-oriented” (67) than mestizo Mexican pickers. As Holmes observes, Indigenous pickers are indeed dirtier because they stand in fields picking strawberries all day, while mestizos sit on raspberry machines or work as crew bosses. Many crew bosses praised Triqui pickers for working quickly and diligently, contradicting Shelly’s claims to the contrary. Holmes’s experiences with Triqui migrants also counter Shelly’s statements that Indigenous pickers are less family oriented than mestizos. Like many on the farm, Shelly drew a connection between physical dirt and character—a misperception based partly on biases and language barriers.

Checkers

White teenagers work as checkers on the Tanaka farm. Checkers punch workers in and out at the beginning and end of their shifts and document the weight of the pickers’ buckets. Holmes observed that checkers consistently marked pickers as arriving at the correct time or later—but never earlier. When he inquired about this unfair practice, he was told that standardizing arrival and departure times facilitated the work of supervisors and checkers. Checkers don’t work in offices but sit or stand in the shade talking amongst themselves. Holmes witnessed checkers mistreating pickers on several occasions: “Some occasionally hurl English expletives—and perhaps even a berry—at the pickers, who are often old enough to be their parents. Some speak of Mexican pickers as ‘grease heads’” (68). Checkers are paid minimum wage for work much less strenuous than that of pickers—and wield power over pickers, reinforcing stratification on the farm.

Field Workers Paid Per Hour

Small numbers of field workers at the Tanaka farm receive an hourly wage. These workers, most of whom are mestizo, live in unheated, uninsulated shacks with wood under the tin roofs. They work from five o’ clock in the morning until the early evening, seven days a week. Their primary job is to drive containers of berries from the fields to the processing plant, which exposes them to the elements and harmful pesticides. Some hourly wage earners are also tasked with covering blueberry bushes in plastic, tying off new raspberry growth, and spraying plants with pesticides or vinegar. Approximately 30 hourly workers pick raspberries for 12 to 18 hours a day during harvest, which lasts about one month. This job requires driving a raspberry harvester, a vehicle that shakes fruit off bushes and onto a conveyor belt. Most raspberry pickers are Latinos from Texas.

Field Workers Paid by Weight

Field workers paid by the weight of the fruit they harvest are at the bottom of the labor hierarchy at the Tanaka farm. However, this group contains subdivisions. The White Crew, for example, comprises teenagers who aren’t required to meet a minimum weight to keep their jobs. These teenagers work at their own pace and take breaks. By contrast, the Mexican Crew must meet minimum quotas every day. Failing to meet these quotas on two occasions results in immediate termination and expulsion from the camp. The farm employs about 25 apple pickers, most of whom are mestizos. This job is one of the hardest because the apples are heavy and the pickers must climb ladders all day. However, it’s also the highest-paid picking job. Most of the pickers, between 350-400 people, harvest strawberries and blueberries. These berry pickers are overwhelmingly Triqui. Strawberry pickers are paid 14 cents per pound. As Holmes observes, each picker must harvest 51 pounds of strawberries every hour to justify being paid the state minimum wage of $7.16 per hour. Strawberry pickers take few to no breaks. Many don’t eat breakfast to avoid having to use the bathroom during the workday.

Holmes draws on his personal experiences to convey the suffering of berry pickers at the Tanaka Brothers Farm: “During my fieldwork, I picked once or twice a week and experienced gastritis, headaches, and knee, back, and hip pain for days afterward. I wrote in a field note after picking, ‘It honestly felt like pure torture’” (74). Unlike the author, Triqui pickers never have days off. Their health problems speak to the toll that picking takes on their bodies. Their ailments range from “idiopathic back and knee pains to slipped vertebral disks, from type 2 diabetes to premature births and developmental malformations” (74).

Holmes interviewed several Triqui pickers during his fieldwork, all of whom discussed their hardships on the farm. A single mother of three named Marcelina claimed she didn’t earn enough to send money to her mother in Oaxaca. She’d worked as a picker for four years yet had no savings. Marcelina described being mistreated by checkers, who threw rotten berries at her. She told Holmes about being forced to migrate to survive and the challenges of living in a place where she didn’t know the language. Samuel echoed several of Marcelina’s claims—notably, those related to impoverishment on the farm. According to Samuel, checkers consistently under-weighed his buckets, forcing him to work harder for less money. Fear of losing his job prevented him from speaking up. Another Triqui picker revealed that supervisors commonly intimidated and belittled undocumented workers by threatening to confiscate their IDs and calling them “dumb donkeys” and “dogs.”

