Bookie's Bodega

Violence in Our Foods Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States by Seth M. Holmes is about migrant farmworkers in the United States, particularly those from Latin America on the west coast. Holmes crossed the border with indigenous farmworkers, worked alongside them in the fields, and interviewed farmworkers of every level (admin, crew bosses, pickers, etc). Holmes realizes "that an ethnography of suffering and migration would be incomplete without witnessing firsthand" how these migrants work (Holmes 40). This immersive study is intended to inform American consumers of where their food comes from and the people that provide them with their produce. Holmes does a wonderful job of integrating his findings with studies and a broader perspective, helping us understand how these migrants have come to be in the position they are. Seth Holmes and his Triqui companions in the border desert. Photo courtesy of Seth M. Holmes. In this book, Holmes immerses hi...

Trujillato  "A Border Drawn in Blood" is an episode of Latino USA that first aired on October 6, 2017, then was re-aired on February 17th, 2022. This episode discusses the complicated relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, especially under the rule of Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo was a dictator of Dominican Republic and ordered the Perejil Massacre of 1937, a massacre that the government tried to cover up. I had never heard of this massacre, and I learned a lot about the conflict between these countries, and their version of a border wall. The Dominican Republic wanted to build a wall to keep the Haitians out- for the same reasons that Trump wanted to build a wall on our Mexican border. At this massacre, "Haitian seasonal farm workers and their families... were massacred because they could not pronounce the consonant 'r' in 'perejil'" (Ayuso 1).  Haiti and the Dominican Republic Border From a report from the UN Environmental Program in 2...