Triqui pickers can’t move up the farm’s labor hierarchy. No matter how hard they work, they’re never promoted to processing plant jobs. At least one supervisor understood this to be a given: “‘People who live in the migrant camps cannot have those jobs; they can only pick.’ She considered it a farm policy without any need for explanation” (78). Holmes cites this supervisor to demonstrate how societal structures reinforce and perpetuate exploitation: The Triqui are at bottom of the labor hierarchy because they live in the camps rather than renting expensive apartments in town. Because they live in the camps, they work the worst-paid jobs on the farm, prolonging their exploitation.

Out of Place

Holmes’s position in the labor hierarchy at the Tanaka farm wasn’t appropriate to his ethnicity, education, social class, and citizenship. He was the only white, US-born, English-speaking person in the large labor camp. Holmes endured the squalid conditions at camp. However, he was treated with far more respect and compassion than Indigenous pickers. People higher up the labor hierarchy regularly stopped to chat with him and often helped him pick berries. Some pickers treated him with respect, while others were suspicious of him. Many thought he was a drug smuggler and complained that he picked too slowly.

California

After five months picking berries, Holmes drove from the Skagit Valley (in Washington State) to Madera (in California’s Central Valley) with Samuel and his extended family. The group showered in public bathrooms and slept in their cars until they found a place to live. Eight days after arriving, they moved into a dilapidated three-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, which became home to 19 people. The group’s members shopped in flea markets and took jobs pruning vines on California farms for less than minimum wage. The migrants experienced more overt racism in California than they did in Washington State, especially from US-born Latinos.

Hierarchies at Work

This section summarizes key points from the preceding parts. Labor hierarchies in North American farming result in differing responsibilities, privileges, and vulnerabilities depending on one’s position within the work structure. Position determines if and when workers can take breaks, where they live, the quality of their housing, and what jobs they’re offered. Only executives and managers are financially secure and have nice homes. Administrators and checkers earn minimum wage and live in camps, but their shacks are slightly more comfortable than those of pickers, who live in the poorest conditions. Subdivisions exist among pickers who are paid by the hour and those who are paid by weight. Lowest on the ladder are the strawberry and blueberry pickers, who make less money than other pickers and who are more likely to get fired for missing quotas. Vulnerability and power vary depending on where workers stand in the hierarchy.

Ethnicity and citizenship are important aspects of labor hierarchies in North American farming. White and Latino US citizens occupy the top positions, while undocumented mestizo and Indigenous Mexicans are at the bottom. Farm hierarchies can’t be separated from broader societal hierarchies. Farm executives, for example, are relatively low on the global hierarchy but all-powerful to Triqui migrants. Hierarchies also operate at a micro level among field workers, who distinguish between “regular” Mexicans and those from Oaxaca. The pickers themselves identify even more precisely as mestizo, Triqui, and Mixtec. The ethnicity and citizenship hierarchy is overlaid with other hierarchies related to class, job position, respect, and suffering. Holmes draws on Philippe Bourgois’s notion of “conjugated oppression” to describe how these factors combine to exacerbate the suffering of Triqui workers, both mentally and physically. Gender and culture add more layers to the issue. For example, most Triqui workers don’t speak English or Spanish, which further hinders them from rising in the hierarchy.

Competition from corporate agribusiness and foreign producers forces growers—even ethical ones—to participate in a system that perpetuates the suffering of workers. “Bad faith” refers to individuals deceiving themselves to avoid facing disturbing realities. Collective bad faith extends this idea to groups and communities. In Washington State’s Skagit Valley, white locals claim to understand the plight of Mexican migrants because they picked for a summer as adolescents, but they willfully ignore the differences between their living conditions and those of the migrants living in camps. Official and unofficial practices foster collective bad faith, as evident in the barring of pickers from English classes on the Tanaka farm. Collective bad faith extends beyond farms and farming communities, impacting how healthcare providers treat migrants.